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Earning his oats Baffert no longer just the white-haired guy in a cowboy hat
Posted: Monday June 01, 1998 11:17 PM
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- Ten years ago, trainer Brian Mayberry sent his daughter to find out who had claimed a horse from him at Del Mar. "I came back and said, `I don't know who he is -- some white-haired guy in a cowboy hat," April Mayberry recalled Monday outside her barn at Churchill Downs. She knows the white-haired guy very well now because when trainer Bob Baffert brings horses to Churchill, he keeps them with Mayberry, and she cares for them when he is gone. Earlier Monday morning two of those horses, Silver Charm and Real Quiet, both Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners, were on the track. Silver Charm, who missed winning the Triple Crown when he finished second in the Belmont Stakes last year, worked seven-eighths of a mile in 1:24.45 in preparation for the Stephen Foster on June 13 at Churchill. It will be the gray colt's first start since he won the $4 million Dubai World Cup on March 28. Real Quiet, Baffert's and racing's Horse of the Moment, just galloped. He will work Tuesday, then be flown to New York where on Saturday he will try to win the Belmont Stakes and become racing's first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978. It appears 12 3-year-olds will challenge Real Quiet in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont. Only one of them, Victory Gallop, ran in the Derby and Preakness, finishing second in both. In the last 25 years, there have been 402 starters in the Kentucky Derby. Only 62 of those horses also ran in the Preakness and Belmont. The size of the Belmont field appears of no concern to Baffert or Mike Pegram, Real Quiet's owner. The size of his party for the race obviously doesn't bother Pegram, either. "There will be over 200, including Bobby's family," Pegram said. "When you win they want to come." Pegram donated $500 for food and $200 for beer for a cookout for backstretch personnel after training was finished on Monday. Should Real Quiet win, his earnings for the three races will total a little more than $7 million, including a $5 million bonus from Visa for any horse that wins the Triple Crown. Not bad for a colt who had surgery to straighten his front legs, then was sold for $17,000 as a yearling. Pegram, who grew up in Princeton, Indiana, got Baffert to turn to training thoroughbreds after he had been a success as a quarter-horse trainer. "I asked Bobby, `Why do you want to work at night and run for $4,000 when you can get a day job and run for $40,000,' " said Pegram, who owns 22 McDonald's franchises in Washington state. The first thoroughbred Baffert trained for Pegram was Hidden Royalty, the horse he claimed from April Mayberry's father. "We claimed him for $32,000 and lost him for $12,500," Pegram recalled. "Bobby's hand was shaking when he signed the claiming slip," recalled Brad McKenzie, an official at the Los Alamitos quarter-horse track and a friend of Baffert who was there that day. If there was any tension around Mayberry's barn concerning Real Quiet's bid for the Triple Crown, Baffert and Pegram were doing a first-class job of hiding it. Not even the fact that he has failed to win in six races at Belmont since 1991 annoys Baffert. "You've just got to enjoy the moment," he said.
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Triple Crown, take two: After falling just short in capturing the Triple Crown last year, Baffert now has Real Quiet on the verge of history