Baffert Is Not Real Quiet About Triple Crown Chances

BALTIMORE — Larry Damore, trainer Bob Baffert’s exercise rider, answered the phone at the Pimlico stakes barn about 8 a.m. Sunday. William T. Young, the Kentucky owner-breeder who’s won Triple Crown races with the Wayne Lukas-trained Tabasco Cat, Timber Country and Grindstone, was calling.

“Is Wayne there?” Young said.

“Wayne who?” Damore said.

“Wayne Lukas,” Young said.

“This is Baffert’s barn,” Damore said.

Realizing he’d misdialed, Young asked for Baffert. Their ages are almost two generations apart, and they don’t race horses together, but they belonged to the same fraternity, Young at the University of Kentucky and Baffert at the University of Arizona.

Damore went out to a bench in front of the barn, where Baffert was sitting high on the back, giving an interview to a group of reporters.

“William T. Young’s on the phone,” Damore said.

“I knew he’d switch,” said Baffert, hopping off the bench to talk to one of Wayne Lukas’ major clients.

Back at the bench minutes later, Baffert said:

“I told him I didn’t have any room [for more horses]. Seriously, he called to congratulate me.”

This was the morning after the 123rd Preakness, and the wise-cracking Baffert was honing his material for the invasion of New York in about three weeks. On Saturday, Real Quiet, having already won the Kentucky Derby, also dominated the Preakness, and he can become the 12th horse--and the first since Affirmed in 1978--to sweep the Triple Crown if he wins the Belmont Stakes on June 6.

“It’s two down and one to go,” jockey Kent Desormeaux said late Saturday, after Real Quiet’s 2 1/4-length win. “Now we’re looking at history.”

Baffert, the first trainer to score wins in the Derby and the Preakness in successive years, feels better about Real Quiet’s chances in the Belmont than he did about Silver Charm last year. Silver Charm missed the sweep, and the $5-million Triple Crown bonus, when Touch Gold beat him by three-quarters of a length in New York.

“Touch Gold had a little bit of an edge on us,” Baffert said, “because he skipped the grind of the Derby and just ran in the Preakness. I had to train Silver Charm hard, all the way through the Santa Anita Derby and the Kentucky Derby, and he won the Preakness on blood and guts and all that took a lot out of him before the Belmont. This horse [Real Quiet] just inhales horses. I never had a horse train like this horse did [at Churchill Down before the Preakness]. It takes a pretty good horse to win the Derby and then come back and toy with them like he did [Saturday].”

Already, the field for the 1 1/2-mile Belmont is taking shape, and there will probably be more horses running than the six that faced Silver Charm. The three horses that finished behind Real Quiet in the Preakness--Victory Gallop, who’s been second in both Triple Crown races; Classic Cat and Hot Wells--are virtually definite. Others under consideration are Coronado’s Quest, Yarrow Brae, Hanuman Highway, Thomas Jo, Limit Out, Raffie’s Majesty, Rubiyat, Saratoga Springs and the maiden Nationalore.

“As long as it’s the same bunch and my horse comes back all right, I’m fine,” Baffert said. “I don’t see a horse in there of this quality. If I don’t screw up between now and then, he should win the Belmont. Even the post position up there shouldn’t matter. I don’t think Coronado’s Quest is a mile-and-a-half horse, and if I change my mind, I could run Commitisize [a fast sprinter] in the Belmont.”

Real Quiet will be flown today to Kentucky, where he will train at Churchill Downs, just as Silver Charm did last year. Baffert’s tentative plan is to ship Real Quiet to Belmont Park three days before the June 6 race, after the colt’s major work has been completed.

“I won’t take him to New York unless he’s 100%,” Baffert said. “I’ve got the kind of owner [Mike Pegram] who would understand. If he has any problems, I just wouldn’t put him on the plane. I’ll know when he starts working at Churchill.”

With many trainers, such talk would be routinely dismissed, but Baffert has shown that no race supersedes his concern for the horse. He scratched Silver Charm because of a minor foot bruise the day before this year’s Santa Anita Handicap; he didn’t run Indian Charlie in the Preakness, even though he would have been favored over Real Quiet.

That bench the trainer sat on Sunday morning rested in front of the long white fence that separates the Pimlico stakes barn from a small grazing area for the horses. On yellow plates on the white fence are the names of the 11 Triple Crown champions. Baffert’s bench was between the names of Secretariat, who swept the series 25 years ago, and Sir Barton, who was the first Triple Crown winner, in 1919.

In another part of the stakes barn, David Cross, the trainer of Classic Cat and 1983 Kentucky Derby winner Sunny’s Halo, was asked what it would take to stop Real Quiet in the Belmont.

“Somebody else would have to get very lucky and show up with a horse that had his running shoes on,” Cross said. “I’ve got a horse who’s pretty good right now, and I’d like to upset him. But let’s face it, none of these horses really want to run a mile and a half.”

Except Bob Baffert’s.