Blinkers Make for Fine Endings for River Bay, Real Quiet

Blinkers on, blinkers off--this can be the eternal question for trainers everywhere. A couple of trainers, Bob Baffert and Bobby Frankel, left Hollywood Park Sunday knowing that blinkers helped their horses, although the Hollywood Turf Cup was about half over before Frankel knew for sure.

River Bay had worked fantastically in blinkers, so Frankel left them on for the $500,000 race. But after three-quarters of a mile, River Bay was last in the 12-horse field. “I’m saying to myself, ‘What about the blinkers?’ ” Frankel said. “Those are the crazy things that go through a trainer’s mind when they’re running a race.”

In the stretch, before the rest of the field blinked, River Bay shot past Sandpit and the others, rolling to a 1 1/4-length victory that was the 4-year-old colt’s first in the United States.

In the race before the Turf Cup, Real Quiet, the less-ballyhooed part of the entry that Baffert saddled for owner Mike Pegram, won his first stake, bagging the $470,200 Hollywood Futurity by one length. Three races back, Baffert tried to get Real Quiet focused by adding blinkers, after the cheaply bought colt had failed to break his maiden in his first six starts. The result has been two wins and a third against a tough field at Churchill Downs.

“I guess Johnbill becomes the other horse,” Baffert said of Real Quiet’s highly regarded stablemate, who finished seventh, suffering his fifth loss in six starts. “I was disappointed in the way he ran, but he’s still a pretty good horse.”

In the mornings, Johnbill shows more than Real Quiet, but the Futurity win, in 1:41 1/5 for 1 1/16 miles, speaks for itself, leaving Baffert and Pegram with an early Kentucky Derby prospect that cost only $17,000 as a yearling.

“If the horse had been correct, they [breeder Little Hill Farm] probably wouldn’t have sold him,” Baffert said.

J.B. McKathan, the Florida bloodstock agent who sniffed out Silver Charm, Baffert’s Derby-Preakness winner, nicknamed Real Quiet “The Fish” before he ever ran a race.

“He had legs that looked like they came out of the same hole,” Baffert said. “So we told Pegram, who hadn’t been at the sale, that he was the kind of horse that reminded you of a tropical fish in a tank. You know, real pretty if you look at him sideways, but kind of narrow when you see him head- on.”

Kent Desormeaux, who rode Love Lock to victory in Saturday’s Starlet for 2-year-old fillies, is two for two with Real Quiet, also riding the Quiet American-Really Blue colt when he broke his maiden, on the seventh try, at Santa Anita on Oct. 18.

On Saturday, Baffert hesitated about even shipping Real Quiet over to Hollywood Park from Santa Anita, because the Inglewood track has been favoring speed horses. At Santa Anita, Desormeaux had won from off the pace with Real Quiet, and in the paddock Sunday he suggested the same tactics.

“I told Kent not to do that,” Baffert said. “Horses are not going to close on this track.”

Real Quiet lurked in fourth place early, was less than half a length behind Double Honor nearing the top of the stretch and protected the lead from mid-stretch home.

“At the three-eighths pole or the half-mile pole, I had to really ask him to slide through a spot,” Desormeaux said. “I had to work to get through. It got tight. The speed horse was tiring, and it was like a snake in front of him. But after I made my horse get through, he was just cantering. He got into a fluid canter and felt really, really good.”

Real Quiet, who now has two wins and five thirds in nine starts, earned $282,120. Coupled with Johnbill, he paid $5. Artax, running his second 1 1/16-mile race in less than a month, was a strong second, 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Nationalore, with Double Honor another length back in fourth place.

Artax broke his maiden by nine lengths on Nov. 16, and afterward, the Futurity trainer Randy Bradshaw was still enthusiastic about the colt.

“He’s going to be a good horse,” Bradshaw said. “This was only his third race and he’s short on experience. He stumbled coming out of the gate and he had a wide trip. Then he ducked in when [Chris McCarron] hit him. This race will take him one step forward.”

When Bobby Frankel attended the Arc de Triomphe in Paris this year, Henri Chalhoub promised him a horse. The promise was River Bay, whose French career was curtailed by illness this year. Back from a 4 1/2-month layoff, River Bay ran seventh in September in the Man o’ War Stakes at Belmont Park before being shipped to Frankel at Hollywood Park.

River Bay worked seven furlongs on Dec. 5 in a solid 1:25 4/5. He came back a week later with a half-mile in :47 1/5, the fastest of 21 horses that worked that distance that morning.

“He worked so well that I was scared that I did too much with him,” Frankel said.

River Bay’s late punch in the 1 1/2-mile Turf Cup added up to a $300,000 win in a time of 2:26 2/5. The Kentucky-bred son of Irish River and Buckeye Gal, 15-1 on the morning line, paid only $11.20 as the third choice. Awad finished second, three lengths better than favored Flag Down, and then came Sandpit, ending a 40-race career that netted $3.8 million, leaving him 15th on the money list.

This was River Bay’s sixth win in 11 starts, and his introduction to jockey Alex Solis couldn’t have gone better.

“When I got to the three-eighths pole,” Solis said, “there was only one way to describe what I was feeling: That was awesome! When I got him [outside], he flew home. What a horse. He ran like the favorite today.”

Moving up from third place, the 8-year-old Sandpit made the lead at the quarter pole, but couldn’t hold on.

“I got caught a little wide,” jockey Corey Nakatani said. “I was trying to save as much ground as I could, but he’s getting a little long in the tooth. He’s been great to everybody. I’ll take another one like him any day.”

Horse Racing Notes

The French-bred Golden Arches won her first race in four U.S. starts, taking the $100,000 Dahlia Handicap by half a length over Sonja’s Faith. Previously the 3-year-old filly had been second at Del Mar, third at Keeneland and sixth in the Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita. Chris McCarron rode the 9-10 favorite for trainer Ron McAnally. “She’s no world-beater, but she’s a very nice filly,” McCarron said. “I found myself in an unanticipated pocket, but fortunately Ecoute drifted out a little bit and I was able to go.” The time of 1:41 for 1 1/16 miles on grass missed the stakes record by three-fifths of a second. . . . Taiki Shuttle won the $1.3-million Sprint Stakes in Japan with the U.S. entries, Receiver and Men’s Exclusive, finishing eighth and 12th, respectively. . . . An American horse, Val’s Prince, won the $775,760 Hong Kong International Cup.