Baffert
 

With his deep stable of 3yr olds. How will he split them up? Will he keep most in Cal and ship some out to fairgrouns, oaklawn gulfstream and aquaduct for the stakes races? How does the condition of the SA track affect them? Does he do most of his training a 1 of the socal tracks or does just primarly us the 1 that is running?

He seems to be doing an adequate job of thinning his ranks.

And his hair since he didn't get the trainer eclipse.

Well it's only January and he's already lost 2 of his colts. Most of them have but a maiden win to their credit thus far anyways, so shipping them out of town for graded stakes seems a bit overzealous.

There's certainly enough stakes and allowance races at Santa Anita to keep them apart. Especially since Lookin At Lucky won't return until March.

You still have the Robert Lewis, San Vincente, Sham, and San Felipe leading up to the Santa Anita Derby (where it will be no surprise to see 2 Baffert's in there) at SA alone. He'll probably use the graded Sunland Park and Lone Star Derbies as well. Possibly the El Camino Real Derby, too.

I think he'll balk at running Lookin At Lucky out of town before the Derby. Either Tiz Chrome or Conveyance (who have similar running styles) may end up in the Wood Memorial.

He has just as many horses at Hollywood as Santa Anita but he keeps his good horses at Santa Anita. He keeps his 2nd string at Hollywood.

Baffert is great at picking spots for his horses. For the most part, I'm sure he will try to avoid running his good horses against each other. When the time comes he'll send one to New York, one to Louisiana, one to Oaklawn, etc. But as Rollo said, he probably won't have to worry about that for another month or two.

I think he actually said that he does want Lookin at Lucky to have a prep on the dirt before the Derby.

Yeah. He said that after the Cashcall. I'm thinking he'll back off that, not wanting to compromise the colt's credentials for the Derby should he bomb on the dirt.

Not that it was a titanic performance, nor was it anything more than a crapshoot, but Pioneerof The Nile did fine in the Derby despite all his preps being at SA.

Handicapping wise, it would be good to watch Looking at Lucky on dirt at least once.

For sure. It will be impossible to bet him with confidence in the Derby otherwise, just like Pioneerof The Nile and Colonel John.

Fine with me.:D