After a star-crossed weekend for two of his Triple Crown contenders, Bob Baffert started the work week with some gruesome news from California.
Mourinho, the Smarty Jones Stakes winner at Oaklawn Park, was put down on Monday after sustaining a broken sesamoid bone during a workout at Santa Anita Park, the Hall of Fame trainer's West Coast base.
"He took a bad step at the wire," said Baffert, who was in Ocala, Fla., for a sale of 2-year-olds in training and was notified of the accident by assistant Jimmy Barnes.
"It's very sad," Baffert said. "He was a neat horse. His stall is right outside my office. I would see him every day. You get attached to them and something like this happens; it's just tough. You never know what's going to happen."
Mourinho had worked five furlongs Monday in company with stablemate Restoring Hope.
The Kentucky-bred son of 2010 Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver was being considered for Saturday's Grade 2 $900,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn or the Grade 3 Sunland Derby March 25 at Sunland Park in New Mexico.
Mourinho earned $179,360 in five career starts, winning two. Second in the Speakeasy Stakes and Grade 3 Bob Hope Stakes, the colt shipped to Oaklawn for his 3-year-old debut and won the $147,000 Smarty Jones by a front-running 3 1/4 lengths Jan. 15. Going one mile against four rivals with Lake Hamilton High School graduate Drayden Van Dyke aboard, Mourinho wore blinkers in the Smarty Jones, his first race outside California and around two turns.
In a larger field and under more pace pressure, Mourinho ran fourth in Oaklawn's Grade 3 $500,000 Southwest Stakes Feb. 19 at a mile and sixteenth.
"He had a great mind, he had speed, he was sound," Baffert said. "He always showed up. He never ran a bad race."
Mourinho went for $30,000 as a yearling in the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale and then for $625,000, to Phoenix Thoroughbreds, at the March 2017 Ocala Breeders' Sales of 2-year-olds in training.
The news about Mourinho followed a racing weekend that two of Baffert's Kentucky Derby hopefuls ran at Santa Anita, both crossing the finish line first but one losing on a controversial decision.
Justify's 6 1/2-length triumph Sunday in a first-level allowance came on the heels of McKinzie's disqualification in the previous day's Grade 2 San Felipe. Bolt d'Oro, making his 3-year-old debut, was declared the San Felipe winner, prompting the online headline "Baffert steamed at stews."
With the two horses bumping in the stretch, the track's three stewards posted an inquiry and Javier Castellano, aboard Bolt d'Oro, filed an objection against Mike Smith and McKinzie.
"McKinzie keep coming out, keep coming out. He bump it, bump it, bump it. A light bump, but still he intimidated my horse," said Castellano, on Bolt d'Oro in a race for the first time.
Needless to say, Baffert viewed the outcome differently: "Javier, he should have been a lawyer. I don't know what they're (stewards) looking at, but apparently he talked them into it. That's why they should never talk to the jockey and just watch it themselves."
Bolt d'Oro missed a previous Kentucky Derby prep because of a muscle pull and "he was only about 80 percent today," said owner and trainer Mick Ruis. "A lot of people thought we were making an excuse but I also said that I thought we could win. To beat a horse like McKinzie, as fit as Bob had him, was incredible. Even in defeat, you know, I would have been OK with it."
Justify so impressed bettors that he closed as the 6-1 second choice in Pool 3 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager. A mutuel field of "all other 3-year-olds" was made the 4-1 favorite for the May 5 classic at Churchill Downs in Louisville while Bolt d'Oro and McKinzie were the third and fourth betting choices at 7-1 and 9-1, respectively.
Solomini, last year's Grade 1 $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile runner-up at Del Mar, closed at 17-1 before his scheduled 3-year-old debut in the Rebel.
Justify, a Feb. 18 debut winner at seven furlongs, is trying to defy history. No horse has won the Kentucky Derby without racing as a 2-year-old since Apollo in 1882. Unraced 2-year-olds are 0-for-61 in the Derby since 1937 with Arkansas Derby winners Bodemeister second in 2012 and Curlin third in 2007. Battle of Midway, fighting the Apollo jinx, placed third in the 2017 Derby.
Hall of Famer Smith gave Justify high marks after the colt went 1:35.73 in the mud on Sunday.
"For a young horse he has a great mind," Smith said. "That might allow him to catch up even sooner than a normal horse, because of his talent and the mind to go with it." The 2005 Derby-winning rider of Giacomo, Smith said Justify reminds him of Hall of Famer Easy Goer: "Just a big ol' red horse with a big, powerful stride."
Among horses that have raced at Oaklawn, Southwest winner My Boy Jack closed at 31-1, Sporting Chance at 39-1, Bravazo at 40-1 and Combatant at 57-1. Sporting Chance, last year's Grade 1 Hopeful winner at Saratoga, returns in the Rebel after a troubled third-place finish in the Southwest, the Tiznow colt's 3-year-old debut. Bravazo, who like Sporting Chance is trained by Hall of Famer Wayne Lukas, won the Grade 2 Risen Star at Fair Grounds after an Oaklawn victory Jan. 13. Combatant has run second in his last three races, all stakes, for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.
Sporting Chance and Combatant are likely starters in the Rebel, which offers points on a 50-20-10-5 basis to the top four finishers for a possible Kentucky Derby start. Also expected is the Todd Pletcher-trained Magnum Moon, another horse unraced at 2 and racing for longtime Oaklawn patrons Robert and Lawana Low of Springfield, Mo.
Entries will be drawn Wednesday for the Rebel and two other stakes on Saturday's card, the Grade 2 $350,000 Azeri for older fillies and mares and the $300,000 Essex Handicap for older horses. All three races are a mile and sixteenth.
Sports on 03/13/2018