Charm School Is Still in Session for Baffert

BALTIMORE — A wisecracking duo of the first order, Bob Baffert and his brother Bill were sitting in the Pimlico kitchen early Sunday morning, rehashing Saturday’s Preakness and contemplating the Belmont Stakes, which could catapult Silver Charm into the pantheon of horses that have swept the Triple Crown.

When the 1 1/2-mile Belmont is run June 7, Silver Charm will become the 24th horse to run after having also won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. In the last 15 years, only two horses--Alysheba in 1987 and Sunday Silence in 1989--have been in the same position, and both failed to win the Belmont. The 11th and most recent 3-year-old to win all three races was Affirmed in 1978.

“I’m going to play this like any other race,” Bob Baffert said. “I’m going to try to set my mind back to the days when I had quarter horses at Los Alamitos.”

This was before 6 a.m. Sunday, and after Silver Charm had been put on a plane for Louisville, Ky., where he will do all of his important training for the Belmont. Silver Charm won’t have a workout over the track at Belmont Park before the Triple Crown windup.

Baffert came away from Belmont last year distrusting the track’s surface. His first 3-year-old to run in the classics, Cavonnier, lost the Derby by a nose to Grindstone, finished fourth in the Preakness and then suffered a career-ending tendon injury in the Belmont.

“The day before the Belmont, the track got deeper and cuppier,” Baffert said. “If they had done that to the track earlier in the week, I would have taken Cavonnier home. So this time I’m not taking any chances and going to Churchill Downs. That’s a track that he bounces over very well.”

Silver Charm will have his final workout on Monday or Tuesday of Belmont week, then be shipped to New York. He is eligible to earn $5 million, counting purses and a bonus, if he sweeps the Triple Crown races.

“I don’t think he ran as well in the Preakness as he did in the Derby,” Baffert said. “But I think he will go forward in the Belmont. This is a big, powerful, muscular horse. He can take the grind.”

The three horses that finished just behind Silver Charm on Saturday--Free House, Captain Bodgit and Touch Gold--are also probables for the Belmont.

The bob of the heads defeated Free House at the wire Saturday. “We’ve got to teach him to keep his nose down,” trainer Paco Gonzalez said Sunday. “Maybe we could get somebody to hold a carrot out in front of him. But I’m proud of him. These races [the Derby and the Preakness] have been so close that any of these three horses could win.”

Captain Bodgit, who was second, beaten by a head, in the Derby, trains at the Bowie Training Center, 30 miles south of Baltimore. He shipped to Pimlico 2 1/2 hours before the Preakness and was back at Bowie by nightfall.

“I feel good about the race,” trainer Gary Capuano said. “The horse overcame a lot, and as usual he didn’t disappoint us.”

Captain Bodgit will be vanned the 250 miles to Belmont Park the day before the Belmont.

“That kid’s done a great job with Captain Bodgit,” Baffert said. “But Bodgit still can’t get by The Charm. The gray horse kicks in another gear when Bodgit gets close to him.”

When Captain Bodgit arrived at Pimlico on Saturday, he stirred up Silver Charm, who was only a couple of stalls away in the Preakness barn.

“We had to tie up The Charmster,” Baffert said. “Horses must be able to communicate. Captain Bodgit must have called my horse an ass or something.”

Horse Racing Notes

Favored Banker’s Gold won the $150,000 Peter Pan Stakes Sunday at Belmont Park. Ridden by Eddie Maple for trainer Allen Jerkens and owner Georgia Hofmann, the son of Forty Niner beat Zede by two lengths in 1:48 3/5 for 1 1/8 miles.

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“If the world were flat, Silver Charm would run off the end of it.”

--Trainer Bob Baffert