Taking Stock: Quality of Baffert and Hancock with The Avengers

Bob Baffert is banned from Churchill Downs for two years and his 3-year-olds are ineligible for points in qualifying races for the Gl Kentucky Derby and Gl Kentucky Oaks. He may also get banned (again) from NYRA, which hosts the Gl Belmont S., which could leave only the Gl Preakness open to horses from his barn. So perhaps it's appropriate that he won a race over the weekend–the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate–that gives the winner a guaranteed entry to the middle leg of the Triple Crown.

Blackadder, a son of top sire Quality Road, won the listed race in the colors of Sol Kumin's Madaket Stable from Mackinnon, an American Pharoah colt also flying the Madaket silks but trained by Doug O'Neill. If you haven't noticed, the Madaket silks are ubiquitous across the country these days, particularly in Baffert's barn, which is loaded with well-bred Triple Crown hopefuls belonging to “The Avengers” partnership that includes many entities, headed by principals SF Bloodstock, Madaket, and Starlight Racing. Aside from the three named, Blackadder, a $620,000 Keeneland September yearling, is owned by Robert E. Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Jay A. Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital, Catherine Donovan, Golconda Stable, and Siena Farm. All of the 3-year-olds owned by this group run either in the colors of Madaket or Starlight, and they have become a familiar sight in the winner's circle of quite a few Derby preps lately.

Blackadder is the latest. The colt, who was bred in Kentucky by Arthur Hancock III's Stone Farm, won the race with a rousing finish, and the farm was quick to tweet the news of its latest stakes winner. Stone Farm also bred Baffert's 2019 Gl Santa Anita Derby winner Roadster, another son of Quality Road who was on the Triple Crown trail for the Speedway Stable of Peter Fluor and K.C. Weiner, with Hancock retaining a 10% interest. Speedway picked up an Eclipse Award last week when its undefeated colt Corniche, also by Quality Road and trained by Baffert to win the Gl Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Gl American Pharoah S. last year, was named the champion juvenile male for 2021–the third Eclipse winner for his sire after champion juvenile filly Caledonia Road and champion 3-year-old filly Abel Tasman.

Baffert trained Abel Tasman, the 2017 Kentucky Oaks winner, for China Horse Club and breeder Clearsky Farm, and he clearly has an affinity for the offspring of the Lane's End-based sire, who stands for $150,000 live foal this year. One reason for this is that the Quality Roads like West Coast tracks. Baffert also trained the Quality Road son Klimt for Kaleem Shah when that colt won the Gl Del Mar Futurity in 2016.

All told, Baffert has trained two of Quality Road's three champions, and four of the stallion's 12 Grade l winners to date, and any owner or breeder with a classic hopeful by Quality Road in Baffert's barn would be understandably hyped. At the end of the day, winning championships and races at the highest level boost bloodstock values, and that's what it's all about to owners and breeders who play at the top of the market.

Abel Tasman, for instance, won six Grade l races and earned nearly $2.8 million on the track but made the ultimate score when selling for $5 million as a broodmare prospect at the 2019 Keeneland January sale. Likewise, the breeding rights to Corniche have already been sold for $17 million, I've been told, even though the colt is unlikely to make the Derby after a lengthy freshening. And that's miniscule compared to the more than $100 million for the breeding rights generated together by the Baffert-trained Justify (Scat Daddy) and Authentic (Into Mischief)–the former a Triple Crown winner, the latter a Derby winner, and both Horses of the Year. SF, Madaket, and Starlight were involved in Justify and Authentic, as they were in Charlatan (Speightstown), another Baffert trainee whose breeding rights made significant millions. There are several others as well, and it's one reason why the group has been loyal to Baffert through the trainer's recent travails.

Hancock connection

Blackadder isn't the only colt for the SF/Madaket/Starlight group with Baffert with a Stone Farm/Quality Road connection. On Jan. 21, the Quality Road 3-year-old Armagnac, flying the Madaket silks and under the same ownership as Blackadder, won a mile and a sixteenth maiden special at Santa Anita by 2 1/4 lengths in his second start. He appears to be another with future stakes potential. Armagnac was bred in Kentucky by Stone Farm and Joseph W. Sutton, and he was purchased by the SF group at the 2020 Keeneland September sale for $210,000 from the same Stone Farm consignment as Blackadder, as mentioned earlier a $620,000 buy.

There's no question that Arthur Hancock knows how to breed and raise a good horse at Stone Farm. He raised Derby and Preakness winner Sunday Silence, stood his sire, Halo, and raced him with trainer Charlie Whittingham and another partner before selling him to Zenya Yoshida for a reported $10 million (after initially selling a quarter of the 1989 Horse of the Year to Yoshida for $2.25 million in early 1990 when the colt was four); bred and raced 1982 Derby winner Gato del Sol with Leon J. Peters; bred with Peters and sold 1988 Preakness and Belmont S. winner Risen Star; and bred with Stonerside and sold Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus for $4 million at the 1998 Keeneland July sale, among others of note. And he's raced more than a few partnership horses in the Derby aside from the colts mentioned, including homebreds Menifee, who lost the Derby by a neck in 1999; and Strodes Creek, a Whittingham-trained colt who was second in the 1994 Derby.

A savvy commercial breeder with a great understanding of the potential of winning big races on the values of sires, dams, and female families, Hancock has tasted Derby success doing things his way and knows how the sausage gets made with the right trainer, such as a Charlie Whittingham, at the helm.

After Fluor and Weiner, clients and friends of Baffert, purchased Roadster for $525,000 from the 2017 Stone Farm consignment at Keeneland September, they offered Hancock the opportunity to stay in for 10%, and Hancock took them up because he was well in the black on the colt and was high on his chances for success. He'd bred Roadster when the Ned Evans-raced Quality Road was standing for just $35,000, and he'd purchased the colt's dam, Ghost Dancing, a few years earlier from the Ned Evans dispersal for $220,000, in foal to Candy Ride (Arg).

The Candy Ride, named Ascend, was gelded and initially raced by Hancock with Graham Motion, but sometime in 2016 when Ascend was four, Madaket became a partner in the gelding with Hancock. In 2017, a few months before Roadster was sold at Keeneland, Ascend won the Gl Manhattan at Belmont, which was pivotal in enhancing Roadster's value at auction.

After Roadster won the Santa Anita Derby–defeating Baffert's juvenile champ, Game Winner–and was headed to Churchill Downs, Hancock was sitting pretty because his mare Ghost Dancing was now the dam of two Grade l winners, something that would greatly enhance the value of her Twirling Candy yearling; and Hancock had a minority stake in a potential Derby winner, trained by Baffert.

In an interview with Zoe Cadman in the week before the 2019 Derby, Hancock was asked about his trainer, who'd won five Derbys at the time, including two Triple Crowns, and he said: “I can see, just being around Bob, his record speaks for itself. I told him the other day, you're Charlie junior, talking about Charlie Whittingham. He laughed.”

Unfortunately, Roadster finished 16th of 19, but, thanks to Baffert, he did have that Grade l on his resume, which helped Hancock later that year when his Twirling Candy half-brother made $950,000 at Keeneland September. Twirling Candy's stud fee the year the colt was conceived was $20,000.

Blackadder is from the Pulpit mare Chapel, a Hancock homebred from a family he has cultivated through generations. Baffert jumpstarted this mare and her family as well, training Chapel's first foal, the Hancock-bred Quality Road filly Gingham. She'd been purchased by Sarah Kelly for $420,000 from the Stone Farm consignment at Keeneland September in 2018.

For Baffert, Gingham won a listed race at Santa Anita and was Grade ll-placed and Grade lll-placed, earning $214,000. The black type helped her realize a price of $1 million at the 2020 Keeneland November sale as a broodmare prospect.

Moreover, her black-type success with Baffert obviously contributed to SF/Madaket/Starlight paying Hancock $620,000 for her full brother, who is now a black-type winner himself and one with a pedigree suggesting further improvement. With two Quality Road stakes winners on her resume, Chapel's value has skyrocketed, especially as she was bred to Quality Road for a 2022 foal.

But with the Baffert runners out of the Derby as things now stand and the Avengers group showing no signs of switching trainers to make the Derby despite holding a full house of promising candidates, the financial ramifications for the ownership group potentially extend to the breeders of these colts as well.

That's something that must be disappointing for Hancock and others.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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Pharoah Colt MacKinnon Tops 11-Strong Field For El Camino Real Derby

Eleven 3-year-old colts and geldings are slated for a chance to earn 10 Kentucky Derby points and a free Preakness berth in the feature race at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday afternoon, the $100,000 El Camino Real Derby at 1 1/8 miles on Tapeta. The El Camino Real Derby goes as Race 8 on a nine-race program.

Last year, 2021 winner Rombauer took advantage of his free Preakness berth, which has been offered to the winner of the El Camino Real Derby the last four years, and went on to win the second leg of the Triple Crown.

A pair of Southern California shippers make the trip north. The headliner in the field is Doug O'Neill trainee MacKinnon, who won a pair of stakes on turf as a 2-year-old-the Juvenile Turf at Del Mar and the Zuma Beach at Santa Anita-before finishing third in the Breeders Cup Juvenile Turf last November. Most recently, the son of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah finished fourth behind next-out Southwest Stakes victor Newgrange in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes on dirt at Santa Anita. Southern California-based jockey Abel Cedillo, who has a total of four mounts on the day, is named to ride McKinnon.

O'Neill saddles a second entrant in Del Mo, who won a maiden special weight at Golden Gate on Jan. 9 and has trained in the Bay Area leading up to the El Camino Real Derby.

Trainer Bob Baffert won the El Camino Real Derby in 2019 with Azul Coast and sends out $620,000 yearling purchase Blackadder in the 2022 edition. In his most recent afternoon appearance, the son of Quality Road broke his maiden in a two-turn race at Santa Anita on Dec. 26. He faces winners for the first time and will be ridden by Edwin Maldonado for the first time. Blackadder is owned by the large partnership of SF Racing LLC, Madaket Stables LLC, Robert Masterson, Stonestreet Stables LLC, Jay Schoenfarber, Waves Edge Capital LLC, Catherine Donovan, Golconda Stable and Siena Farm LLC.

Local contenders run deep in the El Camino Real Derby. Temple City colt Boise attempts to rebound after a poor performance in the Eddie Logan Stakes at Santa Anita on turf. Trained by leading Northern California conditioner Jonathan Wong, Boise broke his maiden at Golden Gate and won the Gold Rush Stakes in December over the Tapeta main track.

Dr. Pescado picked up a stakes victory in the Golden Nugget Stakes sprinting on Tapeta last fall and freshens up two months after finishing third behind Boise in the Gold Rush.

C'Mon Man, who rounded out the superfecta in the Gold Rush and was a non-factor in the Eddie Logan, is another 3-year-old from the local contingent entered.

Unraptured, who has always been well regarded by his connections and the Bay Area racing community, is a perfect two-for-two on the Golden Gate Tapeta. He enters fresh off a dominant allowance win. The Tim McCanna trainee possesses the pedigree to be a decent racehorse: he is a half sibling to Grade 3 winner and $500,000 earner Jalen Journey. Another sibling, Derek Adrian, was a Group 1 winner in South America and won 12 races from 16 lifetime starts.

Allowance winner Stormy Samurai stretches out in distance after beating a salty bunch of sprinters, two-turn maiden special weight victor Il Bellator sports an improving pattern leading up to this stakes debut, and maiden Meetmeattheclub is entered ambitiously in search of a massive upset. Nuestro Engriedo, who finished third behind Stormy Samurai in an allowance race two weeks ago, rounds out the field.

First post on Saturday afternoon is 12:45 PM PT. Fans who wish to attend the race card, or any future race programs, can purchase tickets online at Goldengatefields.com.

The El Camino Real Derby (Race 8 of 9. Approximate post time: 4:15 PM PT)

#1 Stormy Samurai (Jockey William Antongeorgi III…trainer Jack Steiner)

#2 McKinnon (Abel Cedillo…Doug O'Neill)

#3 Unraptured (Armando Ayuso…Tim McCanna)

#4 Blackadder (Edwin Maldonado…Bob Baffert)

#5 Nuestro Engriedo (Santos Rivera…Felix Rondan)

#6 Boise (Evin Roman…Jonathan Wong)

#7 Dr Pescado (Pedro Terrero…Felix Rondan)

#8 Meetmeattheclub (Silvio Amador…Dan Franko)

#9 C'Mon Man (Irving Orozco…Bill McLean)

#10 Il Bellator (Alejandro Gomez…Jose Bautista)

#11 Del Mo (Ruben Fuentes…Doug O'Neill)

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