Bob Baffert Returns to Belmont Stakes with Preakness Winner National Treasure

Though he started with quarter horses, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has been racing Thoroughbreds for over four decades. In that time, he has become the most recognizable trainer in horse racing, amassing over 3,300 victories and purses of over $344 million.

Baffert’s wins include victories in some of the world’s biggest dirt races. He has won 18 Breeders’ Cup races, from Thirty Slews in the 1992 Breeders’ Cup Sprint to Corniche in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He has won four editions of the Breeders’ Cup Classic with Bayern (2014), American Pharoah (2015), Arrogate (2016) and Authentic (2020). 

His Breeders’ Cup wins have come with two-year-olds, three-year-olds, and older. They have come at sprints and routes, but all of them have come on the main track. And, this main-track success has translated into an elite record in the three-year-old classic races.

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Bob Baffert in the Triple Crown

Bob Baffert has been a fixture in Triple Crown races since 1996 when he saddled Cavonnier in all three legs. Though Baffert did not win any of those classics on his first try, he came close. Cavonnier, his first-ever Kentucky Derby starter, rallied to the lead midstretch but missed by a nose to Grindstone in the end.

Since then, however, the California-based trainer has become almost synonymous with winning Triple Crown races. He is tied for the most wins ever in the first and second jewels of the Triple Crown and has also won the final leg three times.

Kentucky Derby

Since 1996, Bob Baffert has run 34 horses in the Kentucky Derby and won the race six times, putting him in a tie with Ben Jones for the most Kentucky Derby winners ever. Bob Baffert’s first three Kentucky Derby winners also won the Preakness but missed out on a Triple Crown at Belmont Park; Silver Charm (1997), Real Quiet (1998) and War Emblem (2002).

It took Baffert another 13 years to find the winner's circle at Churchill Downs, but that next win came with American Pharoah (2015), who went on to become the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years. Baffert swept the series again three years later with Justify (2018). His most recent Kentucky Derby winner was Authentic in the COVID-delayed 2020 Derby.

Baffert's more recent history in the Kentucky Derby has been riddled with controversy, however. He trained Medina Spirit, who crossed the finish line first in 2021 but was disqualified after a positive test for betamethasone.

That led to a 90-day suspension nationwide as well as a two-year suspension for Bob Baffert-trained horses from any races at Churchill Downs or other tracks that it owns, including the Kentucky Derby. In the last two years, top three-year-olds Baffert previously trained were moved to the barn of Tim Yakteen for Derby eligibility purposes.

However, Baffert is eligible to run at Maryland Jockey Club and New York Racing Association tracks, meaning he saddled National Treasure in the Preakness and will do so in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.

Preakness Stakes

Bob Baffert leads all trainers with eight victories in the Preakness Stakes. Although he is best known for his five winners (including two Triple Crown winners) who came out of first-place finishes in the Kentucky Derby, Baffert has won the Preakness three times with horses who did not contest the Run for the Roses. Those include two runners who finished off the board at Churchill Downs -- Point Given (2001) and Lookin at Lucky (2010), as well as this year’s winner National Treasure, who bypassed the Derby altogether.

Belmont Stakes

Baffert returns to the Belmont Stakes this year for the first time in five years. Though his record in the Belmont Stakes is not as gaudy as it is in the other two three-year-old classics, he still has a record most other trainers would envy. He has started 12 horses in the flagship race at Belmont Park between 1996 and 2018, winning the race with Point Given (2001), American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018). He also has three second-place finishers in the Belmont Stakes.

With six exacta finishers among just 12 starters, Baffert has one of the best Belmont Stakes records of any trainer ever.

Check out more Belmont Stakes coverage from The Duel:

National Treasure

Trainer Bob Baffert goes for his fourth career victory in the Belmont Stakes this Saturday with Preakness winner National Treasure. This colt by Quality Road is an anomaly among Bob Baffert horses who won the Preakness, as all seven of his other horses who won the second jewel of the Triple Crown contested the Kentucky Derby.

However, National Treasure finished fourth in the Santa Anita Derby (G1) and bypassed the Run for the Roses altogether. It was an unorthodox move given Baffert’s previous history in the Preakness, but it worked out and now National Treasure is riding high into the Belmont Stakes.

Going into the Preakness, National Treasure had a classy resume but also some questions to answer. He had been competitive against leading two-year-olds and three-year-olds earlier in his career. He broke his maiden at first asking at Del Mar, jumped right into top-level company and hit the board in both the American Pharoah (G1) and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1).

He followed that pattern in his first two starts at age three. He picked up minor awards in both the Sham (G3) and the Santa Anita Derby, doing the latter for trainer Tim Yakteen for Kentucky Derby eligibility reasons. However, that got him off the Derby trail and back in Baffert’s barn. Baffert trained him up to the Preakness, fitted him with blinkers, and got him to the point where he remembered how to win.

The Belmont Stakes will be a new test for National Treasure since he has yet to race a mile and a half. However, early speed was his greatest asset in the Preakness. It stands to be just as valuable in the Belmont Stakes as well, where he's shaping up to be the speed of the speed.

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