Flores and Baffert Are Still on a Roll With Three Wins

Instead of riding Siphon in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar in early August, David Flores sat in the jockeys’ room, playing cards in a wheelchair.

“I was in that wheelchair for about two weeks,” Flores said Sunday. “Then it was another two weeks before I was back riding. But I feel strong now.”

Flores and trainer Bob Baffert have become the Butch and Sundance of the Oak Tree meeting at Santa Anita. Maybe their six-guns will fire a few blanks by the end of the season, but right now there’s no room for anybody else in the town.

They teamed up for three more wins Sunday, including a victory for Ex Marks The Cop in the $100,000 California Sires Stakes. One reason Flores didn’t win another stake, the $125,000 Las Palmas Handicap, was that he didn’t have a mount, so honors went to Goncalino Almeida, who rode Real Connection as the one-eyed gray mare beat Toda Una Dama by a head in the 1 1/8-mile grass race.

“The horses I’ve been riding are fresh and ready to run,” Flores said. “Everything’s been coming up just right.”

The night of Aug. 1 at Del Mar, Flores was thrown from his mount when Ryan Barber and his horse cut them off in mid-stretch. Flores suffered a cracked vertebra, bruised ribs and a shoulder injury. Barber was suspended seven days by the track stewards for his role in the accident.

“It was the worst spill I’ve ever had,” Flores said. “I hope it’s the last.”

After five days, Flores has had three three-win days--Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday--and 11 wins overall. Six of the wins have come for Baffert, who has started the meet with nine wins. A year ago, Baffert had nine wins for all of Oak Tree as he finished third in the standings, four behind the kingpin, Mike Mitchell.

However, it wasn’t all upbeat for Baffert and Flores on Sunday. In the $71,175 In Excess Stakes, run a half-hour before Ex Marks The Cop’s win, the well-bred Best Star suffered a broken right foreleg shortly after the start and was destroyed.

“It’s hard to enjoy a win [like Ex Marks The Cop’s] when one of your favorite horses dies,” Baffert said. “These horses are so fragile. This business is so tough. I was hoping for big things from him. We had put him on the turf and thought he might be a possibility for [the Oak Tree Derby] at the end of the meet.”

Best Star, a 3-year-old son of Seattle Slew and Center Court Star, a Secretariat mare, raced for his breeders, John and Betty Mabee. He had won four of five starts, including the El Cajon Stakes at Del Mar in his last start.

“It was hard to see anything coming,” Flores said. “It was just one of those things. I was in a lot of traffic at the start and just tried to keep him on a straight course when I felt the leg go.”

Before the Las Palmas, Real Connection had lost 16 in a row since winning in the Osunitas Handicap at Del Mar in August 1996. She has still continued to earn paychecks for owner Bill Thomas and trainer Mel Stute, racking up 12 seconds and thirds in the last two years, and Sunday’s win, worth $75,000, brought her purse total to within $5,628 of the $1-million mark.

Real Connection’s late kick left her short by a nose, a nose and a head in three stakes against solid opposition at Hollywood Park this year, and at Del Mar she was less than a length behind Escena at the end of the Ramona Handicap.

“It’s certainly nice to win one,” Thomas said. “But I’ve always thought she could have won all of them. She always runs so hard down the stretch. She’s such a great horse. I just think she’s going to be there all the time.”

At the sixteenth pole Sunday, with Toda Una Dama trying to hold on, Stute wasn’t so sure his 6-year-old was going to shake the losing streak.

“This was Sunday, and I did a lot of praying,” the trainer said. “I was asking for a lot of help. The way she runs, you always think she’s going to have a chance. We were invited to go to New York [for Saturday’s $400,000 Flower Bowl at Belmont Park], but I didn’t want to ship. The vets back there might have had trouble with the way she walks.”

Real Connection, who won for the seventh time in 57 starts, lost her right eye before she ever ran. Her dam, Right Connection, was shooing a fly and kicked Real Connection in the eye.

Real Connection, timed in 1:47 3/5, paid $10.60. Luna Wells, the 2-1 favorite, finished third, three lengths behind Toda Una Dama.

“Corey [Nakatani] said that she had too much to do in the stretch,” trainer Richard Mandella said. “She hadn’t run in a year, so it might have taken a race to get the cobwebs out.”

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An owner and trainer accustomed to winning the Arc de Triomphe bagged France’s most important race again when Peintre Celebre thundered through the stretch at Longchamp to win by five lengths in record time.

Daniel Wildenstein, who owns Peintre Celebre, won his fourth Arc, as did his trainer, Andre Fabre. One of Fabre’s winner, Trempolino in 1987, had held the record for the 1 1/2-mile Arc with a time of 2:26 1/5, but that was shattered by Peintre Celebre, who came home in 2:24 3/5.

Peintre Celebre was ridden by Olivier Peslier, who won last year’s Arc with Helissio. This time Helissio couldn’t hold the lead in the last furlong and finished sixth in the 18-horse field.

Pilsudski finished second, 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Borgia, and Oscar Schindler was fourth. Peintre Celebre will race next year as a 4-year-old, but he’s not expected to make the trip to Hollywood Park for the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 8.

Horse Racing Notes

Flying With Eagles, at 18-1, won the In Excess in his first start since finishing last in the Del Mar Derby. . . . Ex Marks The Cop’s next race will be in the California Cup Juvenile on Oct. 25. Johnbill, another Bob Baffert juvenile, is a probable for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, along with stablemate Souvenir Copy, the Del Mar Futurity winner. Pleasant Drive is scheduled to run in the Norfolk on Oct. 19 and Commitisize is headed for the Hollywood Prevue on Nov. 8. . . . Larry The Legend might run in the Ancient Title Handicap on Saturday. . . . Fred Hooper, who won the 1945 Kentucky Derby with Hoop Jr., the first horse he owned, turns 100 today.