Sahadi Feels Like Somebody Now

Jenine Sahadi had just become the first woman trainer to win the Santa Anita Derby and couldn’t remember a thing about the race. Except for the finish. She knew that her horse, The Deputy, was first, that favored War Chant was second and . . . the rest, she said, was a blur.

“I don’t know who finished third,” she said.

“Captain Steve,” she was told.

One of The Deputy’s owners, Barry Irwin, grinned.

“Who trains Captain Steve?” he asked.

Sahadi punched him lightly on the shoulder and said, “Stop that.” But she didn’t mean it.

Everyone at Santa Anita Park on Saturday seemed to know who trains Captain Steve. It’s Bad Bob Baffert, who once again established himself as the villain of the backside during Thursday’s breakfast for the post-position draw. As someone remarked later, the menu included eggs and darts.

Sahadi would have been less irritated if Baffert had thrown one of the former at her than she was when he asked her jockey, Chris McCarron, “By the way, who trains The Deputy, you or Jenine?”

Sahadi later remarked about Baffert’s lack of class and beat an emphatic exit, leaving McCarron and Baffert alone at the head table. They aren’t exactly best of friends, either, not since Bad Bob created controversy before last year’s Santa Anita Derby by removing the Hall of Fame jockey from the eventual winner, General Challenge.

But that was nothing new. A dispute between a jockey and a trainer in horse racing is as old as saddle soap. This was something more unusual, a battle of the sexes.

Guess what? Billie Jean King won again.

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Although The Deputy didn’t pay much after going off as the second favorite, his victory had to have been one of the most popular in the Santa Anita Derby’s 63-year history because of Sahadi.

As she walked from the barn to the paddock before the race, it seemed as if everyone among the crowd of 41,222 wished her luck.

“You go, girl,” one fan shouted.

“Pay the lady,” shouted another.

Sahadi, who had been anxiously puffing on a cigarette while watching as her horse was led from the barn, visibly relaxed, enjoying the moment.

“I felt like Julia Roberts,” she said later. “Not that I look like her. But I felt like I was somebody walking to the paddock.”

The result also was well-received among those who work relatively anonymously in the racetrack’s offices because it wasn’t that long ago that she was one of them.

A USC journalism major, she worked in the marketing and publicity department at Hollywood Park for seven years. A frequent visitor to Santa Anita in that former capacity, she didn’t have to ask directions to the press box for the post-race news conference.

“This is a pretty amazing horse,” she said excitedly as she rode with McCarron and others in the creaky elevator. “Did you see him?

“I’m just so proud of you and the horse,” she told the jockey. “This is unbelievable.”

You hope she’s proud of herself too. Even before Saturday, no one should have doubted her credentials. She was raised around horses, on her parents’ breeding farm in Northern California that produced a Kentucky Derby runner-up. She earned her trainer’s license in 1993 and, three years later, became the first woman trainer to win a Breeders’ Cup race. She won another the next year.

After Sahadi’s reaction to his crack Thursday, Baffert complained that no one at the track has a sense of humor anymore.

But you can’t blame her for being sensitive because, despite her success, the credit has usually gone to someone else, whether it was husband Ben Cecil or former boyfriend Julio Canani, both of whom are trainers.

She will get credit now.

“Jenine Sahadi trained this horse to the minute and did it absolutely perfect,” McCarron said.

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The Deputy’s victory was a daily double, enabling the witnesses a chance not only to praise Sahadi but bash Bad Bob.

As he left the track, analyzing Captain Steve’s performance with jockey Robby Albarado, a heckler shouted, “Hey, Baffert, who’s training your horse?”

Baffert is a lot of things besides a male chauvinist pig, foremost among them a wise guy. He’s quick with a quip, sometimes too quick because he fails to think first. He’s not bad so much as he is naughty. All of us who write about horse racing should thank the quote gods for that. So should the people within a sport that is anorexic from lack of attention.

But many of them don’t see it that way.

“Bob Baffert won’t allow anyone else to have their 15 minutes of fame, no matter who the individual is,” Irwin said.

“I don’t think Jenine has the problem. I think he has the problem. This is not the first time he’s done this. Maybe it will be the last.”

Don’t bet on it. Baffert, who had won the Santa Anita Derby in three of the last four years before Saturday, will be back with other horses and other insults. He’s the Man o’ War of trainers. Unfortunately for him on Saturday, he met Woman o’ War.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.