Special Victory for Real Quiet

On a track where the colt, the trainer and the jockey have been immensely successful, Real Quiet, trained by Bob Baffert and ridden by Gary Stevens, edged Free House by a neck Saturday to win the $500,000 Pimlico Special in Baltimore.

Baffert can only hope he does as well next Saturday at Pimlico, where he will try to win the Preakness for the third year in a row. Baffert’s Preakness plans seem to change by the hour, and after the Pimlico Special he said that he might run two fillies--Silverbulletday and Excellent Meeting--in the centerpiece of the Triple Crown, with Prime Timber also a possibility, depending on how he does in a workout Monday or Tuesday at Churchill Downs.

Real Quiet’s win Saturday was his first in almost a year since he won last year’s Preakness. He had run only three times since, running second against Victory Gallop as his Triple Crown bid fizzled in the Belmont Stakes, and posting two more seconds this year, in the New Orleans Handicap and the Texas Mile.

Stevens, who announced last week that he’ll soon be leaving for England, where his Hall of Fame career could take an extended turn, has now won three Pimlico Specials (Farma Way and Gentlemen the first two), and he also won the 1997 Preakness with the Baffert-trained Silver Charm.

“It was cat-and-mouse until the last five or six strides,” Stevens said after Real Quiet outfought Free House. “Free House is no slouch, and he made it tough for us. Nobody gave up, but you knew going in that nobody would.”

Real Quiet, who races for Mike Pegram, won for only the fifth time in 17 starts, but four of those victories have come in Grade I races--the 1997 Hollywood Futurity and last year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness preceding Saturday’s success. The $17,000 auction purchase has also been second and third five times each, and Saturday’s $300,000 purse ballooned his earnings to $2.6 million. He paid $5.80, going off as the second choice behind Free House at 3-5, after running 1 3/16 miles in 1:54 1/5.

Free House, ridden by Chris McCarron, finished five lengths ahead of Fred Bear Claw, with Precocity fourth and Brushing Up last in the five-horse field. Fred Bear Claw, a 25-1 shot, helped Stevens tactically by running on the lead, a spot that might have belonged to Free House. The fractions were legitimate, 47 seconds for the half-mile and 1:11 for six furlongs.

“It was good that [Fred Bear Claw] went out there,” Baffert said. “That gave us an honest pace. I was worried that Free House might be able to get out there by himself and steal the race.”

Real Quiet, who carried 120 pounds, four less than Free House, lurked in third place all the way, and was three lengths behind after Free House had disposed of Fred Bear Claw to lead with an eighth of a mile left. Real Quiet edged ahead in the last 40 yards.

“I really didn’t want to take back,” McCarron said, “but we were comfortable just to sit off the lead. We shook off the leader, but I could see Gary coming on the outside. I thought I was going to shake him loose at the top of the stretch, but he kept coming back at me. Free House was trying very hard, but the other horse just ran the better race today.”

This was Free House’s first loss this year, after wins in the San Antonio and Santa Anita Handicaps. Trainer Paco Gonzalez’s 5-year-old gray has won nine of 15 starts in California, but outside the state he is winless in seven tries. A head and a neck have cost him wins in his two Pimlico races; he was second to Silver Charm in the 1997 Preakness.

Real Quiet and Free House might have a rematch June 27 at Hollywood Park in the $1-million Sempra Energy Hollywood Gold Cup.

Horse Racing Notes

Eagleton, beaten by 33 lengths in two races on the dirt at Santa Anita, made his grass debut Saturday and won the $113,000 Will Rogers Handicap by two lengths over another longshot, Hidden Magic. In Frank’s Honor, the favorite, broke poorly and was bothered in the stretch before finishing sixth. Corey Black rode Eagleton for the first time. “He’s bred for the turf,” said Kevin Lewis, the gelding’s trainer. “I asked too much of him, when we thought we might get on the Kentucky Derby trail.”

Blending Element, ridden by Garrett Gomez for trainer Carla Gaines, beat Queen Douna by a neck to win the $200,000 Yerba Buena Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Golden Gate Fields. Favored Midnight Line was third and Squeak, winner of last year’s Matriarch at Hollywood, was last in the six-horse field. Blending Element, a 6-year-old Irish-bred mare who races for Warren (Spud) Williamson, doesn’t run often, but she has been first five times and second three times in her last six starts. Running 1 3/8 miles on grass in 2:17 1/5, she paid $5.40.

Vision And Verse, at 17-1, won the $500,000 Illinois Derby at Hawthorne, with Prime Directive second and Pineaff finishing third. Certain, ridden by Kent Desormeaux, finished last. Vision And Verse is trained by Bill Mott, who also won the $114,800 Edgewood Stakes at Churchill Downs with Solar Bound. . . . At Aqueduct, Wised Up paid $65 as the winner of the $116,100 Fort Marcy Handicap. . . . K One King, who has a chip in one of his ankles, won’t run in the Preakness. He was eighth in the Derby.