Page 113 - Speedhorse March 2018

Baffert hooked ‘em for the Golden State
in 1983. He’d made big strides in Arizona and decided it was time to take on the rather heady sensation of Los Alamitos. He had a string
of 30 horses and he selected only the best to accompany him to the big apple of racing. “Rillito closed,” he explained, “and I hauled nine of my best runners to California for the winter meet. I figured I’d pack up again and return to Rillito as soon as the meet was finished.”
Landing at Bay Meadows for the winter season, Baffert entered a red roan filly named Five Oclock Rush (by Such A Rush and out
of Hijo The Annie by Hijo The Bull) in a feature race. She ran fourth. A second horse from Baffert’s string ran third, and another
ran fourth. The trainer who’d been sitting
on top of the heap in Arizona was filled with the same disappointment he’d felt when he’d just started out. By the end of the third race, he’d determined to pack up and head back for Arizona. That, surely, would be better than facing a long winter of nothing. He changed his mind, however, the minute Five Oclock Rush came through and won for him.
“I thought I was a good trainer until I hit California,” mused Baffert. “Things were so different. For one thing, we didn’t run our horses as often in Arizona. For another, a trainer may have ten head in California and each one
is as good as the other. That means each one must always be in tip-top condition. California trainers also face the ever-present soundness problem because of the frequent racing.
That means doing far more leg work than I’d done in Arizona. It was a full year before my confidence level had worked its way back up, before I actually felt secure in putting a horse
on the track. It took me that long before I
began believing in my own personal game plan of training. I watched other trainers and then
I watched some more. All the time, though, I kept the procedures and processes I’d used in Arizona in my mind. Finally, I stayed with my tried and true formula and supplemented it with careful, close attention to a horse’s legs.
“I can remember being interviewed when
I first arrived at Los Alamitos. One of the questions I was asked was to define what I would consider as a successful meet for me. I answered: To win a stakes. Well, I didn’t win
a stakes race during that first year. It took me one year to even make the trainer standings,
and it was three years before I really took off.
I’d brought some nice Arizona horses with me but, again, things were different in California. I didn’t know where those horses fit. I didn’t know where and how to run them. It was all learning and, gratefully, I finally learned.”
It was Kellys Coffer who gave Baffert his first big win in California. The filly had been under
By 1981, Baffert was well on his way as a top Quarter Horse trainer with horses such as . . .
Love N Money, shown winning the 1982 West Texas Derby at Sunland Park.
War Star Wrangler, shown winning the first Budweiser Derby at Turf Paradise in 1982.
Kellys Coffer, shown winning the 1985 Alameda Handicap at Bay Meadows, was Baffert’s first big runner in Arizona.
SPEEDHORSE, March 2018 111
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JUNE 1987 ISSUE
E