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    Horse racing notebook: Bob Baffert to send more horses to Kentucky tracks
    • March 19, 2026

    Bob Baffert plans to send horses to race in Kentucky in response to shrinking opportunities at California tracks, the Hall of Fame trainer said Thursday.

    Confirming a report by Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter, Baffert said he has been allotted 34 stalls at Churchill Downs in Louisville. He said he has sent about 17 horses to Kentucky in recent years but will send more before a Keeneland meet in Lexington opens April 3, followed by a Churchill meet April 25. He currently has about 100 horses stabled in California at Santa Anita and Los Alamitos.

    Losing a significant number of horses trained by the six-time Kentucky Derby winner and dominant stakes-level trainer at Santa Anita and Del Mar could be a blow to California, worsening the horse shortage and small race fields caused in part by purses being lower here than in states like Kentucky where tracks draw on casino revenue.

    But Baffert said he’s “not giving up on California.”

    “I’d rather be in California with all of them, but … there’s more opportunity (in Kentucky),” Baffert, a 73-year-old Arizona native, said in a phone interview. “I’m not leaving with everything. I’ll still have a lot of horses here.

    “I love California. Santa Anita is my favorite track.”

    Having so many of the most talented young thoroughbreds in California, Baffert often has to run his stakes horses against each other.

    “I have too many horses in the same categories. It’s getting tougher,” he said, indicating that running more in Kentucky will allow him to split up horses from the same divisions.

    • The unclear picture going into major preps for the May 2 Kentucky Derby is evident in the odds after last week’s round of future betting. Paladin is an 8-1 favorite heading toward the April 4 Blue Grass Stakes, Chief Wallabee is a fraction behind, also at 8-1, as he aims for the March 28 Florida Derby. Then Baffert’s Santa Anita-based Potente and Cherokee Nation, both likely for the April 4 Santa Anita Derby, are among seven horses between 12-1 and 18-1.

    • More could jump into that pack of contenders with good showings Sunday. The Louisiana Derby features Golden Tempo (Jose Ortiz), Chip Honcho (Luis Saez), Baffert’s Blacksmith (Florent Geroux) and Doug O’Neill’s Pavlovian (Edwin Maldonado). The Jeff Ruby Stakes at Turfway Park in Kentucky sees Stark Contrast (Kazushi Kimura) trying to take the synthetic path a year after trainer Michael McCarthy used a more traditional Santa Anita springboard for Journalism to a second-place finish behind Sovereignty in the Derby and a victory in the Preakness.

    • Saturday’s Grade III San Luis Rey Stakes, the first 1-1/2-mile race of the Santa Anita season, matches Gold Phoenix and Truly Quality and challenges fans to figure out who’s really better at this long distance. Grade II-winning 6-year-old Truly Quality (Antonio Fresu riding) will draw a lot of play in the field of eight 4-year-olds and up because of his 3 for 5 record at 1-1/2 miles on turf. Grade I-winning 8-year-old Gold Phoenix (Hector Berrios) has been better at 12 furlongs on grass than his 0 for 5 record suggests, because four of those defeats came in the Breeders’ Cup Turf against some of the world’s best. A potential upsetter is 7-year-old Balnikhov (Juan Hernandez), who brings in a long losing streak at the stakes level but has threatened Gold Phoenix and Truly Quality before.

    • The two contenders scratched from the March 7 Santa Anita Handicap will race on Saturday. Skippylongstocking (Micah Husbands) returns to action in the Grade III Essex Handicap at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas. Westwood (Tyler Gaffalione) comes back in the Grade II New Orleans Classic at the Fair Grounds.

    • Los Alamitos spotlights the start of the season for 2-year-olds Saturday night with four races likely to send quarter horses on to April 19 trials for the May 10 Robert Adair Kindergarten Futurity.

    • The deaths of the 8-year-old Exhalting, following an injury in a March 7 race, and the 9-year-old Took Charge, attributed to non-musculoskeletal causes after a March 15 race, brought the number of deaths in racing and training at Los Alamitos in 2025 to four and the total at Los Al and Santa Anita this year to 10. The Los Al number equals the average for this part of the year, and the total for the Southern California tracks is one above the average, since the California Horse Racing Board began posting information about horse deaths in 2020.

    SANTA ANITA LEADERS

    Through Sunday

    Jockeys / Wins

    Emisael Jaramillo / 36

    Juan Hernandez / 34

    Kazushi Kimura / 33

    Armando Ayuso / 25

    Umberto Rispoli / 15

    Mirco Demuro / 15

    Edwin Maldonado / 14

    Hector Berrios / 14

    Tiago Pereira / 14

    Antonio Fresu / 13Trainers / Wins

    Doug O’Neill / 29

    Mark Glatt / 23

    Bob Baffert / 21

    George Papaprodromou / 19

    Michael McCarthy / 18

    Jeff Mullins / 16

    Phil D’Amato / 12

    Steve Knapp / 11

    Leonard Powell / 9

    Tim Yakteen / 8

    UPCOMING STAKES

    SANTA ANITA

    Saturday

    • $100,000, Grade III San Luis Rey Stakes, 4-year-olds and up, 1-1/2 miles on turf

    • $100,000 Irish O’Brien Stakes, Cal-bred fillies and mares, 4 and up, about 6-1/2 furlongs on turfSunday

    • $100,000 Sensational Star Stakes, 4 and up, about 6-1/2 furlongs on turf

    ​ Orange County Register 

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