Bob Baffert | Horse Racing Free Tips

Barnes: Authentic ‘Has Really Taken To The Track Well’ Ahead Of Saturday’s Haskell

Authentic, the 4-5 morning line favorite for Saturday's Grade 1, $1 million TVG.com Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park, is ready to roll.

That's the word from Jimmy Barnes, the top assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who has already collected a record eight Haskell trophies.

“The horse is doing very well,” said Barnes, who arrived on the Monmouth Park backside with Authentic on Tuesday evening following a flight from their Southern California base. “He has really taken to the track well, which is how it's been with all the horses we've brought here in the past. They all seem to handle it well, and that's probably one of the reasons we keep heading back in this direction. But all horses are different in their unique way.”

The Haskell headlines a stakes-filled 14-race card that features the Grade 1 United Nations, the Grade 3 WinStar Matchmaker, the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup and the Grade 3 Molly Pitcher.

First race post time is noon. The Haskell is the 12th race on the program with a scheduled post time of 5:48 p.m., with NBC televising from Monmouth Park from 5 to 6 p.m. as part of the “Breeders' Cup Challenge Series Win and You're In – presented by America's Best Racing.”

Authentic, a son of Into Mischief, was undefeated in his first three races, including the Grade 3 Sham Stakes and the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes before he was the runner-up in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby last out. Now he is looking to enhance his status on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard.

In this reshuffled and reconfigured Triple Crown campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Haskell, for the first time, is offering qualifying points (100-40-20-10) for the re-scheduled Kentucky Derby (now on Sept. 5) to the first four finishers.

In addition, the Haskell offers a “Win and You're In” bonus for the Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 7.

Authentic currently sits in third place with 100 points on the Kentucky Derby qualifying board, virtually assuring him his spot in the starting gate for that leg of the Triple Crown. He drew post 2 for the Haskell, with Mike Smith flying in from the West Coast to ride.

Baffert said the race strategy will be left up to Smith, one of the sport's best big-race riders.

“I haven't really even looked at these horses or what the field is. Going into these races I really don't look at that closely. Mike Smith is the master,” said Baffert. “He does his homework and he figures it out. We'll briefly talk about it. My job is to make sure he has plenty of horse underneath him.

“The horse is doing great. But like all of my horses, they have to get away from the gate cleanly. If he does, he's a horse who has speed. He can go fast, or from the two (hole), I think he can sit off of it a little bit. They key is the break. Once Mike gets away from there Mike can figure it out.”

Authentic, purchased at auction for $350,000 as a yearling, is owned by B. Wayne Hughes' Spendthrift Farm and Starlight Racing. Recently, Myracehorse.com, which is syndicate selling micro shares, came into the partnership. The deal has generated more star power around Authentic.

“What's making this a little more fun, and probably adding a little more pressure on me, is that Myrachorse.com bought into this horse and they're selling little shares, so all my friends and family have bought shares,” said Baffert. “Walker Beuhler (the pitcher) from the (Los Angeles) Dodgers and (Olympic and World Champion gold medalist skier) Bode Miller are in. They're all texting me, wanting to know how their Derby horse is doing. I think he's a top five Derby prospect.”

While Baffert, a two-time Triple Crown winning trainer, has eight Haskell victories and Grade 1 wins in the triple digits on his resume, Saffie Joseph, Jr. is looking for his first Haskell win and second Grade 1 triumph.

“Saturday is most definitely a big day for us,” said Joseph, who sends out the New York-bred Ny Traffic in the Haskell and also runs Grade 1 winner Math Wizard in the Monmouth Cup and Queen Nekia in the Molly Pitcher Stakes on the undercard.

Ny Traffic arrived at Monmouth on Tuesday and Joseph said the son of Cross Traffic has been has been training well over the racing strip as he prepares to reunite with Paco Lopez, Monmouth's defending leading rider and a six-time champion here, for this race with so much at stake.

Ny Traffic has earned 70 Derby points and is in eighth place on the qualifying ladder. He drew the outside Haskell seven post and is the third betting choice at 7-2.

“Paco thinks the draw is ideal. I love the draw, too. All the speed is inside and he's tactical enough that he can break and see what goes on, and then Paco can make decisions as far as where he needs to be. We'll leave it to him. You always want to break good, and that's key, especially on the dirt,” said Joseph, who on Friday thought he would be at Monmouth Saturday instead of at Saratoga to saddle Tonalist's Shape in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks.

Ny Traffic, second in the Grade 3 Matt Winn Stakes in his last start, has yet to win a graded stakes race. But he has been knocking on the door and now his trainer thinks he may kick it down.

“On the numbers he just kept getting faster and faster,” Joseph said. “He's made progressive jumps and that's what you want to see from a 3-year-old because it means he's headed in the right direction.

“I don't think he was the best horse in the crop, but the way things have worked out, he's just climbing higher and higher. That's our hope. That he'll run another bang-up race (in the Haskell) and then hope for the Kentucky Derby that he can get there. You never know. He could be the best on the day.

“I could see our horse show up and continue to improve himself. As I said, in my opinion he was never the best in the crop, but he just keeps improving and getting better and better and better. That's all we can ask for.”

Trainer Todd Pletcher reported from Saratoga Friday that it's all systems go for Dr Post, who has been working forwardly on the Saratoga training track for the Haskell and will ship in to Monmouth Park on Saturday morning.

Dr Post, the 5-2 early second choice, will break from the inside post under 13-time Monmouth Park riding champion Joe Bravo, who tries for his second Haskell triumph (winning with Lion Heart in 2004). Pletcher is seeking his fourth Haskell win and first since 2013 (Verrazano).

Dr Post is owned by Teresa and Vinnie Viola's St. Elias Stable and is named for the man who is their longtime family physician and close friend. The colt by Quality Road heads into the Haskell with 60 Kentucky Derby points, good for ninth place.

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Lightly Raced Runners Loom Large in CCA Oaks

While two-time GSW Tonalist’s Shape (Tonalist) is favored at 9-5 on the morning line for Saturday’s GI Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga, she’ll have to fend off several well-bred and promising up-and-comers if she’s to get the job done.

Perhaps the most formidable challenger is WinStar Stablemates Racing’s Paris Lights (Curlin). The Bill Mott trainee was third in a sloppy-track sprint at Gulfstream on debut Apr. 26, but took a big step forward to romp on the stretch-out at Churchill May 31 and then paired up 85 Beyer Speed Figures when taking a first-level allowance June 27 in similarly facile fashion. That 85 Beyer is the field’s best last-out number and is only eclipsed by an 89 and 87 earned by Tonalist’s shape several starts back. Mott, who won this race in 1997 with Ajina, will also saddle Godolphin’s versatile GII Fair Grounds Oaks and GIII Wonder Again S. third Antoinette (Hard Spun).

Crystal Ball (Malibu Moon) also carries the WinStar Stablemates silks and was third in her debut, going a mile at Santa Anita May 17 for Bob Baffert. The $750,000 Fasig-Tipton Gulfrstream grad aired by 6 1/4 lengths on the stretch-out June 14. Baffert took the 2017 CCA Oaks by a head over Mott-trained Elate (Medaglia d’Oro).

The Chad Brown stable took the GIII Peter Pan S. for sophomore boys with Country Grammer (Tonalist) on opening day, and could double up with Altaf (Medaglia d’Oro) here. The Shadwell homebred was just seventh in her grassy unveiling in Florida Apr. 2, but uncorked a visually impressive sweeping rally to don cap and gown by 6 1/2 lengths under the Twin Spires May 23.

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The Friday Show Presented By Woodbine: COVID-19 And Positive Drug Tests

It's been a busy news week in horse racing. COVID-19 continues to disrupt the racing business, most recently with the cancellation of this weekend's racing at Del Mar. How might a second wave of coronavirus cases impact the racing business as a whole?

Also this week, Arkansas officials announced the disqualification of Bob Baffert trainees Charlatan from the G1 Arkansas Derby and Gamine from an allowance race at Oaklawn Park due to lidocaine overages. Baffert has also been handed a 15-day suspension. Baffert asserts those tests were the result of the horses' exposure to a Salonpas patch used by an employee. That raises the question — should the means of exposure to a substance factor in to a commission or steward's decision when disqualifying a horse?

Ray Paulick and Natalie Voss sit down to discuss these questions in this week's edition of The Friday Show. Watch below and share your thoughts.

The post The Friday Show Presented By Woodbine: COVID-19 And Positive Drug Tests appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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This Side Up: Haskell Sets Derby Compass as East Meets West

Guys. Come on. What was the one thing we were told, right from the outset? Wash your hands. Obsessively, wash your hands. Yet here’s our most accomplished trainer, explaining that his assistant transferred a trace from a medicinal patch on his own back to the tongue-ties of their two most charismatic sophomores.

Somebody seems to have been no more vigilant in the jocks’ room at Los Alamitos, creating a fresh headache for Bob Baffert in the postponement of a barn debut, scheduled for Del Mar this weekend, for Maximum Security (New Year’s Day). This year Baffert has endured setbacks proportional to his success, which is saying plenty, and it’s unfortunate that the mainstream media has taken the opportunity to conflate those twin menaces to the reputation of our sport, injuries and drugs.

The more responsible coverage has at least kept in perspective the relatively innocuous contamination of Charlatan (Speightstown) and Gamine (Into Mischief). But some have been unable to resist the narrative combining this episode with the peculiar treatment of Justify (Scat Daddy), after his positive test on the way to a Triple Crown; the welfare traumas, last year, of Baffert’s otherwise paradisal home track, Santa Anita; and the federal indictments this spring against trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, among others.

It was Servis, of course, who supervised the career of Maximum Security until that scandal broke–in a fashion that always seemed unorthodox, even before the lurid doubts introduced by his arrest. How long ago it seems, now, since that sultry evening when, after a prolonged delay for the heat wave, Maximum Security denied Baffert’s Mucho Gusto (Mucho Macho Man) in the GI TVG.com Haskell. One way or another it has been a wild ride all the way through, for this horse, and this Del Mar fiasco will barely warrant a footnote in his biography.

Much like Maximum Security, I’m sure all of us must be sharing the same yearning: for what we now know to value as that most extraordinary of privileges, a regular day at the races. As it is, Mike Smith has been locked out of Saratoga (know the feeling, brother) by taking the mount on Authentic (Into Mischief) in a still more surreal Haskell this time round.

Smith will be hoping that the horse makes that a price worth paying, albeit the most obvious value of this race–in pitching together the respective runners-up from the GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby and GI Belmont S. (presented by NYRA Bets)–is to integrate the form of the crop’s standout colt on either coast.

In his own right, Authentic (what a name for a “Sham” winner!) is certainly at something of a crossroads. The way he goes about his task should settle the questions left open by his first defeat, where he broke a step slow; was kept fairly wide; and for the first time, never made the lead at any call. In view of his idle month, at the height of the lockdown, Authentic could yet prove that he wasn’t simply revealing the kind of low fuel reserves we’ve seen in other brilliantly fast sons of his sire. Don’t forget how green he looked in his first races, almost colliding with the rail even as he cruised clear on his stakes debut. He remains perfectly entitled to turn one small step back into two big steps forward.

Many of us, of course, are hoping that the single most pertinent factor in his defeat will simply turn out to have been the presence, in Honor A.P. (Honor Code), of the classiest colt of the crop. For now, Authentic’s connections appear to be keeping the faith. That looks significant, as the Derby trail extends so much deeper into the calendar this year that his perseverance is already costing key opportunities round a single turn. (He’s hardly going to be bounced out for the GI Allen Jerkens now.) With his future at Spendthrift in mind, however, maybe the idea is just to get his Grade I nailed in the Haskell, and then see how his world looks after that.

If this field lacks depth, it does set up a potential pincer movement on the favorite: the seasoned Ny Traffic (Cross Traffic) can be counted on to press pretty unsparingly, having seen off all bar the stellar Maxfield (Street Sense) last time, while progressive Dr Post (Quality Road) will punish any reckless competition up front by drawing on his stamina.

After all, one thing that won’t change in a September Derby is the perennial equilibrium challenge between the speed horses and the closers. Will that be tilted one way or another, by more mature horses? You could argue that the speed will hold up better, driven by stronger horses. On the other hand, it could be that the speed in May tends to be a function of a more general precocity. Perhaps a 20-runner stampede through 10 furlongs will this time favor the traditional Belmont type. So Dr Post could yet enter the equation, even if he can’t quite run down Authentic this time.

So, too, could Mystic Guide (Ghostzapper). Some people sound ready to give up on this guy after he could only manage third in the GIII Peter Pan S. Thursday, but only a very talented horse would have made that kind of dynamic move from where he was mid-race. Runner-up Caracaro (Uncle Mo), who was making his first start in six months and only his third overall, would also merit a rematch with Country Grammer (Tonalist) in the GI Runhappy Travers S. But then if Country Grammer has really hit the Classic seam in what is a copper-bottomed Classic pedigree, nobody should presume the limits of his own progress.

Still plenty of delicious uncertainty, then, for all that we appear to have a standard-bearer on either coast. Just the last two weekends, after all, have volunteered legitimate new forces in Art Collector (Bernardini) and Uncle Chuck (Uncle Mo). Now we’ll finally get the two coasts together, and find out whether one can maintain social distance from the other through the Monmouth stretch. If not, let’s just hope that everyone has remembered to wash their hands.

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