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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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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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Triple Crown News Minute Presented By Kentucky Equine Research: An Authentic Haskell?

While Bob Baffert has won the Grade 1 TVG.com Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., a record eight times, it's been five years since the Hall of Fame trainer last captured the Jersey Shore track's biggest race, taking the 2015 renewal with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

Baffert is represented again this year by Authentic, the multiple graded stakes winning Into Mischief colt who comes out of a second-place finish to Honor A. P. in the G1 Santa Anita Derby on June 6.

Not only does the Haskell carry a $1-million purse, it's a Win and You're In Breeders' Cup Challenge Series race, offers 100-40-20-10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the top four finishers, and kicks off the BetMakers Bonanza, a potential $1-million bonus to any horse that wins the Haskell, Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic.

In this latest edition of the Triple Crown News Minute, Ray Paulick and news editor Chelsea Hackbarth review last Saturday's G2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes win by Art Collector at Keeneland and preview the leading contenders taking on Authentic in the Haskell, including Dr Post, most recently second to division leader Tiz the Law in the G1 Belmont Stakes. The Todd Pletcher trainee will be ridden by “Jersey Joe” Bravo, 13-time leading jockey at Monmouth Park.

Watch the Triple Crown News Minute below:

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Equibase Analysis: Authentic Out For Redemption In Grade 1 Haskell

This year's Grade 1, $1 million TVG.com Haskell Stakes is both a “Road to the Derby” points race and a “Win and You're In” race for the Breeders' Cup Classic, so extra attention is warranted. Seven 3-year-old colts are expected to line up, led by multiple stakes winner Authentic, who suffered the first defeat of his career last month when second in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby after victories in both the Grade 3 Sham Stakes in January and Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes in March.

His biggest opponent appears to be Dr Post, an improving colt who won the Unbridled Stakes in April before a runner-up finish behind division leader Tiz the Law in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes last month. Lebda is another with credentials in the division having won the Miracle Wood Stakes and Private Terms Stakes in February and March, respectively, before a sixth place effort in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby last month.

Ny Traffic enters the race off back-to-back runner-up efforts in similar races in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby in March and then in the Grade 3 Matt Winn Stakes in May. Ancient Warrior and Jesus' Team are two horses that are trying stakes competition for the first time, while Fame to Famous has finished no better than third in three stakes tries to date and only one on dirt, in which he finished last of 11.

Dr Post appears capable of posting the very mild upset over betting favorite Authentic in this year's TVG.com Haskell Stakes. Two races back in his third career start, Dr Post tried two-turns for the first time in the Unbridled Stakes and won very professionally, earning a career-best 101 Equibase Speed Figure. Stretching out to the distance of the Haskell last month in the Belmont Stakes, Dr Post closed from sixth in the early stages to second but was no match for Tiz the Law. Considering no horse has been a match for Tiz the Law in months, I think that effort is akin to running a winning race. The new career-best 107 figure was significant as well, as it was higher than the 105 and 101 figures Authentic earned in his two most recent starts. While the figures Authentic has earned are on a declining pattern, Dr Post is on an improving pattern and that is why he should win the Haskell.

Ancient Warrior is my longshot play to possibly split the two betting favorites, Authentic and Dr Post, by finishing second, although a huge upset win isn't totally out of the question. Ancient Warrior stretches out to a route for the first time while making his second start after a three month rest. He earned a 92 figure in his prep race and a career-best 100 figure last fall in his first start. Although he has never raced in a stakes, Ancient Warrior has the class in his pedigree to contend here as he is by the sire Constitution, whose first 3-year-olds are on the track this year. Constitution is the sire of three horses which have made their mark in the division at some point since last fall – Independence Hall, Gouverneur Morris and, most importantly, “Road to the Derby” points leader Tiz the Law. Stretching out from six and one-half furlongs to this mile and one-eighth trip while stepping into stakes company for the first time may be a tall order, but considering Jerry Hollendorfer trains Ancient Warrior I have some confidence in the move. Hollendorfer has saddled 13 grade 1 stakes winners to victory in route races over the past five years and he believes the colt has what it takes to run well, I won't argue.

Authentic is trainer Bob Baffert's #1 Kentucky Derby prospect as he is tied for third on the “Road to the Derby” points leaderboard with 100 points. Authentic won the first three starts of his career, earning a career-best 113 figure in the Sham Stakes in January before a 105 figure effort in the San Felipe Stakes. Stretching out to the distance of the Haskell for the Santa Anita Derby last month, Authentic was no match for winner Honor A.P. and regressed again in terms of how fast he ran, to a 101 figure. It does appear as the distances are getting longer, Authentic is not running as fast, and that may be due to his breeding. According to STATS Race Lens, although sire Into Mischief has produced many stakes winners, the record of his sons and daughters at distances of nine to 10 furlongs in stakes on dirt is just four-for-58 in the last five years. It must be noted, however, that record includes two very good three year old colts – Audible (who won the Florida Derby) and Owendale (who won the Ohio Derby).

The rest of the field, with their best Equibase Speed Figures, is Fame to Famous (96), Jesus' Team (106), Lebda (91) and Ny Traffic (99).

Win Contenders:
Dr Post
Ancient Warrior
Authentic

TVG.com Haskell Stakes – Grade 1
Race 12 at Monmouth Park
Saturday, July 18 – Post Time 5:48 PM E.T.
One Mile and One Eighth
Three Years Old
Purse: $1 Million
T.V.: NBC 5 – 6 PM E.T.

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