A year after winning the Triple Crown for a second time, Bob Baffert finds himself out of ammunition for the horse races that have defined his career.
The Hall of Fame trainer said Friday that Game Winner, last year's male juvenile champion, will not enter the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes June 8. The Candy Ride colt is 0-for-3 this year, placing fifth in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby May 4 after seconds in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby and Grade 2 Rebel Stakes.
Game Winner, said Baffert, "is not quite where I want him." The trainer has penciled in the Grade 1 Travers Aug. 24 at Saratoga for Game Winner after a prep race to be determined.
Game Winner is owned by Gary and Mary West, whose disqualified Kentucky Derby winner, Maximum Security, trained by Jason Servis, may use the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park as a comeback race.
With Grade 1 winners Improbable and Roadster off form, Baffert appears likely to go without a Triple Crown victory in the final year of a decade that he won the series twice. Champion American Pharoah, prepping twice at Oaklawn Park, became the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years in 2015. Justify last year became the first unraced-at-2 winner of the Kentucky Derby since 1882 and retired undefeated as the sport's 13th Triple Crown winner. Both American Pharoah and Justify were named Horse of the Year.
Baffert said Improbable, sixth in the Grade 1 Preakness May 18, is at WinStar Farm "for a couple weeks to freshen up" after his fourth start of the season. The City Zip colt made his 3-year-old debut at Oaklawn March 18, placing second by one length to Long Range Toddy in the first division of the $750,000 Rebel before Game Winner, also in his seasonal opener, was nosed out by Omaha Beach in the second division of the original $1 million race. Omaha Beach, trained by Richard Mandella, went on to win the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby by one length over Improbable and was favored in the Kentucky Derby before sidelined with an entrapped epiglottis.
Baffert still holds a strong hand on the Belmont Stakes undercard with McKinzie in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap and the Grade 1 Woody Stephens (seven furlongs) or Easy Goer (1 1/16 miles) possible for last-out Santa Anita stakes winner Mucho Gusto.
Preakness winner War of Will heads the expected field in the mile-and-half Belmont Stakes with possible opponents including the Preakness place and show horses, Everfast and Owendale, and fourth-place Kentucky Derby finisher Tacitus.
With Game Winner out, the strongest Oaklawn influence in the Belmont could be the Todd Pletcher-trained Intrepid Heart, whose maiden victory came Feb. 18 in Hot Springs on the Southwest Stakes undercard. Sold for $750,000 as a 2-year-old in training, the Tapit colt is a half-brother to 2014 Belmont runner-up Commissioner and 2 for 3 lifetime. Owners Robert and Lawana Low also campaigned 2018 Arkansas Derby and Rebel winner Magnum Moon, trained by Pletcher.
Sports on 05/26/2019