McKinzie 'looked unbelievable' in work toward the Awesome Again
Reached by phone, trainer Bob Baffert responded to a request to comment on the 3-year-old Improbable’s Tuesday workout by quipping, “I thought we were going to talk about McKinzie.”
The 4-year-old son of Street Sense is doing that well, Baffert said, with a bullet five-furlong breeze of his own in 1:00.40 earlier at Del Mar the latest evidence.
“McKinzie looked unbelievable,” Baffert said. “He’s just getting stronger and stronger. He’s finally starting to fill out. Joe Talamo, he worked him and said he’s getting better.”
Campaigned by Karl Watson, Mike Pegram and Paul Weitman, McKinzie made himself a Grade 1 winner at ages 2, 3 and 4 last out when winning Saratoga’s Whitney Stakes (G1) by 1 3/4 lengths. In his wake were the eventual Woodward Stakes winner (Preservationist) and favorite (Yoshida), along with Vino Rosso, who won the Gold Cup at Santa Anita (G1) earlier this season.
Each time a top race for the Older Male division runs and produces a different winner, McKinzie seems to further cement himself as the one to beat in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, which Baffert won in succession with Bayern, American Pharoah and Arrogate from 2014-2016.
“I don’t want to jinx myself, but I can tell he trains like the really top horses I’ve had,” the Hall of Famer said of McKinzie, who’s expected to use Santa Anita’s Grade 1, $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes on Sept. 28 as a final Breeders’ Cup prep.
Before the Whitney, McKinzie found trouble in the stretch yet looked full of run when second to Mitole in the Metropolitan Handicap (G1). The colt’s other victory this season came on Kentucky Oaks day in Churchill Downs’ Alysheba (G2). Those behind him — Tom’s d’Etat, Seeking the Soul and Silver Dust — have all gone on to win other stakes.
The Met Mile loss came by 3/4 of a length after McKinzie’s first two starts this season resulted in defeats by a half-length and nose. Baffert credited jockey Mike Smith for getting McKinzie “figured out” in the afternoon.
“He’s a slow-maturing horse, but I can tell,” Baffert said of Smith. “You can put him anywhere you want. He’s not one-dimensional.”
Oddschecker.com, which groups overseas sports books’ future prices, shows McKinzie as the consensus early Breeders’ Cup Classic favorite available at 5-1 from most books.