LOUISVILLE, Ky. — No trainer has won the Kentucky Derby more times than Bob Baffert. Among other living trainers, nobody has won the Derby more than Doug O’Neill.
Combined the two Southern Californians have eight Derby victories — Baffert (six) and O’Neill (two) — one more than the total for the other 15 trainers in the field.
And yet, O’Neill’s horse for Saturday’s race, Pavlovian, is a 30-1 long shot on the morning-line odds, and Baffert’s starters are 20-1 (Potente) and 30-1 (Litmus Test). Not the odds you’d expect to see if you were just looking at the trainers.
Both know it’s nothing personal.
“It’s a sign of how, really, the sport is all about the horse,” O’Neill said at his barn. “Whether you’re Bob or me or whoever, you’re only as good as your horse. Bob and I are bringing in some horses that don’t jump off the page number-wise. But I was very impressed with Potente’s work the other day.”
Potente’s trainer also understands the odds, noting this isn’t the first time he’s brought long shots to the Derby.
“I mean, I’d rather be here with a horse like American Pharoah or Justify,” Baffert said, referring to his Triple Crown winners from 2015 and 2018. “But then I’d be like Todd [Pletcher]. He’s getting sick. I said, ‘You’re sick because you’ve got the favorite [Renegade].’ When I had Pharoah and Justify, I got so sick. I was so stressed out.”
Baffert added he was thinking at the time, “It was a layup; I better win this.”
If those horses were layups, Potente is more like a three-pointer from Stephen Curry range, while Litmus Test is along the lines of Jerry West’s 60-foot shot in the 1970 NBA Finals.
Of Baffert’s 35 previous starters, three went off at odds of 55-1 or higher (they finished sixth, 10th and 17th), and three others were priced at 20-1 or higher. Two of those finished ninth (25-1) and 15th (27-1), but War Emblem won the 2002 race at 20-1.
O’Neill’s first victory, in 2012, was unexpected; I’ll Have Another was priced at 15-1. Four years later, Nyquist triumphed as the 2-1 favorite. Both horses were owned by J. Paul Reddam, as is Pavlovian. A win Saturday would make the duo just the fourth owner-trainer team to win the Derby at least three times.
“That’s very cool,” O’Neill said, noting that Pavlovian is in the same stall Nyquist occupied a decade ago. “A lot of great memories here.
“But you know, when you’re talking a 20-horse field, I like the way Paul puts it: When you’re one out of 20, you got a 95% chance of losing, right? So when you get lucky enough to win, and you’re part of that 5%, you pinch yourself to how lucky and how amazing that experience was and hopefully could be again.”
Pavlovian is an unlikely Derby horse, and not just because he’s trying to become only the fifth Cal-bred to win the race. It’s mainly because he raced exclusively against Cal-breds in seven of his first eight races and only won one.
The last of those races, though, was the Cal Cup Derby, and a strong finish encouraged O’Neill to try the Sunland Park Derby. With Edwin Maldonado riding for the first time, the son of Pavel won, and in the Louisiana Derby he led almost the entire race before Emerging Market passed him in the final strides.
“For him to put up a great fight with a top horse like Emerging Market, it was a huge effort,” O’Neill said. “And the nice thing there, too, we had extra timing between that race and the Kentucky Derby. Knock on wood, everything’s kind of coming together as we had hoped and prayed.”
While O’Neill never could have expected to be here with his Cal-bred, Baffert will start two of the myriad expensive colts his clients buy each year. Potente, the San Felipe winner and Santa Anita Derby runner-up, cost $2.4 million, more than double any other horse in the Derby. Litmus Test, the Los Alamitos Futurity winner who has disappointed in two starts this year, was purchased for $875,000.
“They’re going to have to improve a lot,” Baffert said. “Potente, we’re still trying to figure him out a little bit, what he wants to do, how he wants to run, but he’s a big strong horse. … He’ll get the mile and a quarter.
“And [Litmus Test] was running really well, and then he sort of took a step back on me, but I did ship him a lot, so that might have knocked him out a little bit. But now he looks good. He worked well here, so we’ll see what happens.”
Second scratch
Fulleffort was scratched Thursday because of a chipped bone in his left hind ankle. Trainer Brad Cox still has his two most accomplished horses running Saturday in Florida Derby winner Commandment and Blue Grass champion Further Ado.
The scratch puts the maiden Ocelli in the field in the No. 20 post position. Great White, who moved into the field Wednesday with the scratch of Silent Tactic, will now break from the No. 19 post.
Kentucky Oaks Day
The filly equivalent of the Derby, the Kentucky Oaks, will be run under the lights at 5:40 p.m. PDT Friday. Zany (4-1) is the morning-line favorite for trainer Todd Pletcher, but two Southern California horses should be strong contenders: Michael McCarthy’s Meaning (5-1), the Santa Anita Oaks winner, and Baffert’s Explora (6-1). McCarthy also will start Brooklyn Blonde (30-1).