Baffert Seeks Two Firsts to Reach Another

There won’t be any championships on the line this weekend at Hollywood Park, but the track will offer five graded stakes on Saturday and Sunday.

Trainer Bob Baffert, the runaway leader in the national earnings race, will try to add to his total and make some Hollywood Park history in the $200,000-added Hollywood Futurity and $200,000-added Hollywood Starlet.

No trainer has won both Grade I races for 2-year-olds in the same year. Baffert will try for the sweep with Prime Timber and Premier Property in the Futurity on Saturday and the filly Excellent Meeting in the Starlet on Sunday.

Victorious in the 1997 Futurity with Real Quiet, who went on to win the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, Baffert will send out two unbeatens Saturday.

Owned by Hal Earnhardt, Premier Property has won three in a row, but the 1 1/16-mile Futurity will be his first venture around two turns. Prime Timber, owned by Aaron Jones, has won both of his outings. Each colt has won at Hollywood Park.

Jockey Gary Stevens has been Prime Timber’s rider, but he is in Hong Kong this week and won’t ride again locally until Santa Anita begins Dec. 26, so Chris McCarron has picked up the mount. “This is [Stevens’ horse],” Baffert said. “He wanted to bail on that trip to Hong Kong to ride him.”

Stevens, who rode Silver Charm to a Kentucky Derby victory for Baffert in 1996, is high on Prime Timber.

“He’s a big, handsome colt with great action,” Stevens said. “He’s got all the right tools to head for the classics next year.”

The Baffert duo will have four opponents Saturday, including Norfolk Stakes winner Buck Trout. Seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, the son of Waquoit will try to give trainer Mike Harrington his second Futurity win in three years. Swiss Yodeler scored a gate-to-wire upset in 1996.

Tactical Cat, who finished eighth in the BC Juvenile, will try to give his trainer, Wayne Lukas, a fourth win in the Futurity, but his first since Grand Canyon in 1989.

A gray son of Storm Cat, Tactical Cat worked five furlongs in 58 4/5 on Wednesday morning at Santa Anita and will be looking for his third win in nine starts. Hollywood Park will be the fifth track he has run at this year.

Select Few and Morning Storm, a maiden trained by Jack Van Berg, also were entered Thursday morning.

Second to stablemate and soon-to-be 2-year-old filly champion Silverbulletday, Excellent Meeting is the likely favorite in the Starlet, which probably will have a field of six.

Owned by John and Betty Mabee’s Golden Eagle Farm, Excellent Meeting won the Del Mar Debutante and Oak Leaf Stakes before the Breeders’ Cup and earned her maiden win locally June 18.

Her main competition figures to come from Lacquaria, a California-bred daughter of Bertrando who has won both of her starts. She proved herself at the Starlet distance (1 1/16 miles) with a six-length score in the California Cup Juvenile Fillies. Here’s To You, second in that race, has since returned to win the Miesque Stakes.

Horse Racing Notes

Trainer Bobby Frankel, who won the $500,000 Hollywood Turf Cup a year ago with River Bay, will try for a repeat with Dushyantor and Mash One in Saturday’s other Grade I event. The likely favorite in the 1 1/2-mile race is Yagli, second to Buck’s Boy in the Breeders’ Cup Turf last month at Churchill Downs. Dushyantor, who may be making the final start of his career, was third in that race. Others entered are Rice, Native Desert, Belgravia, Lazy Lode, Pompeyo, Blue Sky, Mont D’Arnaud and Ferrari. . . . The $100,000 Vernon O. Underwood at six furlongs is the other graded stakes on Saturday’s card, and Tuzla is expected to head the field in the $100,000 Dahlia Handicap, a Grade III, on Sunday. . . . Event Of The Year, the unbeaten colt who was injured before the Kentucky Derby earlier this year, worked six furlongs in 1:11 1/5 for trainer Richard Mandella on Wednesday morning at Hollywood Park and is scheduled to return in the Malibu Stakes, Santa Anita’s opening-day stakes on Dec. 26.