Nashoba’s Key zeros in on the Breeders’ Cup

OCEANPORT, N.J. -- If Southern California is going to make a splash in the Breeders’ Cup, the key horse is probably Nashoba’s Key.

The 4-year-old Cal-bred filly is a late bloomer who didn’t race before Jan. 13, but is unbeaten in seven races.

She is the early-line 3-1 favorite starting from the No. 3 position in the $2-million Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf race Saturday. And she is one of the high-profile horses competing in the 11-race, two-day event.

However, the horse’s trainer, Carla Gaines, is low profile. At least that’s what Monmouth Park, the site of the Breeders’ Cup, considers her.

During lunch last week at Santa Anita, Gaines was talking with prominent horseman and California Horse Racing Board vice chairman John Harris.

“I called Monmouth to see about getting a particular barn and was told that barn is only for high-profile trainers,” she told Harris.

“I guess that makes me a low-profile trainer.”

She said she had asked who are some of the trainers classified as high profile, and Bob Baffert’s name was mentioned.

Gaines said the next time she saw Baffert she told him about the phone call and said, “From now on I’m calling you H.P. for high profile, and you can call me L.P. for low profile.”

Baffert laughed when he was asked later about his conversation with Gaines.

“I told her that after the Breeders’ Cup, she is going to be a high-profile trainer,” he said.

Baffert, who has three horses entered in Breeders’ Cup races, is among the people in horse racing who rave about Nashoba’s Key.

“She is so talented, and has done well on synthetic surfaces, as well as grass,” he said. “She’s a different kind of horse, the kind of horse we all look forward to training. If she gets in trouble she comes out of it.

“Carla has done a fantastic job of keeping her undefeated. If she were in a pick six, you would single her.”

Added Baffert: “Nashoba’s Key is just a great story.”

That appears to be the case for several reasons:

* A female horse coming virtually out of nowhere late in life to capture the fancy of horse racing fans.

John Pricci, longtime horse racing writer for New York Newsday who is now with HorseRaceInsider.com, said: “Any undefeated horse is going to get noticed, and I think she really moved into the national picture after her last race. She refuses to lose.”

* That “low-profile” female trainer who, as Baffert says, probably won’t be low profile much longer.

* A jockey, 17-year-old Joe Talamo, who is doing big things early in his career.

Last year he watched the Breeders’ Cup on television.

“This is like a rookie going to the Super Bowl his first year,” Talamo said.

* And a 79-year-old owner, William B. Williamson of Pasadena, who says his experience with Nashoba’s Key has been special.

Williamson, the chief executive of Chandis Securities, is also chairman of the Chandler Trusts. (The Chandler family was the controlling shareholder of the Times Mirror Co., which owned The Times until selling it to Tribune Co. in 2000.)

But most of Williamson’s attention these days is focused on Nashoba’s Key, whom he bred for $30,000,

“I’ve been in horse racing 40 years and have never had anything close to this,” he said.

Since winning a $48,000 maiden race on the turf at Santa Anita Jan. 13, she has reeled off six more victories, mostly by coming from behind.

Two wins came in Grade I races -- the Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park on July 7 and the Yellow Ribbon Stakes at Oak Tree at Santa Anita on Sept. 29.

Garrett Gomez rode the horse in her first three races, but Gomez was riding in the East, making his schedule uncertain.

So Gaines took a chance and went with the youngster Talamo, who ended up finishing second in the jockey standings at Hollywood Park and Del Mar.

The Yellow Ribbon was Nashoba Key’s most recent race. In her last workout Friday before heading East, she clocked 1:00.8 for five furlongs at Santa Anita, and Gaines called it “a perfect work.”

Gaines explained that she held off racing the horse until this year because of shin problems and because “she was just immature.”

Nashoba’s Key is still on the ornery side.

“You might want to stand behind me,” Gaines said while showing off the horse recently when she was in her barn stall at Santa Anita.

“See how her ears are pinned back? That means she is in a feisty mood.”

This horse has taken some nurturing by Gaines, and Williamson said he never questioned his trainer about why the horse wasn’t racing earlier.

“She treats her horses as if they were her children,” he said. “She would know when the horse was ready to go.”

Gaines, who is single and has no children -- “I’m married to my job,” she said -- knows something about handling children. She counseled tough youths while getting a master’s degree from Alabama in psychology and sociology.

“That was a long time ago,” she said. “I soon discovered dealing with horses was easier than dealing with humanity.”

Gaines fell in love with horses when as a youngster she would ride Shetland ponies on her grandfather’s ranch in Alabama. She worked with horses in various capacities before moving to Northern California in the mid-1980s and becoming an assistant trainer.

Gaines got her training license in 1989 and shifted her base to Southern California in 1996, where she now has 38 horses in her barn. She had her best year in 2006, when her horses won 42 races for earnings of nearly $1.7 million.

Her main clients have always been Harris and Williamson.

Gaines, however, is hesitant to talk about herself.

“The story here is the horse,” she said, typically playing it low key.

Baffert is down to three entries in the Breeders’ Cup after 2-year-old filly Cry And Catch Me was scratched Wednesday from the Juvenile Fillies, one of the eight races on Saturday’s card. “She got sick, and when the temperature hit 102, I pulled the plug,” Baffert said. Baffert still has an entry in the Juvenile Fillies in Indian Blessing, the 3-1 favorite.

larry.stewart@latimes.com