Safety in numbers

Baffert's Derby strategy puts quantity ahead of quality

On a cool California morning this week, Jill Baffert brought her new dog to Santa Anita Park just as her husband, horse trainer Bob Baffert, was finishing work for the morning. The dog is gorgeous, 18-week-old boxer. I leaned over to scratch the pooch behind his ears and noticed his bone-shaped name tag -- DERBY. Pretty funny. Baffert has won three of the last six Kentucky Derbies, so it's an appropriate name.

"Not only that," said Jill Baffert. "She's about the only Derby we're going to get this year." Bob laughed at that one, and so did everybody else hanging out trackside at Clockers' Corner at Santa Anita.

But is it true? On Saturday afternoon, Baffert will send out three starters in the 1 1/8-mile Santa Anita Derby, which is coming up as the deepest of all of the 2003 Kentucky Derby prep races. On April 12, he will start at least one -- and maybe two (keep reading) -- in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, another first-rate prep. That's five horses still under consideration.

It seems like a far cry from a year ago. When I talked to Baffert last year in the week leading up to the Santa Anita Derby, his only "prospect" was a sprinter named Danthebluegrassman. Baffert jokingly described himself as being in his own personal panic room, looking for a Derby horse. At least I thought he was joking.

Danthebluegrassman crapped out in the Santa Anita Derby. On that same day, War Emblem won the Illinois Derby and shortly after that, Baffert convinced Prince Ahmed bin Salman to buy War Emblem. That horse won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. So Baffert went from no hope to two jewels of the Triple Crown with moxie and some quick-fix training. Not too shabby.

And he did it because he likes playing in the Derby the way he likes breathing oxygen.

Baffert started this year with the best 3-year-old in America, 2002 Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner Vindication. He was injured and now is retired. There was the possibility that the filly, Composure, would run in the Derby, but she too was injured and retired. It has not been an easy winter for Baffert. "But you can't look backward at those things," he says. "Vindication was a Point Given-type horse. But that's over. This game is too tough to look back."

OK. Looking ahead... what does Baffert have left? In the Santa Anita Derby he has Breeders' Cup Juvenile runner-up Kafwain, who might not want to run nine furlongs. He has Domestic Dispute, who didn't fire in the March 16 San Felipe and gets one more chance. He has Indian Express, a majestic brown colt, son of Baffert-trained Indian Charlie, and even Baffert doesn't know what he can do.

"We don't know anything about any of these horses," says Baffert. "Not just mine, any of them, because they haven't gone a mile and an eighth. We'll know a lot more this weekend."

We know this much. A little more than a week ago Baffert got Bob and Beverly Lewis, who own Composure, to buy Senor Swinger, another 3-year-old who will probably run in the Wood. There's little to recommend about Senor Swinger, but the fact that Baffert bought him tells me he's trying to get to the Derby with quantity, rather than quality. He's hoping, with all these horses, that something rises to the top.

Why doesn't he have a standout horse, like Bobby Frankel's Derby front-runner Empire Maker or Frankel's Peace Rules or Atswhatimtalknbout, who is part owned by Steven Spielberg? Well, Vindication might have been that horse. As for the others, Ron Ellis, who trains Atswhatimtalknbout, has one theory. "Guys like Baffert, [D. Wayne Lukas], they buy horses that are bred for speed." Translation: Most of them aren't bred to go 10 furlongs on the first of May in an honestly run race. (Of course, War Emblem was a speedball, but he stole the Derby -- and brilliantly.)

But Baffert said something else to me this week: "It's early. There's still a month to go." No argument on that point. It is early. Looking at Baffert's Derby hand right now, it doesn't look like he has anything. But the man knows how to win the Kentucky Derby. And he lives for that chance. I'm not writing him off. Not even close.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

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