Baffert Has More Than Sprinters

April Mayberry, whose Churchill Downs barn was Cavonnier’s temporary home for the Kentucky Derby, says she has never seen trainer Bob Baffert get nervous. But she may be overrating her colleague, because a week ago, on the day that Baffert tried to win the Derby with a horse that was both a gelding and a California-bred, he left his binoculars back at the hotel.

Consequently, Baffert couldn’t find Cavonnier for the first mile of what will be remembered as one of the most thrilling Derbies ever run. It wasn’t until the other night, at their Huntington Beach home, that Bob and Sherry Baffert popped in the videotape of the Derby and watched the entire 1 1/4 miles.

About 100 yards before the wire, with Cavonnier holding a clear lead and Grindstone appearing to have too much ground to make up, Baffert shouted to his wife, “I’m gonna win it this time!”

He didn’t, of course. On the TV screen, Grindstone’s nose still got to the finish line before Cavonnier’s, but now Grindstone has quickly been retired because of a chipped knee and Cavonnier, an afterthought at Baffert’s Santa Anita barn only two months ago, probably will be the favorite when Pimlico runs the Preakness next Saturday. It’s a cheap way for the 43-year-old Baffert to visit a track he’s never seen before.

Cavonnier will breeze at Churchill Downs on Monday or Tuesday, then be flown to Baltimore on Wednesday. Also aboard that plane will be Prince Of Thieves and Editor’s Note, who will be trying to give their trainer, Wayne Lukas, a third consecutive Preakness victory and a seventh consecutive victory in a Triple Crown race.

The comparisons will be drawn between Baffert and Lukas, the former quarter-horse trainers who came out of the bushes to run 1-2 in the Derby. Lukas switched to thoroughbreds full time in 1978, about 14 years before Baffert did. At the zenith of their quarter-horse careers, they worked at Los Alamitos, winning almost 900 races at the Orange County track. Baffert even did something there Lukas never had--he rode three horses to victory.

As a thoroughbred trainer, the silver-haired Baffert has found the expert-with-sprinters label difficult to shed.

“I do love a fast horse,” he said. “But now, after the Derby, maybe I’ll shake that sprinter deal. I’ve been plagued with [the label] all these years.”

Before Baffert’s near-miss in the Derby, his biggest national broadside was Thirty Slews’ victory at Gulfstream Park in the 1992 Breeders’ Cup Sprint--the shortest race on the card. A few days before the Derby, just to show that you can’t take the quarter horse out of the man, Baffert jokingly referred to the distance Cavonnier would be running as “a mile and 440 yards.”

Reality slapped Baffert in the face on Derby day, when he led his two horses--Cavonnier and Semoran, who would finish 14th--on that long walk from the barn to the paddock in front of more than 140,000 people.

“I felt like Wyatt Earp,” said the trainer who grew up with cattle and chickens on a ranch in Nogales, Ariz. “I thought I was going to the O.K. Corral.”

Early on Derby day, the pundits still couldn’t figure out what to do with Unbridled’s Song, the logical favorite but a colt eligible to put his sore foot in his mouth. As the bets rolled in, the Baffert entry became the temporary favorite. Cavonnier and Semoran were 10-1 on the morning line, and went off at $5.60-to-1, a slightly lower price than Grindstone.

“When they had me favored, I thought it must have been all those mint juleps kicking in,” Baffert said. “But then somebody explained to me that the pools included all the California money. They were still on the bandwagon from [Cavonnier winning] the Santa Anita Derby.”

At the wire, Baffert thought Cavonnier and Chris McCarron had held on. Minutes later, the photo of the finish in hand, the placing judges hung up Grindstone’s number.

“I know what I wanted to say, but I didn’t say anything,” Baffert said. “The monsignor was standing next to me.”

Bob and Barbara Walter, the breeders and owners of Cavonnier, had brought along their good friend, Msgr. Tom Keys, the vicar general of the Santa Rosa diocese. He had also been at Santa Anita in 1991, the day that the Walters’ Charmonnier had won the California Cup Classic.

Baffert had made two plane reservations out of Louisville the morning after the Derby--one at 6 a.m., in case he had been trounced, the other at 11:30, in case there would be things to rehash.

That 11:30 plane took Baffert to Phoenix and Turf Paradise, one of the tracks of his roots. He was saddling a 2-year-old, something called The Texas Tunnel, for something called the Great Arizona Futurity Shoot-Out.

Running for a purse of $129,999 at a distance of three-eighths of a mile, The Texas Tunnel finished third. Figures. Baffert just can’t train sprinters anymore.

Horse Racing Notes

Geri, the best second stringer in any trainer’s barn, is the 6-5 favorite against three rivals in today’s $582,000 Pimlico Special at Baltimore. Bill Mott, who will saddle Geri, also trains Cigar, who won last year’s Special for victory No. 7 in his 14-race winning streak. Geri, who has won six in a row, will be ridden by Jerry Bailey and will carry 118 pounds. Also in the field are Mott trainees Wekiva Springs, ridden by Mike Smith carrying 118 pounds; Key Of Luck, Gary Stevens riding, 120 pounds, and Star Standard, Pat Day riding, 111 pounds. Geri and Wekiva Springs were 1-2 in the Oaklawn Handicap last month.