Baffert On Preakness 145: ‘Robby Albarado Rode Just A Great Race’

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert praised Preakness (G1) 145 winner Swiss Skydiver and her jockey Robby Albarado during a visit to the Preakness Stakes Barn at Pimlico in Baltimore, Md., on Sunday morning and said he was still stunned with the outcome of the race.

While Baffert's Kentucky Derby (G1) winner Authentic finished a neck behind Swiss Skydiver in the second-fastest Preakness in history, he did not get the pace-setting, catch-me-if-you-can trip under John Velazquez that he had at Churchill Downs four weeks earlier. Instead, Authentic stalked Baffert's other starter, Thousand Words, early on. It was the reverse of what Baffert expected.

“I thought he would be on the lead,” Baffert said. “This horse is a free-running horse. He wants to be out there and going. The other horse was there but they weren't really going that fast.”

The first quarter was run in 24.48 seconds, which turned out to be the slowest of the race that was completed in 1:53.28.

Swiss Skydiver made what proved to be the decisive move going into the far turn when Albarado guided her around the tiring Thousand Words and to the inside of Authentic. She won the dynamic battle through the stretch.

“I have to give credit. Robby Albarado rode just a great race. The mare ran a great race,” Baffert said. “They went 1:53. It's not like he didn't show up.”

A month earlier at the top of the stretch in the Derby, heavily favored Tiz the Law looked poised to overtake Authentic, but he could not complete the task. Baffert was on the other end of that scenario in the Preakness.

“After all of that, I'm still surprised he just could not get by her,” Baffert said. “She just was game. It was one of those things where I said, 'All right, come on, get by her.' They were running, they were leaving the field. It was, 'Wow, did that really just happen?' But he showed up and he ran. The other horse (Thousand Words) he was sort of spinning. He just wasn't running at all.”

Baffert said both of his colts came out the race in good shape and will be shipped back to California on Monday. He said Authentic will be prepared for the Breeders' Cup Classic. Baffert has two other likely Classic runners, the 4-year-olds Improbable and Maximum Security.

Baffert was bidding for a record eighth Preakness victory. He had completed the double with his five previous Derby winners, but the 2020 Triple Crown schedule was changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, putting four weeks, not two, between the races. Still, Baffert said he was very confident.

“It's the kind of race where I ran second but it was like, 'What happened?'” he said. “I felt really good about him coming into this race, the way he had been working, the way he had been acting. He was fresh. I told Johnny, 'He's really sharp.'”

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Drury ‘Didn’t See A Whole Lot For Excuses’ For Art Collector

Trainer Tommy Drury Jr. looked Art Collector over Sunday morning and said the colt was in good shape coming out of Saturday's Grade 1 Preakness Stakes 145 dat Pimlico in Baltimore, Md. Bruce Lunsford's homebred son of Bernardini ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr. ended up fourth, a head behind Jesus' Team.

Art Collector, the 2-1 second choice in the wagering, was Drury's first Triple Crown starter and came into the Preakness unbeaten in four starts this year.

“I didn't see a whole lot for excuses. For whatever reason he just didn't quite have that normal turn of foot that we see from him,” Drury said. “Around the first turn it looked like Brian tried to kind of get out and couldn't quite get that done. Down the backside he tried to take the same spot that Swiss Skydiver took and unfortunately didn't have enough horse to get there. No excuses at this point. We're going to take our hat off to the filly. She ran great and I'm thrilled for Kenny. We'll get back home and regroup and figure out where we want to go next.”

Drury said one of the options for the colt is the Breeders' Cup Classic on Nov. 7 at Keeneland.

“It certainly is a possibility, along with a lot of other races,” Drury said. “I think the big thing is to get him back home and make sure he's OK. He seems to be fine this morning.”

A minor foot injury kept Art Collector out of the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5, but he was ready for the Preakness, which Drury called “the biggest day of my life.”

“It was exciting,” Drury said. “I wish we could have ran a little better, but that being said I'm proud of my horse. He took me to a place I never got to go to before. We're going to be fine. We just need to regroup a little bit and figure out what to do next.”

Grupo Seven C Stable LLC's Jesus' Team, who finished third at 40-1, exited the Preakness in good order, said trainer Jose D'Angelo.

“I'm very happy for my horse and my team. My horse ran good. He ran a fast time in the stretch,” D'Angelo said. “Our next plan….maybe the Breeders' Cup.”

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Thousand Words Backed Up by Family Deeds

The adage reckons a picture to be worth 1,000 words. Of course, as has been remarked, that means 1,001 words must be worth more than a picture. (On which wiseguy basis, I will generously trade this column for that Rembrandt in your loft.) But then it might take something closer to 1,000 pages to record everything the owners of Thousand Words (Pioneerof the Nile) have experienced over the past year.

This colt gave a literal quality to their topsy-turvy fortunes when rearing and toppling in the Derby preliminaries, sending Bob Baffert’s lieutenant Jimmy Barnes to hospital and himself back to the barn in mild disgrace. For the Albaugh family, the sudden deflation must have taken them back to the numbing split-second when Dennis’ Moment (Tiznow), stumbling out of the gate, threw away a juvenile championship at the Breeders’ Cup last fall.

Yet between those dispiriting bookends, their stable has been achieving some quite remarkable things–so much so, in fact, that success for Thousand Words in the GI Preakness S. would perhaps put Dennis Albaugh in contention for an Eclipse Award of his own.

Last month, in the space of three days, Dale Romans saddled two Ellis Park debut winners to follow up in graded stakes at Churchill: Sittin On Go (Brody’s Cause) in the GIII Iroquois S.; and Girl Daddy (Uncle Mo) in the GIII Pocahontas S. In the process, each earned the first 10 starting points for the 2021 Derby and Oaks, respectively.

By the time those gates are secured and opened, perhaps, we might finally be restored to those simple indulgences past that now seem so decadent; measurable, as well as anything, by the notion of a crowded infield on the first Saturday in May. But if the whole of society can’t get ahead of itself, right now, then certainly nor can those whose aspirations are contingent on a conveyance as unpredictable as the Thoroughbred.

The Albaughs won’t need telling that, not least after Sittin On Go’s success earlier on the card intimated that the force might be with Thousand Words in the GI Kentucky Derby. In the event, they were reserved the cruellest portion of the hollowness that must have filtered from the deserted grandstands into the hearts of all those whose privilege, in making that coveted walkover, had been rendered so bittersweet.

But our business is all about the long game. And the kind of calls that these guys are making will surely flatten even such bumps in the road as unaccountable as the slips and flips of Dennis’ Moment and Thousand Words. Because even with an unbeaten colt and filly on track for the Breeders’ Cup, the Albaugh family’s potential impact on next year’s Classic scene could prove to be broader still.

The way Not This Time has started at Taylor Made, we could be looking at one of the most exciting young stallions of recent times. I can’t resist repeating that I’ve been in his corner throughout, annually banging the drum in our midwinter stallion survey. And he has overcome even that ruinous disadvantage to set a searing pace in the freshman’s championship. His 13 scorers from just 27 starters to date are headed by the brilliant Princess Noor, at $1.35 million the most expensive 2-year-old by a rookie ever sold at OBS.

While there’s plenty of Nerud-Tartan dash in his family (two of Ta Wee’s five named foals put her 2×3 behind his second dam), the beauty about Not This Time is that he is so eligible to consolidate this early promise–in terms both of build and pedigree, as a Giant’s Causeway half-brother to Liam’s Map.

In his own track career Not This Time had already introduced the Albaughs to the rough with the smooth: he won an Ellis Park maiden and the Iroquois, just like Sittin On Go, but then narrowly failed to run down Classic Empire (Pioneerof the Nile) at the Breeders’ Cup (ceding first run, the pair seven lengths clear) before being forced into premature retirement by injury.

He’s out of the family’s foundation investment, Miss Macy Sue (Trippi), a $42,000 2-year-old who became a graded stakes sprinter. Mr. Albaugh bought out his racing partner and resolved to give the young mare every chance with her first covers: A.P. Indy, Unbridled’s Song, Medaglia d’Oro, Giant’s Causeway. And that’s what I love about this operation: they came into the business with no pretensions, from Iowa, but bank on old-fashioned quality in a way that reproves many a Bluegrass horseman who cheapens the breed in slavish pursuit of fashion.

Now it turns out that you can have the best of both worlds. The Albaughs appear to have produced a legitimate commercial heir to Giant’s Causeway; and, in the sire of Sittin On Go, may yet give us a second.

Brody’s Cause, similarly, would succeed for the best of reasons: he was bought as a yearling as the son of a proven stallion, from a regal family. Go back to his fifth dam, in fact, and you’ll find a Bold Ruler half-sister to Somethingroyal.

He stands at Spendthrift–the family’s partner, incidentally, in pushing a seven-figure boat out for Thousand Words as a yearling–and the Albaughs supported him at market by giving $65,000 for his very first foal, a January 11 colt bred by and delivered at Wynnstay Farm, as a weanling at the Keeneland November Sale. Returning him to the same ring last September, they set a reserve at the same price, only for bidding to stall at $62,000. That’s how Sittin On Go is still in their stable; that’s how these ups and downs can even out.

Let’s not forget that Thousand Words had soured in the spring and would not have lined up for a May Derby, either. Turning him round to beat poor old Honor A. P. (Honor Code) in their Derby prep has been an achievement commensurate with the Preakness record beckoning Baffert. But Romans, the family’s principal trainer, may yet prove equal to an equivalent challenge with Dennis’ Moment, who returned to the worktab just this week.

That colt, remember, is by Tiznow–who shared one of the great Breeders’ Cup duels with Giant’s Causeway. Proper stallions, these, as favored by proper horsemen. Between Romans, bloodstock agent Barry Berkelhammer, and Albaugh’s son-in-law and racing manager Jason Loutsch, this is an exemplary crew. And if Mr. Albaugh is already building a legacy, that’s because his team are using durable, high-caliber materials: proven stallions, deep families, speed that will stretch through a second turn.

So there’s one picture that really would be worth a Thousand Words–and that’s one that shows him draped in a blanket of Black-Eyed Susans.

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$100K Trainer Bonus Returns for Preakness Weekend

For the fourth consecutive year, the Maryland Jockey Club is offering the $100,000 Sentient Jet Trainer Bonus to horsemen that accumulate the most points during stakes races over GI Preakness S. weekend, Oct. 1-3 at Pimlico Race Course.

Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen captured the $50,000 prize in both 2017 and 2018 but finished second to Brad Cox in 2019.

Led by the 145th running of the Preakness, presented this year as the final jewel in a refashioned Triple Crown and a “Win and You”re In” qualifier for the Nov. 7 GI Breeders’ Cup Classic, a total of 15 Thoroughbred stakes, nine graded, worth $3.35 million will be contested over three days.

Trainers who run a minimum of five horses in the 15 stakes races during Preakness weekend will be eligible for bonus money, with $50,000 going to the trainer with the most points, $25,000 for second, $12,000 for third, $7,000 for fourth, $4,000 for fifth and $2,000 for sixth.

Points are accumulated for finishing first (10 points), second (seven), third (five) and fourth (three) and by having a starter (one) in each of Pimlico’s Thoroughbred stakes.

Included among the participating races: the GIII Chick Lang S. (Oct. 1); GIII Pimlico Special (Oct. 2); and in addition to the Preankess Oct. 3, races will included the GII Dinner Party S., Black-Eyed Susan S., GIII Frank J. De Francis Memorial Dash, GIII Miss Preakness and GIII Gallorette S.

Nominations for all 15 Thoroughbred stakes close Thursday, Sept. 17. For the complete rundown of races, visit www.laurelpark.com

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