Baffert Back With Two Derby Candidates

Trainer Bob Baffert took exception to The Times’ list of 10 top races of 1996, which was published Wednesday.

“The Derby No. 2?” Baffert said. “That wasn’t one of the best races of the year, it was the worst.”

If you’re the trainer of the second-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, as Baffert was last year with Cavonnier, this is an understandable observation. Instead of having his name hanging from the eaves at Churchill Downs with Whirlaway, Count Fleet, Citation, Secretariat and Seattle Slew, Cavonnier has probably found a niche with Hudson County, Laser Light, Coax Me Chad and Strodes Creek, some Derby runners-up who were easily forgotten. Unless a horse’s name is Native Dancer, whose only career loss came when he was a head short of Dark Star in the roughly run 1953 Derby, the second-place finishers in Louisville get lost in the roses.

“The best race of the year?” Baffert said to himself, before answering his own question: “I’d say it was the Santa Anita Derby.”

That was the race Cavonnier won a month before Churchill Downs. After the Derby, the California-bred gelding’s career was soon over: He finished a worn-out fourth in the Preakness two weeks later, and three weeks after that he broke down in the Belmont Stakes.

Now Baffert is back with two more Derby candidates in Silver Charm and In Excessive Bull. Silver Charm, the Del Mar Futurity winner whose fall campaign was wiped out by a fever at Santa Anita, is a lazy workhorse who will need extra time, while In Excessive Bull seems to be the type who’s ready at every asking.

“The Bull,” as Baffert calls him, rebounded from his third-place finish in the Hollywood Futurity to win the California Breeders’ Champion Stakes, and his next assignment is the 1 1/16-mile Santa Catalina Stakes on Feb. 2.

The compact In Excessive Bull is built like a quarter horse, a breed that Baffert used to train, and to be a Derby contender he will have to run considerably farther than one. The seven-furlong California Breeders’ Champion is not exactly a Triple Crown signpost--although Snow Chief did win the Preakness after winning the stake as a 2-year-old--and In Excessive Bull was all out to beat Photarc, a lightly regarded Baffert trainee, by a head a week ago.

Baffert sees the glass as half-full. “The Bull showed me more in that race than Cavonnier did,” he said. “They ran down Cavonnier and beat him. The Bull toughed it out and hung on.”

Cavonnier had run 13 times by the time he got to Churchill Downs, where only two other horses had been campaigned more heavily. The agenda has been different for In Excessive Bull, who has three wins, one second and a third in five starts.

“At least he got a lot of seasoning out of the Hollywood Futurity,” Baffert said. “But I still say that the track was against him. I was mad at Hollywood Park about the way they treated it before the race. It was so bad on the outside that horses that drew out there didn’t have a chance.”

Swiss Yodeler, the winner, is a speedy horse who broke from the No. 3 post. In Excessive Bull was No. 9.

“Swiss Yodeler out-broke my horse by nine lengths,” Baffert said. “There’s no way that’s going to happen if the track is right.”

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Ricks Natural Star--yes, that Ricks Natural Star--is in training at Turf Paradise and may run soon. As usual, the options are broad for William Livingston, the quirky owner who made a cause celebre out of the cheap 8-year-old by running him in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. After that last-place finish at Woodbine, Livingston picked up a $5,000 appearance fee when his horse beat only one rival in a quarter horse race at Los Alamitos.

Livingston, whose trainer is Casey Jones, said that Ricks Natural Star could run in either a $7,500 claiming race or a $25,000 stake.

“He might get a piece of the purse if he ran in the stake,” Livingston said. “If we run him against claimers, there’s the chance that somebody might claim him just to retire him.”

If Breeders’ Cup officials had had that option before their race in Canada, they would have taken up a collection. Ricks Natural Star, who has won twice in 25 starts, hasn’t won since June 1993.

Horse Racing Notes

Laffit Pincay won two races Saturday, giving him a career total of 3,042 at Santa Anita. Because of an error in the track’s media guide, it was reported last week that Pincay was a few victories short of 3,000. He reached the 8,500 mark overall Thursday. . . . One of Pincay’s victories Saturday came as a substitute for Chris McCarron, out the last two days because of flu. . . . If McCarron returns today he’ll ride Track Gal, the 2-1 morning-line favorite in the El Conejo Handicap. . . . Trainer John Sadler double-entered Track Gal this weekend and scratched the 6-year-old mare from Saturday’s Monrovia Handicap. . . . Gary Stevens and Corey Nakatani are expected back today from Saudi Arabia, where they rode in Friday’s $1.4-million Crown Prince Cup. Stevens won aboard Coup d’Argent and Nakatani was fifth aboard Powerful Punch. . . . Alphabet Soup and Paying Dues are expected to run a week from today in the $200,000 San Pasqual Handicap. In the Breeders’ Cup at Woodbine, Alphabet Soup won the Classic and Paying Dues finished second in the Sprint.