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Longshots Fuel $54,460 Payoff In NYRA’s Cross Country Pick 5

Exciting racing action from Belmont Park and Churchill Downs comprised Saturday's Cross Country Pick 5, which returned $54,460 for selecting all five winners for the 50-cent wager with a total pool of $128,145.

Big Engine powered the wager's first leg, defeating Tribecca by a half-length in a six-furlong main track sprint for allowance optional claimers in Belmont's Race 7. Off at 10-1, Big Engine complete the course in 1:10.07 under jockey Jose Lezcano, returning $23.40 on a $2 win wager. Trained by Linda Rice, Big Engine bested an eight-horse field that included stakes-winners T Loves a Fight and Celtic Chaos.

Action shifted to Churchill for the second leg, with Estilo Femenino rallying from last-of-10 at the half-mile mark to post a three-quarters of a length victory in the one-mile dirt contest for allowance optional claimers in Race 8. The 25-1 longshot, piloted by Joseph Talamo and trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, paid $53.60.

Belmont's Race 8 started the first of three graded stakes to close out the sequence, with trainer Chad Brown notching the exacta in the Grade 3, $100,000 Noble Damsel for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up going one mile on the Belmont Widener turf in Race 8. Two English-breds, Viadera and the 2-1 favorite Blowout, ran 1-2 for Brown, who won his fifth consecutive Noble Damsel. Joel Rosario, aboard Viadera [$13] won his third Noble Damsel in the last four runnings as his 4-year-old Bated Breath filly surged along the rail to edge Blowout by a neck in a final time of 1:32.06.

Churchill got in on the stakes action in Race 9 when Mr. Money earned the purse with a 1 ¼-length victory in the Grade 3, $100,000 Ack Ack for 3-year-olds and up going one mile on the main track. Conditioned by Bret Calhoun, Mr. Money went off at 6-1 but used a strong move near the rail to draw away from runner-up Bourbon Calling. Ridden by Gabriel Saez, Mr. Money completed the course in 1:34.85 and returned $14.80.

The finale saw a familiar face make a return trip to the winner's circle, as Firenze Fire registered a 2 3/4-length score in the Grade 2, $150,000 Vosburgh going six furlongs on Belmont's Big Sandy. The Kelly Breen trainee punched his ticket to Keeneland, with the 81st running of the Vosburgh serving as a “Win and You're In” qualifier for the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Sprint on November 7 in Kentucky. Off as the 2-1 second choice behind favorite and eventual runner-up Funny Guy, Firenze Fire, who hit the wire in 1:09.74, was ridden by Lezcano and paid $7.20.

The minimum bet for the multi-track, multi-race wager is 50 cents. Wagering on the Cross Country Pick 5 is also available on track, on ADW platforms, and at simulcast facilities across the country. Every week will feature a mandatory payout of the net pool.

The Cross Country Pick 5 will continue each Saturday throughout the year. For more information, visit NYRABets.com.

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Baffert: Improbable ‘Getting Really Good’ While Maximum Security ‘Didn’t Bring His ‘A’ Game’

It was business as usual for Bob Baffert Sunday morning at Santa Anita after the two-time Triple Crown-winning trainer savored victories on Saturday by undefeated Princess Noor and relatively unsung Improbable in Breeders' Cup Challenge Series races at the Arcadia, Calif., track.

Princess Noor proved convincingly she can handle two turns, giving Baffert a record 12th triumph in the Grade 2 Chandelier Stakes at 1 1/16 miles, while Improbable rallied from last to capture the G1 Awesome Again Stakes, vanquishing stablemate and odds-on favorite Maximum Security in the process.

“You're never sure about going two turns, and she was stuck behind horses coming out of the one hole, but she came out of the race really well,” Baffert said of Princess Noor, a $1,350,000 purchase owned by Saudi businessman Amr Zedan who campaigns as Zedan Racing

“She's still doing her thing and it looks like two turns is not going to be a problem for her,” Baffert added.

Princess Noor will likely be the favorite for the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Keeneland on Nov. 6.

Improbable and Maximum Security are likely headed to the G1 Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 7, Improbable earning a fees-paid berth with his Awesome Again victory and Maximum Security winning a similar spot through his triumph in the G1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar.

“Improbable and Max came out really well. I knew there was going to be a lot of pace, and we were going to sit off of it and then let Max run, but he was in between Midcourt and they were just bumping the whole way down the backside.

“They were in a full drive from the half-mile pole, but he didn't bring his A game, and Improbable is getting really good. He's got a lot of Grade 1's on his resume, he's filled out, matured, and Drayden (Van Dyke) rode a great race, just sat back there early on.

“He saw what was happening up front and let them go.”

Next up for Baffert is Saturday's Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Md. Thousand Words worked five furlongs in 1:00.60 Saturday at Churchill Downs towards that goal while Kentucky Derby winner Authentic works there Monday.

“As long as Authentic works good, both horses will ship to Maryland on Tuesday,” Baffert said.

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The Week in Review: Clout Heading into Classic, Older Horses or Upstart Sophs?

We’re now inside the six-week mark for the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic. Is your money on an older horse winning the season-capping dirt route championship race or one of the 3-year-olds?

Both divisions have a respectable upper crust of candidates. Neither age group has a dominant, standout star who towers over his peers.

Improbable (City Zip)’s last-to-first, 4 1/2-length shakedown of the GI Awesome Again S. field at Santa Anita this past Saturday nudged him into tepid early favoritism for the Classic. The Oct. 10 GI Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park looms as the final Grade I dirt route for males prior to the Breeders’ Cup. But this season, the pandemic has given us the unique plot twist of the GI Preakness S. falling five weeks out from the Nov. 7 Classic, and Saturday’s concluding Triple Crown event will likely be the more impactful race of the two in sorting out the pecking order for the Breeders’ Cup.

Older horses have won 24 previous Classics; sophomores 12. In the 21st Century alone, the 2:1 ratio is roughly the same (14-6). Older horses have won the last three Classics (Vino Rosso, Accelerate, Gun Runner). But the three years prior to that were swept by a Bob Baffert-trained soph power trio (Bayern, American Pharoah, Arrogate).

So let’s start with Baffert first, because this year he’s holding a balanced hand of both older horses and 3-year-old threats for the Classic.

Baffert trainees ran one-two in the Awesome Again, with 9-5 second choice Improbable benefitting from an ideal speed setup that involved stablemate Maximum Security (New Year’s Day), the 1-2 favorite, committing to prominent placement behind a 59-1 pacemaker. ‘Max’ was always under pressure and sandwiched between horses while bumping and grinding in stalk mode for most of the trip. But he clearly did not have the requisite gear in reserve to put up a serious stretch battle when confronted by Improbable’s quarter-pole surge.

Improbable has now won three straight Grade I routes with triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in each, and this colt appears to be rounding into form akin to what bettors envisioned when they sent him postward as the 4-1 chalk in last year’s GI Kentucky Derby. He was moved up to fourth in the wake of Maximum Security’s controversial DQ that day, and has since overcome habitual unruliness in the starting gate to blossom over nine and 10 furlongs after attempts to campaign as a miler didn’t pan out.

But Improbable hitting the road for the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland might be a different proposition than the Improbable who relishes his home track at Santa Anita. He’s 3-for-4 there lifetime, and Baffert said post-race Saturday that, “This horse loves this track. He seems to be better in the gate here. That’s why we ran him here. Elliott Walden [the president and CEO of Win Star Farm, a co-owner of the colt], it was his idea to keep him here because we don’t have to ship.”

While Maximum Security (10-for-13 lifetime) didn’t win, he was hardly disgraced in defeat. The colt is now three races into what is widely considered the second phase of his career, and the closely watched line of demarcation for this $16,000 maiden-claimer turned 3-year-old champ is his March transfer out of the barn of trainer Jason Servis, who is facing federal charges for allegedly using performance-enhancing drugs on racehorses.

The feds have Servis recorded via wiretap allegedly discussing (among other things) a 2019 doping regimen for Max, so his performance at age four is unquestionably being viewed through the prism of how much of his past prowess was attributable to illicit pharmaceuticals.

The verdict so far since moving into Baffert’s barn? Yes, Maximum Security has two wins and a second from three graded stakes starts in SoCal. But his far-turn blast-offs don’t ripple with the same raw, kinetic energy that Max flashed so brilliantly at age three. The visual impression he leaves now is of a hard-trying horse who still sustains a high cruising speed without backing away from fights–yet absent the palpable swagger and spark that once enabled him to swat away late-race attacks from A-level competition with ease.

On the sophomore side, Baffert also conditions Kentucky Derby victor and Preakness favorite Authentic (Into Mischief), who picked an ideal time to mature from a colt who had focusing issues into a front-running force capable of carrying his speed over 10 furlongs. Baffert will also send out Thousand Words (Pioneerof the Nile) in the Preakness. That million-dollar KEESEP colt was a late Derby scratch after flipping in the Churchill Downs paddock, and he resonates on paper as the quintessential “other” Baffert dark horse who could go off at a juicy Preakness price with all of the attention focused on Authentic.

Art Collector (Bernardini) figured to be the second favorite in the Derby before being forced to scratch the week of the race with a minor foot injury. He should emerge as the second favorite in the Preakness betting behind Authentic, and having the extra time between his last prep (an Aug. 9 win in the Ellis Park Derby) and the concluding jewel of the Triple Crown could end up working out in his favor for both the Preakness and beyond. Looking ahead to the Classic over the Keeneland surface, it’s worth noting that one of the best races in Art Collector’s past-performance block is his GII Toyota Blue Grass S. win there July 11.

Of course, the top 3-year-old Classic threat from an overall body of work standpoint remains Tiz the Law (Constitution). Even though he ran second in the Derby behind Authentic, ‘Tiz’ hardly ran a losing race–he sat a perfect stalking trip and uncoiled on cue, but genuinely seemed surprised when Authentic slugged back at him with ferocity in their stretch brawl. Trainer Barclay Tagg opted out of the Preakness to instead aim for the Classic, and he’ll head to Keeneland with a mature, confident aggressor who carries himself with panache and knows how to make his own breaks.

Other older-horse Classic candidates include Tom’s d’Etat (Smart Strike), who won four straight stakes before losing to Improbable in the GI Whitney S.; Code of Honor (Noble Mission {GB}), who is expected for Saturday’s GII Kelso H. at Belmont, and By My Standards (Goldencents), who has a 4-2-0 record from six starts this year with three Grade II wins going long.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Forster Readies His ‘Favorite Player’ For Dirt Mile

By his own admission, Grant Forster is not a “big fish in a small pond” kind of guy. He was extremely successful at Emerald Downs in the early years of his training career but made the decision to move to Kentucky in 2007 to “take on the sport's biggest players.”

Forster's stable was reduced by the move, but 13 years later the trainer is preparing to saddle his first Breeders' Cup starter. Gulliver Racing, Craig Drager, and Dan Legan's Pirate's Punch, a 4-year-old son of Shanghai Bobby, will be one of the top choices in the Grade 1 Dirt Mile on Nov. 7 at Keeneland.

“It's obviously super exciting,” said Forster, 46. “Everybody in horse racing, whether you're a jockey, a trainer, a groom, wants to be associated with a horse in the Triple Crown or the Breeders' Cup. Now, not only do we have a horse in the Breeders' Cup, but we have a live chance to win.

“Winning a race like that would really be big for my career. We're a smaller stable but we've been fortunate; it always seems like we've had one stakes horse in the barn. We've won some nice graded stakes, and we've placed in nice graded stakes, but we've never won a Grade 1, never competed in the Breeders' Cup, so to do that, that's why we're all here.”

Pirate's Punch won the G3 Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park last Saturday by two lengths, returning to the winner's circle after a disqualification from victory in the G3 Phillip H. Iselin at the New Jersey oval on Aug. 22.

“When he crossed the wire first in the Iselin at Monmouth, the Breeders' Cup really entered the conversation,” Forster said. “The horse he beat, Warrior's Charge, was one of the top contenders in the division. Even though we were disqualified, we felt we had the best horse on that day; we looked him in the eye and beat him.”

Warrior's Charge returned to finish a disappointing eighth in the G3 Ack Ack at Churchill Downs on Sept. 26 after setting a wicked early pace, but Pirate's Punch showed he has not regressed off the Iselin effort. His Salvator Mile victory was accomplished in easy style, with jockey Jorge Vargas, Jr. allowing the gelding to ease up in the final sixteenth of a mile.

“It was a nice redemption,” said Forster. “He has consistently improved, and his confidence is at an all-time high. He's just a lovely horse, loves to train, loves attention, and loves people. As he's accomplished more he's gotten more proud of himself, and he thinks he's king of the world now!”

It's a good feeling heading into the Breeders' Cup, even with all the uncertainty of 2020.

Forster, a native of British Columbia, Canada, has long hoped for a shot at the top of the sport. A son of two Canadian horsemen, he attended the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program and began his career as a media relations specialist at Emerald Downs in 1997.

Three years later, Forster found himself really missing the day-to-day contact with horses and returned to working for his British Columbia Racing Hall of Fame father, Dave Forster, as a groom at Emerald. He worked his way up to assistant trainer and took out his own license in 2003.

Forster earned several leading trainer titles at Emerald and saddled the winners of three consecutive editions of the Washington Oaks, as well as the winner of the 2005 edition of the G3 Longacres Mile. He was also successful during winter meetings at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.

“I had some wonderful years there and trained for wonderful people,” Forster said. “I felt like I'd accomplished everything I could out there, though, so to me it was more exciting to be based in Kentucky.”

So far, the top horse in Forster's stable has been the 2008 mare Brushed By A Star, by Eddington. She was a $10,000 yearling at the Keeneland September sale, but earned $441,991 on the track with wins in the G2 Chilukki and G2 Molly Pitcher Stakes under Forster's care.

Still, Pirate's Punch has worked his way into Forster's heart in a way none of his previous trainees has been able to touch.

Pirate's Punch, Jorge Vargas Jr. aboard

“If I was a coach in high school basketball, he'd be my favorite player,” Forster admitted. “He's run well for us every time, just his consistency on the track is remarkable. He's also an unbelievably kind horse. He loves to work with people, he loves being around people. He just wants them to pet him, but not in any kind of needy way; he just is a very social horse.

“He lives in the first stall on the corner, nearest the office. He's an absolute savage for carrots! We go through many many bags of baby carrots each week, and we're more than happy to provide those for him.”

Pirate's Punch was first in training with Jeff Mullins in California, but moved to Forster's care after breaking his maiden for a $30,000 tag at Ellis Park in July of 2019. The gelding immediately stepped up to win an allowance race at Indiana Grand, then finished third in the G3 Super Derby at Louisiana Downs.

Now, Pirate's Punch has a record of five wins, three seconds, and four thirds from 17 starts for earnings of $332,751.

“We got him at just the right time,” Forster said. “He'd been gelded, broken his maiden and gained some confidence. He's just continued to improve ever since.

“When we got him, what he had accomplished and what he turned into, hopefully it's a strong commercial for our program.”

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