GOLDEN GLIMPSES #75

Baffert Swaps $$ for Charm's Sake

If you gild it, they will come.

Hollywood built its Field of Dreams, and they came. Now Hollywood Park has gilded its Swaps Stakes to $1 million, essentially extending the 3-year-old classics to a Quadruple Crown. But don't bet on a Belmont Stakes rematch between Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Silver Charm, Belmont winner Touch Gold and Triple Crown foil Free House in the 1 1/8-mile race, scheduled July 13.

"They're not going to see Silver Charm (in the Swaps), not on that kind of deal," trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after Hollywood Park and the Thoroughbred Owners of California agreed to a $500,000 supplement to the $500,000 Swaps, provided the first three finishers in the Belmont start in the Grade II race. If the Big Three started in the Swaps, they and all other starters would be aiming for a winner's share of $800,000. The bonus would apply only to the winner.

"We're not looking for money here," Baffert said. "We're looking at what's right for the horse. We'll bring him to California from Churchill Downs in about two weeks, and I don't know where's he gonna run next, but most likely, the Haskell at Monmouth Park (Aug. 3).

"On that Swaps deal, I told them I wasn't interested. It's just ridiculous. I would feel bad if something happened to my horse and I couldn't run, and one of the other guys wouldn't be able to run for the (bonus) money. It's a nice gesture, but we're trying to keep our horse on a schedule and we have to give these horses a break.

"The thing is, if one of them gets sick or injured, you have to prime your horse to run for $500,000, so I don't think so. What Arlington did for Cigar was a good deal. I told them (Hollywood) if they wanted a match race between Touch Gold and us, it would be a great, while everybody's hot on the trail."

Meanwhile, David Hofmans, trainer of Touch Gold, indicated he might run if the Swaps was moved to July 19. "We're going to talk to them about moving the date back. The 13th is too soon for us. The Swaps is tempting, but I would like them to move it back because we need a little extra time for his foot (quarter crack on his left front) to heal. It would either be the Swaps or the Haskell or the Travers. They're the three we're looking at. But if the Swaps is run on the 13th, we probably wouldn't run."

Paco Gonzalez, understandably, said his Fre House's best interests were more important than the purse increase.

"The purse doesn't change anything," the trainer said. "Whether we run or not depends on how the horse looks. He's doing fine right now, but John (co-owner John Toffan) wants to go to the Haskell, so I don't know. But if Swaps is run on the 19th, then it's too close for anybody to run back in the Haskell. That would only be 15 days."

Both Baffert and Hofmans looked like they were still suffering from a major case of jet lag, even several days after the Belmont. Baffert tried to put his hectic but memorable experience in perspective.

"I'm not as devastated now as I was then," Baffert said 72 hours after the defeat. "I'm still the same guy. My feet never left the ground. Well, okay, maybe they did after we won the Derby. It was all fun, but for me, the highlight of whole trip was New York and getting to know the media there.

"The media, Bob Lewis, Gary Stevens, Visa and I made it happen. The media fed off of us, but, at the same time, I let them into our camp to get close to the horse and our connections. We took the arrogance out of racing and put the fun back in it. We were having fun every race, and they enjoyed it. So everything they wrote was very positive, because they were on the same ride. The writers came through. They made it happen."

Modesty is not one of Baffert's strong suits, but he was off-target with that assessment, because the personality of many other trainers just wouldn't have allowed that to occur.

With all due respect, I can't see Bobby Frankel, Bill Mott or even the personable Dick Mandella stepping off a van with a horse going for the Triple Crown and doing a Richard Nixon impersonation.

"Sure, I've always been very loose and had fun, tried to tell the media what's going on," Baffert said. "There was nothing secretive about what was happening."

Baffert said he did not formally document his wild ride, by way of newspaper clippings or video tape. "No, because the exhausting part for Bob Lewis and I was trying to accommodate everybody in the media. I talked to everybody, did every radio show I could, you name it. And that was the exhausting part of it, not training the horse."

And please, don't tell Baffert about New Yorkers being mean-spirited and blasé.

"I've never been to a place where 70,000 people were all rooting for one horse. That was unbelievable, especially in New York."

GOLDEN PICKS

PROMISING WONDER -- Ran winning race in turf sprint but couldn't hold off stretch kick of winner who closed on fence. Tab next time.

WITCHY -- In good form for Baffert, should continue winning ways even if jumped in class from $25,000 claiming level.

THE HOMESTRETCH: Mud Route, considered a major Triple Crown threat and at least in the same league as Silver Charm before bucking his shins in March, had his first gallop last Thursday at Santa Anita. "We've been riding him around and jogging him the last week or so," said Hall of Fame trainer Ron McAnally, just back from a business trip to France and Japan. "We have no date for his return. We'll just take it a day at a time. All looks well now, which is most important." . . . Everyone in racing knows about the legendary training accomplishments of Charlie Whittingham, but little about Whittingham, the man. Charlie, who was 84 on April 13, lost vision in his right eye due to a staph infection following cataract surgery last year. After several unsuccessful operations to save his sight, the old Marine adjusted to seeing out of one eye, and the accompanying distadvantages, such as loss of depth perception and imbalance. "But his biggest concern," says top assistant Tim Yakteen, "was that he not be a bother to anyone else."

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