Mike Smith | Horse Racing Free Tips

Authentic Hangs on to Give Baffert Ninth Haskell

Heavily favored Authentic (Into Mischief) got surprisingly loose early and held on narrowly late in Saturday’s GI TVG.com Haskell S., upping trainer Bob Baffert’s record win total in the prestigious event to nine and earning an automatic spot in the starting gate for the GI Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic. Off at 3-5 looking to atone for a second-place finish at 1-2 behind Honor A. P. (Honor Code) in the GI Santa Anita Derby last month, the bay broke on top and received only token pressure from Ny Traffic (Cross Traffic) as he was kept off the rail a bit by Hall of Famer Mike Smith through splits of :23.60 and :47.52. He appeared to be going much better than Ny Traffic through six furlongs in 1:11.50, and put several lengths on his pursuer in upper stretch as hard-ridden second choice Dr Post (Quality Road) tried to mount a rally. The top three seemed locked in their positions at midstretch, but Paco Lopez aboard Ny Traffic wasn’t giving up on the top spot yet, and he kept after his mount to get into a tight photo with Authentic.

“He’s a colt with an abundance of talent. Ability is something he does not lack. He’s got a lot of it,” said winning rider Mike Smith, who was celebrating his third Haskell (Holly Bull, 1994; Coronado’s Quest, 1998). “But what he is lacking right now, he’s learning, He’s growing up. He sees things. Down the backside… there are a lot of shadows back there from the sun at this point. He looked at every single one of them and he wouldn’t let me get him down close to the fence because he was looking at them too much.

“Then he kicked away like I wanted him to heading for home. Once that horse started to come at him I wanted to get into him a little bit just to get him going. If he was going to start playing again I thought `I just better stay riding and hope he could hang on at that point’–which he did. I rode him well past the wire just to show him to keep running. I didn’t want him to think it was over when he hit the wire.”

Saturday, Monmouth Park
TVG.COM HASKELL S.-GI, $1,005,000, Monmouth, 7-18, 3yo,
1 1/8m, 1:50.45, ft.
1–AUTHENTIC, 122, c, 3, by Into Mischief
                1st Dam: Flawless, by Mr. Greeley
                2nd Dam: Oyster Baby, by Wild Again
                3rd Dam: Really Fancy, by In Reality
1ST GRADE I WIN. ($350,000 Ylg ’18 KEESEP). O-Spendthrift
Farm LLC, MyRaceHorse Stable, Madaket Stables LLC &
Starlight Racing; B-Peter E. Blum Thoroughbreds, LLC (KY);
T-Bob Baffert; J-Mike E. Smith. $600,000. Lifetime Record:
5-4-1-0, $1,011,200. Werk Nick Rating: A+++. *Triple Plus*.
   Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2–Ny Traffic, 122, c, 3, Cross Traffic–Mamie Reilly, by Graeme
Hall. ($27,000 RNA 2yo ’19 EASMAY). O-John Fanelli, Cash is
King LLC, LC Racing & Paul Braverman; B-Brian Culnan (NY);
T-Saffie A. Joseph, Jr.. $200,000.
3–Dr Post, 122, c, 3, Quality Road–Mary Delaney, by Hennessy.
($200,000 Wlg ’17 KEENOV; $400,000 Ylg ’18 KEESEP). O-St.
Elias Stable; B-Cloyce C Clark (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher.
$100,000.
Margins: NO, 4HF, 3 1/4. Odds: 0.60, 5.70, 1.80.
Also Ran: Jesus’ Team, Fame to Famous, Lebda, Ancient Warrior.
Click for the Equibase.com chart, the TJCIS.com PPs or the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, sponsored by Fasig-Tipton.

Authentic was a first-out winner at Del Mar last November, and was shelved after defeating stablemate Azul Coast (Super Saver) by 7 3/4 lengths in the GIII Sham S. at Santa Anita in January. He resurfaced to defeat Honor A. P. handily in the GII San Felipe S. in Arcadia Mar. 7, but still seemed at that point to be third on Baffert’s depth chart behind ‘TDN Rising Stars’ Nadal (Blame) and Charlatan (Speightstown). Those two each crossed the wire first in divisions of the GI Arkansas Derby in May, but the former was subsequently retired and the latter sidelined. Charlatan was disqualified from his win and Baffert suspended 15 days earlier this week for lidocaine positives (click for more). B. Wayne Hughes’s Spendthrift Farm acquired a majority interest in Authentic when buying the equity owned by SF Racing, Fred Hertrich, John Fielding and Golconda Stables days before the June 6 Santa Anita Derby, and micro-share syndicate MyRacehorse.com got in on the colt after his slow start and pace-pressing second in that event.

“I’m just so proud of him, but I was like everybody else telling Mike, ‘You better stay after him. You’d better keep busy,'” said Baffert from California. “[Authentic] looks at everything, as we’ve seen in his past races. I could tell he wasn’t focused going down the stretch but he held on. He saw that horse coming to him and he took off again.

“[Assistant Jimmy Barnes] said he came back not really that tired. We’re learning about the horse. He might need a little blinker, though. He was playing in the stretch. I had told Mike that he had to stay after him and keep him busy. I could tell he wasn’t laying it down. He was just playing out there and that horse came to him and kept him going. But when he got [out on an easy lead] by himself like that I thought for sure he was just going to go on. But he ran a great race.”

Authentic now sits behind only Tiz the Law for GI Kentucky Derby qualifying points with 200. Ny Traffic is fourth with 110.

“I thought he ran good,” said the runner-up’s trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr. “Coming into this race he missed a work and I was a little concerned–did we have enough? At the quarter pole you could see Authentic was cruising and my horse was off the bridle. To dig down and dig deep you can’t be more proud of that. I was pretty sure we lost when I first saw it. We were a head in front right after the bob at the wire. I just want to keep going forward. That’s the important thing. Hopefully all goes well to the Kentucky Derby and we’re living the dream.”

Pedigree Notes:

Authentic is the first member of his direct female family to add blacktype in 35 years. His third dam, Arkansas-bred Really Fancy, captured the GIII Anoakia S. in 1985, but the family has been dormant in stakes company ever since. Peter E. Blum acquired second dam Oyster Baby and bred Authentic’s dam Flawless, a $285,000 Keeneland September yearling RNA and two-time winner, out of her. Flawless, by Mr. Greeley whose 76 stakes winners out of his daughters include champion Ria Antonia (Rockport Harbor), produced two winners from two runners before Authentic and had colts in 2018 and 2019 by Bodemeister named Mint and Push Button, respectively. If Authentic’s dam side has been quiet in recent years, his sire line certainly has not as Into Mischief is currently the leading sire in the nation. His 73 career blacktype winners, 30 of which are graded, include 2019 dual champion Covfefe and a remarkable 18 stakes winners of 2020, which is 10 more than his nearest pursuers. His 2-year-old daughters made up the exacta in Thursday’s GIII Schuylerville S. at Saratoga.

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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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$1 Million ‘Win And You’re In’ Haskell Headlines TVG’s Weekend Coverage

TVG, America's horse racing network, will be live on site at Monmouth Park this weekend to feature the $1 million TVG.com Haskell Stakes (GI) as well as a loaded card featuring four additional graded stakes races.

The TVG.com Haskell (GI), a premier race for three-year-olds, will offer the winner both points towards a spot in the starting gate in the Kentucky Derby (GI) in September and an automatic berth in the Breeders' Cup Classic (GI) as part of the Breeders' Cup “Win and You're In” Challenge Series. The 2020 Breeders' Cup will be held November 6-7 at Keeneland.

The field for the TVG Haskell (GI) includes multiple graded stakes winner Authentic who will be trying to give trainer Bob Baffert his ninth victory in the Haskell. Authentic was last seen finishing second in the Santa Anita Derby (GI). Also in the field is Belmont Stakes (GI) runner-up Dr Post for trainer Todd Pletcher and jockey Joe Bravo, a thirteen-time leading rider at Monmouth Park. Post time for the TVG.com Haskell (GI) is set for 5:45 p.m. ET.

Monmouth Park will also host the $300,000 United Nations Stakes (GI) on Saturday which will be run at 1 3/8 miles on the turf. The race has drawn a field of nine including Arklow, a multiple graded stakes winner with over $1.8 million in career earnings. Trained by Brad Cox, the six-year-old son of Arch will have Mike Smith aboard.

There will be expert analysis and exclusive interviews on-site at Monmouth Park from Tom Cassidy and Matt Carothers.

In addition to Monmouth Park, TVG will be broadcasting racing from Gulfstream Park, Laurel Park, Woodbine and more all weekend.

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‘Extremely Fast’ Authentic Brings Baffert Back To Jersey Shore; Hall Of Famer Seeks Ninth Haskell Victory

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has won Monmouth Park's Haskell a record eight times, though not since 2015 with Triple Crown champion American Pharoah. Baffert took a moment to reflect on Pharoah's trip to the Jersey Shore during Wednesday's media teleconference organized by the NTRA.

“I remember bringing Pharoah in there, and I was really nervous,” said Baffert. “We were all really nervous; the Zayat family brought like 200 friends. I didn't want to get the Triple Crown winner beat.

“It was such an exciting visual, the horses were getting ready to go in the gate, and the place was packed, and all of the sudden somebody said, 'look down at the rail.' I'd never seen anything like it, I'd never seen it before, but the jockey's room was emptied out and all the jockeys were out there to watch him run.

“It was such a wonderful experience. American Pharoah brought so much joy to everyone that day.”

Baffert's other Haskell wins came in 2014 (Bayern), 2012 (Paynter), 2011 (Coil), 2010 (Lookin at Lucky), 2005 (Roman Ruler), 2002 (War Emblem) and 2001 (Point Given).

This year, Baffert will be seeking his ninth win in the 1 1/8-mile contest with 4-5 morning-line favorite Authentic, owned by Spendthrift Farm, Madaket Stables, Starlight Racing, and MyRacehorse.com. The 3-year-old son of Into Mischief will face a field of six rivals in the $1 million contest, which awards the winner both 100 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby and an expenses-paid berth to the Breeders' Cup Classic.

Authentic won the first three starts of his career, including the G2 San Felipe Stakes, before finishing second behind Honor A. P. in last month's G1 Santa Anita Derby.

“He came into the race, I think he was a little bit fresh,” Baffert said. “I backed off of him, because I didn't know when they were going to run the Santa Anita Derby. You know, we like to make excuses for the horses, they're like our children.

“He didn't have a great trip, he was a little wide and he just got tired … But since then, he's been training really well, and I think he couldn't be doing any better.”

Authentic will be ridden by Mike Smith from post position two this Saturday. The colt arrived at Monmouth late Tuesday evening, and galloped over the track on Wednesday.

“He shipped well, he settled in well,” Baffert said. “[Assistant trainer] Jimmy [Barnes] said he went to the track today and he just floated over it.”

Earlier in this unusual 2020 season, Baffert had hoped to send Charlatan to the Haskell, but that colt came up with filling in a front ankle and recently underwent a successful surgery to remove a bone chip. The Arkansas Derby winner is expected to return to Baffert's barn in mid-to-late August, and will likely not make either the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness Stakes, but could run in the Breeders' Cup.

“We've had some horses get injured, unfortunately, and it changed everything,” Baffert said. “But I thought this horse, Authentic, would be a perfect fit (for the Haskell). He's an extremely fast horse and he's a good horse.”

The field for the 53rd Haskell Stakes:

1. Dr Post Todd Pletcher Joe Bravo 5-2

2. Authentic Bob Baffert Mike Smith 4-5

3. Jesus' Team Jose D'Angelo Nik Juarez 15-1

4. Ancient Warrior Jerry Hollendorfer Trevor McCarthy 20-1

5. Fame to Famous John P. McAllen Jose C. Ferrer 30-1

6. Lebda Claudio Gonzalez Alex Cintron 20-1

7. Ny Traffic Saffie Joseph, Jr. Paco Lopez 7-2

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