These Days, It Seems as If Team Baffert Can Do No Wrong

The breeder of the latest Kentucky Derby winner stopped by the colt’s barn at Churchill Downs Sunday morning, and trainer Bob Baffert learned something about Real Quiet that might have prevented him from buying the horse.

Baffert, who paid $17,000 to buy Real Quiet for his long-time client Mike Pegram in 1996, found out a few days before Saturday’s Derby that some surgery had been done on the crooked-legged colt when he was a young horse. Baffert didn’t know the details, but while talking with reporters Sunday he motioned for Eduardo Gavinia to join him. Eduardo and Ann Gavinia of Ocala, Fla., bred Real Quiet by sending the stallion Quiet American to the mare Really Blue.

“When the horse was about six months old,” Eduardo Gavinia said, “we sent him to the University of Florida where they put screws and wire in both knees. They were trying to straighten them out.”

“You mean I bought Forest Gump?” Baffert said.

“Something worse,” Gavinia said.

“Well, I’m going to turn him back,” Baffert kidded. “No wonder I got him so cheap. We didn’t even X-ray the horse. That shows you that in racing, the less you know the better. Did your consignor know about this before the sale?”

“Yes, he did,” Gavinia said.

“Well, I’m going to kill that little guy,” Baffert joked.

Gavinia said that the screws were removed a couple of months after the surgery.

“If his legs hadn’t been crooked, I would have kept him,” Gavinia said. “In the sale, I thought he might bring $30,000 or $40,000, so I was disappointed when he went for much less, but how could you know? I wound up paying more in Louisville to see my old horse win the Derby than I got the day I sold him.”

Baffert still can’t give a good reason why he bought Real Quiet. The Kentucky-bred colt’s bloodlines don’t translate into winning at the Derby distance of 1 1/4 miles. Pedigree analysts who compile the dosage stamina index say that since 1929 only two horses--Strike The Gold in 1991 and Real Quiet--have won the Derby without having the right numbers.

“I believe in dosage,” Baffert said, “but with this horse I didn’t care. If you just looked at ‘The Fish,’ you’d throw him out. But there was something about his body I liked when I bought him. He looked like he had the right tools. I buy horses that I think can handle my training.”

The narrow-bodied Real Quiet is known as “The Fish” around Baffert’s barn because, like a tropical fish in a tank, he looks better from the side than when viewed head-on. Four of Saturday’s starters--stablemate Indian Charlie, Artax, Cape Town and Old Trieste--beat him on the way to the Derby, but Real Quiet picked the perfect time for his third victory in 13 starts.

Baffert said that both Real Quiet and Indian Charlie, who was third in the Derby, are probables for the Preakness at Pimlico on May 16. Baffert’s Silver Charm won the Derby and Preakness last year and then, with a $5-million Triple Crown bonus on the line, ran second in the Belmont Stakes. This year’s Belmont is scheduled for June 6.

Both Silver Charm and Real Quiet came cheap as top horses go, but at $85,000 Silver Charm was much more expensive than this year’s Derby winner.

“I won last year with a ham sandwich and this year with an hors d’oeuvre,” Baffert said.

Baffert is not as confident about winning the Preakness as he was last year with Silver Charm. Indian Charlie, the 5-2 favorite in the Derby, might even go off the favorite again at Pimlico. Real Quiet was 8-1 Saturday.

“I thought Silver Charm had a good chance to win the Preakness,” Baffert said. “These horses, I’ll have to see how they train. I can’t compare horses, because there will never be another ‘Charm. It’s not a knock on these horses, it’s just that there’s only one ‘Charm.”

Victory Gallop, whose late run left him a half-length short in the Derby, may skip the Preakness to run in the Belmont because his trainer, Elliott Walden, is also considering the Queen’s Plate, at Woodbine on June 21, for the Canadian-bred colt.

Halory Hunter and Cape Town, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Derby, are also going on to the Preakness, and Chilito, 11th here, is listed as a possible for Pimlico. There are usually several horses that skip the Derby to run in the Preakness, and this year that group includes Coronado’s Quest, Comic Strip, Classic Cat, Yarrow Brae, Hot Wells and Thomas Jo.