Collected continues to exceed expectation of ubertrainer Baffert
LLANO, Texas — When Bob Baffert’s horse, Collected, won the million-dollar Pacific Classic, the Hall of Fame trainer did not look happy. He said, “Collected is a good horse.” Not much more than that.
Baffert was downcast because the horse he wanted to win was another one in his busy stable: Arrogate, who entered the race as odds-on favorite and the leading candidate for Horse of the Year.
The most iconic human in this equine sport, the white-maned Baffert has been dreading a high-stakes duel between a chestnut owned by two of the most successful oil operators in Houston and a silver streak owned by a Saudi prince.
These are all clients Baffert wants to keep. Last year he finished second in earnings to his main rival, Todd Pletcher. If he can keep all his oil barons happy, Baffert, who’s won the Kentucky Derby four times, could dominate as he has before.
Peter Fluor and his family employ 81,000, and Bob Baffert would like to remain in that group. Fluor’s partner in oil and horses is Kane C. (K.C.) Weiner, who a decade ago discovered what became the Sugar Kane field, a major extension of the vast Eagleford Shale and a factor in Texas withstanding the Great Recession.
Yet these Houston oil tycoons are paupers compared to a prince in Saudi Arabia. You can hardly blame Baffert for making Khalid bin Abdullah his No. 1 priority.
Baffert was confident the princely Arrogate would prevail against Collected, 5-2 second choice in the 1¼ mile Grade 1 stakes at Del Mar, outside San Diego. Baffert and most other experts were too willing to toss out Arrogate’s previous race, on this same track, where he finished a strangely listless fourth – 15 lengths behind the winner, Accelerate, in the San Diego Handicap.
Baffert was counting on Accelerate to pressure Collected for the early lead in the Pacific Classic and set up a stretch run by Arrogate, ridden by Hall of Famer Mike Smith.
But Martin Garcia, Baffert’s second-string jockey, had the ideal No. 2 post, with Arrogate starting from the far outside. Garcia got the jump, and Accelerate could not. There was no contesting speed. Collected negotiated the quarter mile in a restful 23.8 seconds.
Arrogate belatedly found his legs in the middle of the stretch, but he finished a decisively beaten half-length back. Collected was not weakening.
“I may have messed up putting him in the San Diego,” Baffert said of Arrogate. “I think it got into his psyche.”
A surprising comment by Baffert, who has observed: “When a trainer says a horse didn’t like the track, it usually means he wasn’t ready to run. On any track.”
Another theory: the bigger error was sending Arrogate to the Dubai World Cup, in March. Sport of Kings, indeed. This race carries a $10 million purse, so perhaps it’s worth the risk.
The risk? It’s not unusual for horses to lose their edge after traveling half the globe for a grueling race in the desert and fitful sleep for a few Arabian nights. My guess, from the perspective of a rancher who tries, largely in vain, to commune with his horse: Something about that trip got into his psyche.
Baffert should not be blamed. Prince Khalid would insist on his horse being there, to prance in the winner’s circle of the World’s Richest Race. In front of his admiring people. He’d rather win the Dubai than the Derby.
For whatever reason, Arrogate lacked the energy at Del Mar that he showed elsewhere in winning seven races in a row, four of them Grade 1 stakes.
But hey, that should not be held against Collected. He’s a better racehorse than his trainer acknowledges.
One of the shrewdest judges of horseflesh in America, Baffert has never believed Collected could win at classic distance. After all, the colt’s sire, City Zip, was strictly a sprinter, as are most of his offspring. Baffert failed to notice – as was pointed out on this website a year ago — the multiple distance influences in the pedigree of Collected’s mom, Helena Bay.
Collected won an early Kentucky Derby prep, the 2016 Sham at Santa Anita, in his second lifetime start. After this miler, Baffert decided to extend his distance. But when Collected finished a dull fourth in the Southwest Stakes, he was pulled from the Derby Trail. Never mind the track was off that day at Oaklawn.
Collected rebounded with a front-end win over 1 1/8 miles at Sunland. Then he won the 1 1/16-mile Lexington Stakes to secure a start in the 2016 Preakness. He finished 10th and had the excuse of a track that looked like a river.
But his real problem, which went unpublicized in a media-starved sport, was Lyme Disease.
Collected took a 10-month leave to recover from this flu-like illness. When he began his 4-year-old campaign, he was bigger, stronger than what we saw in Baltimore on that drenching day in May. Eleven months after that debacle, he won the Santana Mile and then showed a craving for increased distance by winning the Grade 2 Californian in a stalking trip of 1 1/8 miles.
Throughout the summer, Collected has been outworking Arrogate, and Garcia would like to ride him in the 1¼-mile Breeders’ Cup Classic, which carries a $6 million purse and will be held at Del Mar on Nov. 4.
“I think he can go a mile and a quarter,” Garcia said after the Californian. “But I don’t think that guy . . . “ He motioned to Baffert and smiled . . . “wants me to, because he might beat Arrogate.”
Collected won the Precisionist Stakes in June at 1 1/16 miles, by 14 lengths over Accelerate, who in July became the first horse to beat Arrogate in two years. That blowout win by Collected confirmed Bafffert’s belief that “this middle distance is more his thing.”
Baffert planned to put Collected on the turf, where he began his career, finishing second in his debut. But this was an unorthodox idea, taking a healthy, fit horse who’s winning graded stakes on dirt (4-0 this year) and moving him to grass. The owners vetoed the turf transfer, and Collected got his first shot at Arrogate.
Chances are they will meet again, in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Baffert is anguished because Arrogate will have his third consecutive race on a track he doesn’t like. And there’s a contender from another barn: Steve Asmussen’s rising Gun Runner, who was second at Dubai but since has won two Grade 1 stakes. Gun Runner will be favored in Saturday’s Travers at Saratoga, the summer classic at America’s showcase track.
But in the Breeders’ Cup race that probably will determine the national champion, Collected will have the home-field advantage. Dilemma for Baffert Corp. It could be a lose-lose for him, at best a win-lose. Whatever happens, he’s likely to have at least one unhappy financial backer.