Nice and easy

Real Quiet keeps juice in tank during final workout

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Posted: Wednesday June 03, 1998 03:00 PM

Real Quiet will try and become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978 (AP)

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) -- Dana Barnes was sailing along on the back of the bay colt when she received the word on her radio.

"Easy," trainer Bob Baffert told the exercise rider after Real Quiet went the first one-eighth mile of his final workout for Saturday's Belmont Stakes in 11 4-5 seconds.

"Slow him down. Let's keep the juice in the tank," said Baffert, watching from the Churchill Downs stands Tuesday as the Kentucky Derby-Preakness winner worked five-eighths of a mile in 1:00 4/5 and galloped three-quarters in 1:13 3/5. The official clocking for five furlongs was 1:01.

"It was nice and easy," Baffert said. "I just didn't want him to do too much. He's really fit. He wanted to go. Dana said he was just galloping. The main thing is just keeping him happy. If they're happy and sound, those good horse get there."

Real Quiet arrived with Baffert in New York about 10:30 p.m. ET.

Baffert, who traveled with the horse, wore a filter mask because he is allergic to hay and straw. The only other time he flew with a horse was last year when he accompanied Silver Charm to New York for that colt's unsuccessful bid to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

In the 1 1/2-mile Belmont, Real Quiet could meet as many as 11 other 3-year-olds, including Victory Gallop, runnerup in both the Derby and Preakness.

"That's what a million dollars [the Belmont Purse] will do," Mike Pegram, owner of the colt, said of the fairly large Belmont field.

The colt already was named when Pegram bought him as a yearling for $17,000. He then was nicknamed The Fish because of his narrow build.

Pegram said if he had renamed the colt, "it would have been Tropical Fish, but I'm superstitious about changing names."

"The better horses I have, the fewer superstitions I have," said Baffert, who then joked, "I get very religious before a big race."

One superstition Baffert admitted to was that throwing a hat on a bed is bad luck.

That's what his wife, Sherry, did during the week of Silver Charm's loss by three-quarters of a length to Touch Gold in the Belmont. She also threw a hat on a bed before Real Quiet won the Preakness, but Baffert decided that since it landed on a dress, it didn't actually touch the bed.

Should Real Quiet become the 12th Triple Crown champion, he would earn a $5 million bonus offered by Visa, and his purses for the three races would total a little more than $2 million.

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