ftboa.com • Saturday & Sunday • October 3 & 4, 2020 FEC/FTBOA PUBLICATION FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION or to subscribe, please call Antoinette at 352-732-8858 or email: [email protected] In This Issue: Florida-breds Make a Lucky Seven Saez Gets Fast Start with Hollis ‘Hug’ Hopes to Make Dad and Venezuela Proud in Belmont Derby Florida Duo Seeking Keeneland Wins Yaupon Ties Stakes Record in Chick Lang NBC Sports Network to Televise Breeders’ Cup Challenge Races Kentucky Oct. Yearling Catalog Online Authentic/MCCUE PHOTO Second Annual TB Aftercare Summit Baffert Seeking Finger-Licking to be Offered Virtually Saturday Offers an All Grade 1 Pick 5 Good 8th Preakness Win Track Results & Entries Marylander Annie Finney Having Fun on Art Collector Florida Stallion Progeny List Calhoun Finds a Silver Lining with Mr. Big News Florida Breeders’ List PIMLICO PRESS OFFICE __________ Sept. 5, and Thousand Words, who has Wire to Wire Business Place won three stakes in California. Authentic BALTIMORE – After his Preakness (G1) will have Hall of Fame jockey John horses went to the track at Pimlico Race Velazquez up when the 9-5 morning-line Featured Advertisers Course for their exercise Thursday morn- favorite breaks from post nine. Thousand ing, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert joked Words, winner of his most recent start, the Baoma Corp. about the schedule for the days ahead. Aug. 1 Shared Belief at Del Mar, is 6-1 in Bloodstockauction USA “We gallop tomorrow and then we start the morning line and will leave from post fretting,” he said with a chuckle, emphasiz- five under Florent Geroux. Florida Department of Agriculture ing the last word as “fret-innn.” AUTHENTIC – owned by Spendthrift FTBOA Though he will worry, Baffert has a Farm LLC, MyRaceHorse Stable, Madaket Ocala Breeders’ Feed & Supply strong hand to play in the 145th Preakness Stables LLC and Starlight Racing, gal- Saturday: Authentic, who won the loped one-and-a-half miles Thursday under Seminole Feed Kentucky Derby (G1) at Churchill Downs Summerfield Sales See PREAKNESS on page 3 Back to Top Page 3 Preakness Continued from COVER Humberto Gomez when the track reopened at 8:30 following a renovation. Gomez guided Albaugh Family Stables LLC and Spendthrift Farm LLC’s Thousand Words out to the track around 7 a.m. and rode him to the backstretch for some added distance before starting a lap around the one-mile track. Click below to view video of Authentic: “He goes straight off,” Baffert said. “We don’t back him up. We have to fool him. He’s a little quirky.” Thousand Words was scratched from the Derby after he reared and fell while being saddled. The Pioneerof the Nile colt was not injured, but Baffert’s assistant, Jimmy Barnes, had to be taken to the hospital with a fractured right wrist. Baffert said he is pleased how his runners have adjusted to Pimlico since being shipped from Louisville on Tuesday. “Both horses are doing fine. They both look good out here,” Baffert said. “This track is so soft. You just don’t hear them. I’ve always loved this surface here. They are both training well. There are no excuses.” Both colts were schooled in Pimlico’s indoor paddock before the second race Thursday after- noon. Baffert said he will follow his usual approach and saddle Bob Baffert/BENOIT PHOTO his Preakness horses in the paddock and not on the turf course. Baffert is seeking his record-setting eighth Preakness victory and has often said that he enjoys the atmosphere surrounding the classic when it’s the second race of the Triple Crown series. Due to changes from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Preakness is the last of the three classics for 3-year-olds to be run. He lamented this year’s cancellation of the Alibi Breakfast, a Thursday morning tradition on Preakness week, “We miss the breakfast, though,” he said. “I like that fried chicken. I don’t know if I can win a Preakness without fried chicken. I have to go find some.” Baffert’s two starters will push his career Preakness total to 22 runners, passing Nick Zito into second place on the list of most starters for a trainer since 1909. D. Wayne Lukas is the leader with 44 starters. See PREAKNESS on page 5 Back to Top Back to Top Page 5 Preakness page 3 Patience with Mr. Big News paid off with a third-place finish Continued from at 46-1 odds behind Authentic and beaten-favorite Tiz the Law in Since making his Preakness debut in 1996 with Kentucky the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby (G1) at Churchill Downs. Derby runner-up Cavonnier, who was fourth at Pimlico, Baffert “He’s a little bit of a late-maturing horse. He’s just now coming has participated in 18 Preaknesses. This will be his third-straight around and getting to his peak,” Calhoun said. “I was really happy year and 10th in 11 years with a starter. The only year he was to see how he bounced out of the Derby after a strong effort like absent during that stretch was 2017. that. He held his weight well and to bounce back and to train for- Baffert won the Preakness both times he had multiple starters. wardly since then has made me awfully happy going into the In 2001, Point Given was the winner and Congaree was third. Preakness.” When American Pharoah picked up the second victory of his It took four starts for Mr. Big News to break his maiden before Triple Crown sweep in 2015, Dortmund was fourth. facing graded company at Fair Grounds in the Feb. 15 Risen Star (G2), in which he finished fifth. He broke through with his first ART COLLECTOR – Bruce Lunsford’s Art Collector pre- stakes win in the ungraded Oaklawn Stakes April 11, a “Win & pared for a start in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes (G1) Thursday In” race for the Preakness, before finishing a distant sixth in the morning with a mile-and-a-half gallop under exercise rider Annie July 11 Blue Grass (G2) at Keeneland. In the Kentucky Derby, he Finney. made a strong move from 10th to enter contention at the top of the “He knows the drill. He’s very easy to ride. He pretty much stretch before finishing evenly to check in third. does everything on his own, which works out great for me,” said Gabriel Saez, who will have the return mount Saturday, was Finney, a Maryland-based exercise rider who got the call from Art aboard the Kentucky-bred colt for his victory at Oaklawn, the only Collector’s trainer Tommy Drury to help get the Blue Grass (G2) other time horse and jockey teamed up. winner ready for his first start in the 2020 Triple Crown campaign. Mr. Big News galloped a mile-and-a-half over a fast Pimlico “I used to work for Neil Howard and gallop his horses when he oval Thursday morning. came for the Preakness, and I guess he and Tommy are good “He was very comfortable on the surface and into his training friends, and that’s I guess how I got the ride,” she added. pretty good. Everything’s going the way we’d like it to go,” Finney grew up in Maryland, where she started to work for Calhoun said. steeplechase trainer Michael Smithwick when she was 12. She went on to work for the late Dickie Small in the mid-Atlantic and SWISS SKYDIVER – Peter Callahan’s Swiss Skydiver gal- Fair Grounds and subsequently worked for Todd Pletcher in New loped a mile-and-a-half at Pimlico Race Course first thing York for 11 years. She returned to Maryland five years ago. Thursday morning in preparation for her second start against Art Collector and Finney went to the track shortly after 8:30 males in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes (G1). a.m. Thursday, around the same time as Kentucky Derby (G1) The multiple graded stakes-winning daughter of Daredevil, winner and Preakness morning-line favorite Authentic. who has been ridden in races by five different jockeys, will be “He just feels like he’s so classy,” Finney said. “It was kind of guided for the first time by Robby Albarado Saturday. The veteran funny. We watched Authentic gallop by. It could have been a coin- jockey has ridden nine Preakness starters, including 2007 winner cidence but [Art Collector] shook his head and was kind of laugh- Curlin. ing a little bit. He’s a really, really smart horse. I feel fortunate to “Robby’s been a guy who has ridden for me. I think he’s just get to ride him for a few days.” lacking an outfit right now. He’s been in this game and won this Finney would be honored if Art Collector should win the Derby race. He rode a horse for me in this race; he rode a horse named but downplayed her contributions to the effort. Racecar Rhapsody [fourth in 2008],” trainer Kenny McPeek said. “In that short amount of time, you can’t really do any good for “He’s a big-game rider. I think he can get it done. Look, she’s the horse, but you can make the horse lose,” Finney said. “They’re shown she doesn’t need [a particular] rider. Everybody’s ridden such nice people, I would be so delighted to see them win, because her all year – Paco Lopez won on her, [Mike] Smith won on her, he’s their baby.” [Brian] Hernandez [Jr.] won on her; [Tyler] Gaffalione won on her.