Baffert hoping McKinzie can defend Whitney title

Between racing stoppages brought on by a pandemic, a horse losing not one but two of his shoes in a race and a back-relief patch that was blamed for triggering positive drug tests in two of his horses, Bob Baffert is wondering what other bizarre circumstances will cross his path.

“Every year something happens to me that I’ve never seen in my life,” he said this week. “I’m telling you, everything. That includes patches. Everything. It’s ridiculous.”

Barring yet another unforeseen circumstance, Baffert will try again to saddle Maximum Security’s comeback from a five-month break and to get McKinzie back in the form that made him a four-time Grade 1 winner before this year.

In his first race since being transferred to Baffert from indicted trainer Jason Servis, Maximum Security will carry top weight and a career-high 127 pounds in Saturday’s San Diego Handicap (G2). That is one of the races that was postponed by last week’s spike in coronavirus cases among jockeys and their attendants at Del Mar.

Then next week Baffert hopes to have McKinzie ready to try and repeat as the winner of the Whitney Stakes (G1) on Aug. 1 at Saratoga. That is where more coronavirus restrictions would require him to recruit a local jockey if he indeed sends the 5-year-old horse back east again.

“McKinzie worked nice,” Baffert said by phone about Monday’s five-furlong 1:00.6 workout at Del Mar. “He’s going to be nominated for the Whitney. I was waiting to see how he worked and how he comes out of it.”

With one win in five starts since last year’s Whitney, McKinzie came up empty for jockey Mike Smith in the final furlong July 4 on his way to finishing fifth in the Met Mile (G1) at Belmont Park. Two of his hooves also came up empty shortly after the start.

“He did pull those shoes off,” Baffert said. “He broke well, and then all of a sudden he fell back and lost his right front and right hind shoes. I’ve never had that happen. He must have just grabbed himself and pulled them off. It was freaky. It was almost as freaky as when Gun Runner lost his shoe (winning the 2017 Whitney) and it was in his tail the whole way around.”

Not that the shoes alone would have made a difference. Smith told Baffert that McKinzie did not feel right in the paddock before the race.

“It was hot and muggy,” Baffert said. “In the warm-up I could tell he wasn’t himself. Going to the gate Mike never felt good about it. He said, ‘He never got underneath me.’ He still had the best (Ragozin) sheet number, but he didn’t win.”

If he is entered in the Whitney, McKinzie is likely to run up against Code Of Honor, third in the Met Mile, and Tom’s d’Etat, winner of four consecutive stakes.

In the meantime Baffert will be hoping that there is not another false start to Maximum Security’s return. It was already complicated when his regular jockey Luis Sáez caught the coronavirus. That forced Baffert to assign the mount Saturday to Abel Cedillo, the second-leading rider during the recent meet at Santa Anita.

“It’s not a big deal,” Baffert said. “I would have liked to have kept Luis Sáez on the horse. He knows him really well. But Abel Cedillo is a good horseman, and good horses always find a way to win.”

If all goes well for both Maximum Security and McKinzie, Baffert may have at least two of his horses for the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 7 at Keeneland. Overseas bettors have already made Maximum Security the 5-1 futures favorite for the race.

But don’t bring any of that up to a Hall of Fame trainer who won the Classic three times in a row with Bayern, American Pharoah and Arrogate from 2014 to 2016. He has also endured a year when Charlatan and Kentucky Oaks favorite Gamine tested positive May 2 at Oaklawn Park for an excess level of lidocaine. The explanation from Baffert’s team is that assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes applied his own back-relief patch, from which a trace amount of the medication was passed onto the horses when he put on their tongue ties.

In short Baffert summarized the long-term path for Maximum Security and McKinzie by saying, “The Breeders’ Cup? That’s too far off.”