Promising Baffert 3-year-old Arcaro set to debut Sunday

ARCADIA, Calif. – He is bred to run two turns, hails from a legendary stable, and has a series of solid workouts.

In different circumstances, Arcaro could have been part of this year’s Triple Crown. Instead, the colt will have his debut amid high expectations in a maiden special weight race for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita on Sunday.

Trained by Bob Baffert for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin Racing, Arcaro is part of a field of six in a race at 6 1/2 furlongs.

“We’ve taken our time with him,” Baffert said from Kentucky this week. “The further, the better. I was going to bring him to Kentucky, but I wanted to give him an out.”

By Tapit, Arcaro is out of Panty Raid, who won 5 of 10 starts and earned $1,052,380. Panty Raid won two Grade 1 races in 2007 – the American Oaks at Hollywood Park and the Spinster Stakes at Keeneland when trained by Todd Pletcher. Panty Raid was purchased on behalf of Sheikh Mohammed for $2.5 million in 2008.

Arcaro, who was bred by Godolphin, was in training last fall at Los Alamitos, where Baffert keeps a second stable, but did not have a workout from mid-December to March 1. Arcaro has worked consistently in the last six weeks, including six furlongs in 1:14.40 at Santa Anita on April 17, the fastest of the morning at that distance.

“He’s not real quick out of the gate,” Baffert said. “He gets going. He’s got a good mind.”

Arcaro is one of four first-time starters in Sunday’s sixth race. Sly, trained by Richard Mandella, and Beleth, trained by Ron Ellis, each was second in March in his only start.

Baffert has a recent history with 3-year-olds who have reached peak form after the Triple Crown. The Baffert-trained Arrogate was the champion 3-year-old male of 2016. He did not have his debut until April of his 3-year-old season and won the Travers Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic later that year. West Coast, the champion 3-year-old male of 2017, started for the first time in February of that year and won the first of four consecutive stakes in the Easy Goer Stakes that June.

◗ Scott Stevens, a leading rider at Turf Paradise in Phoenix for decades, will receive the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award in a winner’s-circle ceremony at Santa Anita on May 19.

Stevens, who has won more than 4,800 races, was announced as the winner of the award earlier this year. The Woolf Award honors riders who achieve success on the racetrack and are recognized for personal character out of the saddle. The winner is determined by a vote among jockeys nationwide.

Stevens, 48, will be joined in the ceremony by his brother Gary, a retired Hall of Fame jockey. The Stevens brothers are the first siblings to be honored with the Woolf Award in its 70-year history.