Flatter: Baaeed tries to leave his own undefeated mark

If the racing schedule were like college football, this would be bowl season. And not just here in America.

Alpinista was the first big winner two weeks ago in France. That led to the spring carnival that is going on in Australia. Keeneland takes its turn next month hosting our two big autumn days in America. And Saturday brings the end of the season in England. Instead of the Sugar and Fiesta and Rose and Orange, we have the Arc, the Melbourne Cup, the Breeders’ Cup and British Champions day.

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Unlike college football, which needed more than a century to find its way to a decisive national playoff, racing lacks a true world championship. Like the old days of college football, it will come down to a vote, presumably between undefeated Flightline and undefeated Baaeed.

It used to be that the idea of having bowl games without a championship was to have a bunch of winners at the end of the year. So it remains in racing. Regardless of what Flightline does in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Baaeed will be celebrated in Europe – if he finishes his career Saturday at Ascot with a victory in the Group 1 Champion Stakes.

“I’d like to get Saturday out of the way,” Baaeed’s trainer William Haggas said this week. “I’d love him to win, and then I can be proud of his achievements.”

Haggas, 62, was driving in England when he took my call for the Ron Flatter Racing Pod. If he, too, could be compared with college football, he might be like coach Kirby Smart of Georgia. With an occasional hint of wry humor, Haggas has been at once friendly and candid in the conversations I have had with him this year.

Since 4-year-old Baaeed will be retired to stud for his breeder-owner Shadwell after Saturday’s race, Haggas and jockey Jim Crowley are under pressure to make sure a celebrated career is punctuated with an 11th win in as many starts and a seventh in a row in a Group 1 race.

“It’s testing for any trainer in this situation,” Haggas said. “As long as we can get to the race in one piece, and he can show what he’s capable of. Hopefully, it will be OK.”

Easily the best horse Haggas ever has trained, Baaeed was sired by Sea the Stars, who went 6-for-6 as a 3-year-old and finished his career in 2009 by winning the Arc. Haggas also trained the late Sea of Class, a filly by Sea the Stars who made a late charge to finish second in the 2018 Arc, nearly catching the great Enable at the very end.

It is hard to discuss Baaeed without thinking of Sea the Stars, whose exquisite hind quarters remain an indelible memory for me. When I saw him walk out on the track in gleaming sunshine back when Paris used to have that kind of weather in October, I realized every bet I made against him in that Arc was lost. Sea the Stars was the best equine specimen I ever saw in the flesh until Justify came along.

“Sea the Stars won every race that I as a trainer want to win in my career, never mind in the same season,” Haggas said. He was referring to the 2,000 Guineas and the Epsom Derby and the Eclipse and the Juddmonte International and the Irish Champion and the Arc. I will spare you all the (G1)s. “He was a magnificent horse, but he wasn’t like Frankel. He won impressively but never by a large distance. He just got the job done and moved on.”

The comparisons between Baaeed and Frankel were inevitable. One is undefeated; the other was. Both were the best milers of their time in Europe. They won the 1 5/16-mile Juddmonte. Now Baaeed is trying to duplicate Frankel’s example from 10 years ago by winning the 1 1/4-mile Champion Stakes and bowing out.

There are more daddy issues here. Baaeed’s top rival Saturday is Adayar, a two-time Group 1 winner last year who spent nearly a year on the bench before a comeback victory last month against only two challengers in a minor stakes race. Wouldn’t you know it? Adayar, a Godolphin homebred, was sired by Frankel.

“I think he’s a good stayer, Adayar,” Haggas said. “He’s obviously a highly talented horse. They must have had issues with him, because he’s had limited starts this year. He won a poor race, which he had to win, but he won it easily. I fear him because he won the (Epsom) Derby and the King George, two prestigious mile-and-a-half races. For me he won them by staying. I don’t know whether Baaeed might have too much speed for him.”

Which brings us back to Baaeed’s pedigree. Sea the Stars had that ability to uncork just enough of the speed he needed to win his races. Baaeed has gone one better. At least he did when he won the Juddmonte by 6 1/2 lengths. That was more than the combined margins in his three previous wins this year.

“This horse was quite similar to (Sea the Stars) when he was not winning by a long way,” Haggas said. “He was just getting the job done, and then he just grew another leg when he won the Juddmonte. He just seemed so impressive that day. He sort of even exceeded what his father had achieved.”

Haggas said Baaeed got his rear-end horsepower from Sea the Stars, but his conformation is next level.

“If you didn’t know who he was, you would say he is more likely to be fast than stay distances on his physique alone,” he said. “I think he’s proved that he’s got speed and stamina, which is what we all dream of in every racehorse.”

If there were any questions about Baaeed’s ability to win the Champion Stakes, they might have come with ground that was more like what Alpinista enjoyed in the Arc, which really should be renamed the Ark what with its four consecutive years of being waterlogged. One reason Haggas decided not to take Baaeed there was the fear of bottomless ground.

Ascot had rain this week, and more was in the forecast for Friday. But on race day, the royal weather bureau said it would be partly cloudy and 61 degrees.

Since Baaeed already drew the inside post in the nine-horse field for the one-turn Champion Stakes, Haggas said he has stopped fretting about the weather.

“I’m not one of these that worries about things like that that too much, because there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said. “It’ll be what it’ll be, but we won’t be scratched because of the ground.”

And after Saturday, that will be that. The horse of a lifetime will be off to stud – and out of Haggas’s Newmarket barn for the first time in nearly two years.

Of course, like a senior leaving a college football team, Baaeed will be missed.

“Terribly,” Haggas said with a rueful chuckle. “Terribly.”