Pegasus: Barnes, Prat have confidence in National Treasure
Hallandale Beach, Fla.
Trainer Bob Baffert is expected to watch from home in California. Flavien Prat is flying from the West Coast on the eve of the race to do the riding. Owners will converge Saturday on Gulfstream Park to see National Treasure race as the clear favorite in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational.
Waiting for the big-name connections to arrive, the 4-year-old colt is doing his morning work under the supervision of Baffert’s loyal assistant Jimmy Barnes.
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“We just do our normal routines for shipping in,” Barnes said after morning training Thursday. “We got in Tuesday evening. We went to the track Wednesday morning. We went like a light mile. And then today we went back up to a mile-and-a-half.”
So it goes for Barnes, who is the familiar face of the Baffert stable whenever a big race beckons far from home base at Santa Anita. And so it goes for National Treasure, whose triumph last year in the Preakness makes him the only Grade 1 winner in the field of 12 older horses racing 1 1/8 miles Saturday for a purse of $3 million.
It was very nearly two Grade 1 victories, but National Treasure was caught at the wire by Cody’s Wish last fall in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. That second-place finish, a nose shy of victory, preceded a nearly three-month break from racing.
“It seems like he ran really well last time,” said Prat, who was paired with National Treasure for the first time in that narrow loss Nov. 4 at Santa Anita. “Hopefully he can repeat the same race.”
National Treasure was drawn into post 7, a decent enough place on a course that places a premium on positioning going into a first turn that comes only 150 yards from the start.
“The break is going to be very important,” Prat said Thursday in a phone call from California. “The turn comes very quickly. It’s very important to get a good break.”
From there, most handicappers will expect National Treasure to go forward and try to lead from gate to wire. Prat certainly did not dispute that.
“He’s always been forwardly placed, yeah,” he said.
Not that Barnes was going to publicly second that. Instead of handicapping and mapping races, his job is to make sure Baffert’s horses are ready for their big dates. As far as he is concerned, the conditions suit National Treasure, a son of Quality Road who has earned $1,603,000 for the partnership led by SF Racing and managed by Tom Ryan.
“I think he’s going to like the racetrack,” Barnes said. “This eastern track has more sand, and they get more water here. It’s different from the racetrack we have at Santa Anita. It seems to be tighter, but I don’t know. We don’t do enough racing here for me to have really an opinion. I come once a year.”
Whether Barnes was holding back a more revealing opinion or just being modest, there is no disputing the success the Baffert barn has had in the Pegasus. Arrogate in 2017 and Mucho Gusto in 2020 were winners since what used to be the Donn Handicap was rebranded into a multimillion-dollar spectacle. West Coast in 2018 and Defunded last year finished second. Each time Barnes was the advance man.
“My main job is to get the horse over to the paddock, get the rider up, and then it’s up to Prat,” Barnes said.
As Barnes put it, the “heavy lifting” was done back in California, where Baffert put National Treasure through the paces of eight workouts since the Breeders’ Cup. Two of those breezes produced bullet times. The most recent work came Saturday, which showed up on the stopwatch at 46.4 seconds for a half-mile.
Mornings aside, Prat said the defeat that drew a stewards’ review last fall before Cody’s Wish was confirmed the winner still provided him with confidence that National Treasure will be in position to potentially win this weekend.
“I thought he ran a great race in the Breeders’ Cup,” he said. “He got beat by Cody’s Wish, who was one of the best horses we had last year. I thought it was a great run. Hopefully he can improve from that race and move on.”
When Baffert spoke to the Gulfstream Park media team this week, he took the long-range view that led to National Treasure being kept in training at age 4.
“He’s getting better,” Baffert said. “We've taken our time. We’ve spotted him right. I’ve let him really mature on his own. This is a perfect scenario for him. A perfect spot to come back.”
The weather was warm Thursday morning with shirt sleeves the order of the day at Gulfstream. That trend will continue with sunny days and weekend highs of 83 degrees. The Pegasus World Cup is the last of 13 races Saturday with a scheduled post time of 5:40 p.m. EST.