By Sid Fernando
It seems that Bob Baffert can’t help being part of the news cycle, whether it’s winning graded races recently with Imagination and Newgate, among others, or creating chatter with leading 3-year-old colt Nysos getting a break from training, or buying a sale-topping filly by the inexpensive Win Win Win for $1.8 million at the OBS March Sale of 2-year-olds in Training a few days ago.
Win Win Win stands at Ocala Stud for $5,000 this year and is represented by his first crop of 2-year-olds. A son of the Japanese-bred Sunday Silence horse Hat Trick from the Smarty Jones mare Miss Smarty Pants, Win Win Win was bred and raced by Charlotte Weber’s Live Oak Stud/Plantation and won five of 12 starts, earning $601,600. His standout victory came as a 4-year-old in the 7-fur. G1 Forego at Saratoga, a race in which he defeated such talented Grade 1 winners as Complexity, Lexitonian, Whitmore, and Mind Control. At three, he was also second to Vekoma in the 9-fur. G2 Blue Grass, won the one-mile Manila Stakes on turf at Belmont from Grade 1 winners Fog of War and Casa Creed, and set a track record of 1:20.89 in the Pasco Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.
Win Win Win was obviously better at 7 fur. than at distances at more than a mile. He was ninth in the Kentucky Derby and seventh in the Preakness. He might have done more on turf had he been pointed to a greater degree in that direction—that is the preferred surface of the Sunday Silence line—but his Pasco track record made sure he’d try the dirt again at the same distance, and it worked for trainer Michael Trombetta in the Forego, which turned out to be the horse’s last race.
Ocala Stud recruited the horse, bred its Union Rags mare Unanimity to him, and sold the resulting foal for $1.8 milllion to Baffert client Amr Zedan’s Zedan Racing with Donato Lanni as agent after the filly breezed a quarter-mile in a rapid :20 1/5—fastest at the sale.
“Amr watches all the breeze videos,” said Baffert Saturday morning from Santa Anita. “He was excited about this filly and called to make sure we were looking at her.”
Though Zedan buys from all segments of the auction market, he’s had some stunning successes with 2-year-olds in training, including the DQ’d winner of the Derby, Medina Spirit, a Protonico colt who cost him only $35,000 at the OBS July sale four years ago.
At the opposite end of the price spectrum, Zedan purchased the Uncle Mo Grade 1 winner Arabian Knight for $2.3 million at OBS April. That colt happened to be on track while Baffert was speaking. “Man, Arabian Knight just went by, and he looked great,” he said.
The filly
“She worked well, she moved well, and she’s made right,” Baffert said of the Win Win Win filly. “You gotta forget how they’re bred at a two-year-old sale. It’s about athleticism. The way she worked in twenty and one was ridiculous. We’re here to buy fast horses, and it’s been proven that horses that work fast are better than horses that work in ten and three. Now, we’re looking for the way they move and speed, but you can be fooled by that synthetic track—some won’t work as well when we get ’em home and work on dirt. It’s tough developing young horses. Sometimes they’ll get hurt at the farm—they’re not even breezing. We have one like that right now that we gave a lot of money for. But, it’s all about the experience we’ve had—you know, I’ve had some decent luck at these sales. This filly is well balanced, she’s light, not heavy, and she’s got a nice neck and shoulder. She was very obvious; there’s nothing secret about her. I think she’s the first one I’ve bought from Ocala Stud. They do a good job with their horses, and she looks very sound. So, we’ll see what happens. Hopefully, she’ll run, hopefully she’ll win a grade one race and we’ll have to make that pedigree. More than anything, we want to have fun with the clients. Win the races, sell them, reload, and buy more horses. But we’re not looking for a horse to make money with; we’re looking for a horse to win races and have some fun with first.”
On Nysos
“I’m being very cautious with him,” Baffert said. “He’s not injured or anything like that. But, I’m not going to the Derby anyway, and the owners want to race him next year, too, so there’s no reason not to give him some time. Those people are in it for the real enjoyment of it. Now, it’s all over Twitter this and that; I should have just come out and said something. He is a superstar; I mean a real superstar. I’m being very cautious with him. He’s like a horse like Flightline. Those types put everything into it, and you gotta give ’em time to recover.”
Baffert knows this as a feature of the sireline. He trained Indian Charlie; watched that one’s son Uncle Mo have issues on the Classics trail; trains Arabian Knight, who he’s also had to finesse; and is cognizant that Uncle Mo’s son Nyquist—the sire of Nysos—had a freakish colt, New York Thunder, break down in the G1 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial at Saratoga.
That’s working with experience.