ARCADIA, Calif. – McKinzie in his final work on Monday for the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday at Santa Anita was timed by Daily Racing Form’s Mike Welsch in 1:00.94 for five furlongs, after which his trainer, Bob Baffert, let out an audible sigh of relief.
“I can relax now,” Baffert said. “These works are so important. He was really smooth. It went just right. No excuses. He’s as ready as I can get him.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Street Band’s pedigree predicted a long wait before the light bulb went on. Owner-trainer Larry Jones saw the same thing with Street Band’s dam and five siblings.
“This family, I’ve trained them all, and it takes them a long time to come around,” Jones said. Perhaps it is fate Street Band’s rider Sophie Doyle also is a late bloomer.
Union Rags was an obvious young stallion prospect for Lane’s End Farm to invest in. Phyllis Wyeth’s homebred is a son of former farm stallion Dixie Union, and going another generation back, his grandsire, Dixieland Band, was one of the original three stallions at Lane’s End Farm when it was established.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Five years was a lifetime ago for Brad Cox. He was still reassembling a racing stable that had been all but disbanded, the result of an eggs-in-one-basket arrangement with an owner who wound up dismissing him through an attorney.
Cox was here at Santa Anita with his first-ever Breeders’ Cup starter, a 4-year-old gelding named Carve. Dismissed at 17-1 in the 2014 BC Dirt Mile, Carve wasn’t much of a factor when finishing sixth under Mike Smith.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The monkey who jumped off John Sadler’s back has found a new ride.
Christophe Clement now holds the record for most starts among Breeders’ Cup trainers who haven’t yet won. Sadler had gone winless from his first 44 BC starters before Accelerate won the Classic last November at Churchill Downs, leaving Clement and his 0-for-36 mark as the new leader in the clubhouse.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Four years ago, jockey Flavien Prat missed three months of racing, including the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, when he was sidelined by a back injury sustained in riding accident. The inactivity left Prat frustrated at the forced change in his life.
“Everything I was doing was about sport,” Prat recalled in late October. “I realized that when I broke my back. I couldn’t do anything. It was the worst three months of my life. I’m not into video games or stuff like this.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – When popular racing executive Brad McKinzie died a little more than two years ago from cancer at age 62, his loss impacted many people on the Southern California circuit, perhaps none more so than trainer Bob Baffert, who had grown so close to McKinzie since their days four decades earlier at the University of Arizona that they were practically brothers.
CYPRESS, Calif. – With unwavering confidence, Dan Ward had a fast answer when asked last weekend whether Danuska’s My Girl and Vasilika could win Breeders’ Cup races on Saturday at Santa Anita.
“Both,” he said. “One has won three in a row at Santa Anita, and the other has won 10 in a row at Santa Anita. How many horses have done that?”
Never mind that the two runners were beaten in prep races at Keeneland earlier this month. Ward is greatly looking forward to Saturday’s races.
ARCADIA, Calif. – Brendan Walsh was born and raised in Ireland and first started working for English and Irish trainers. Over there, things generally are much different for stable workers than they are here. Walsh would not only ride horses in the morning, he was responsible for all aspects of their care – cleaning stalls, feeding, grooming.
ARCADIA, Calif. – In an ideal scenario, Bandua will stalk the pace for the first mile of Saturday’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf under jockey Tyler Gaffalione before moving closer to the front.
“He’ll have his head in front and be there or thereabouts and give us some excitement,” trainer Jack Sisterson said on Sunday.
