Baffert returns to Pimlico, looks for record 9th Preakness win

Baltimore

Bob Baffert made his annual return to Pimlico on Friday morning. Whether it will be triumphant for a record ninth time depends entirely on how Imagination runs Saturday in Preakness 2024.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said to about a dozen reporters and a couple track publicists who gathered around him outside the stakes barn. “It’s up to Franklin Ditteri whatever he does.”

The Hall of Fame trainer playfully mispronounced the name of Frankie Dettori, the internationally renowned jockey who hopes to add a U.S. classic victory to his impressive list of accolades.

More to the point this weekend, though, is whether Dettori will take Imagination to the lead and try to go gate to wire in the 1 3/16-mile race. Because stablemate and futures favorite Muth is on the shelf with a fever and infection that Baffert said would keep him out of the Belmont Stakes, the plan of attack for Imagination might not be as easy to map.

“He needs a target,” Baffert said. “He’s the kind of horse that I don’t know if he can get out there by himself what he would do, how he would react. He’s a horse that’s always looking around. (He is) green still. I’m just going to leave that up to Frankie. He’s going to be on his own. I’m not going to tell him anything.”

The Preakness will mark the third time Dettori races the $1.05 million colt owned by the SF Racing partnership. The first time came March 3, when Imagination got bumped hard by Scatify making the first turn before dueling early leader and stablemate Wine Me Up through the second half of what would be a head victory in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes.

The second time was last month, when Imagination stalked Tapalo before taking the lead in the stretch only to lose it to Stronghold for a neck loss in the Santa Anita Derby (G1).

“He continues to progress with each week and each month,” said SF Racing boss Tom Ryan, who also was at the Pimlico stakes barn Friday. “I love what I’m seeing this morning. He’s here. He’s fresh. He’s alert.”

Now comes the task of taking on the likes of Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, who caught Baffert’s eye with an eight-length, wet-track win Feb. 3 in the Southwest Stakes (G3). Baffert also was impressed the way trainer Kenny McPeek’s colt rallied to finish third behind Muth in the Arkansas Derby (G1).

“He’s very consistent,” Baffert said. “Kenny has done a great job with him. His race in the Southwest (G3) was really off the charts. He looked like the Derby favorite that day that he won. Even though it was a sloppy track, just the way that he did it, he really was just extending at the end. His Arkansas Derby, he was outside, he had a rough trip around the first turn. He came running, and Muth is a really good horse, and so it was a good race. I liked the way he won the (Kentucky) Derby. Brilliant ride by (Brian) Hernandez. It looked like a Calvin Borel-type ride.”

Mystik Dan is the 8-5 favorite on the revised morning line for the Preakness with Imagination being the 3-1 second choice. In Las Vegas futures, Mystik Dan was best-priced Friday morning at 9-5 and Imagination at 6-1.

After Imagination had been under the watch of assistant trainer Jimmy Barnes this week, Baffert reported he galloped “an easy mile-and-three-eighths” Friday under a cloudy sky on the fast main track just after 7 a.m. EDT.

The clouds are likely to bring rain Saturday. The National Weather Service said there is a 60 percent chance of showers that could put a quarter-inch of water on the track. Baffert said he did not know how that would affect Imagination.

“In California we’re not even allowed to train in a rain situation,” he said. “You don’t know until they come out of the gate. Breeding-wise he’s out of (Magical Feeling,) an Empire Maker mare, and he loved the mud. Good horses, they’ll run on anything.”

Ryan sounded optimistic about how Imagination would do on what could be a sloppy track, especially breaking widest in the field of eight 3-year-olds.

“Drawn on the outside,” he said, “if it rains, it’s not a bad spot to be in, right?”

Neither is Pimlico’s infield winner’s circle, where Baffert and Ryan were last year with National Treasure. If Imagination comes through Saturday, the tradition of painting the weather vane in the winner’s colors would seem redundant except for the fact the silks a rotated among the partners. The Madaket Stables light blue would be recoated with Starlight Racing dark blue. 

“It would be huge,” said Ryan, who is hoping McPeek does not do to Imagination what his filly Swiss Skydiver did in defeating Authentic in the fall of 2020. “The Preakness that haunts me is the Authentic Preakness. It’s almost like he stopped at the top of the stretch and took a look at that filly. Kenny got us that day.”