Preakness 2025: Baffert is back but not with the favorite

Baltimore

Bob Baffert said Wednesday there was no secret to how he has trained a record eight Preakness winners.

“I had the best horse,” he said. “You have to have the best horse to win. That’s usually the best secret a trainer can have in these big races, if you have the best horse.”

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That would be a tough case for Baffert to make this year. Goal Oriented comes in with only two starts to his name. They both resulted in wins, most recently by three-quarters of a length in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race May 3 on the Kentucky Derby undercard.

The $425,000 Not This Time colt owned by SF Racing and a phalanx of partners is the 6-1 fourth choice on the morning line for Preakness 2025 on Saturday at 7:01 p.m. EDT at Pimlico.

“He’s a big boy, isn’t he?” Baffert asked a gaggle of reporters and track publicists. “He looks like he can handle it.”

It is a stakes. A Grade 1. A Triple Crown race. And more in tune with something Goal Oriented will notice, it is the slop that is forecast to be under foot with ever-present rain this week.

The conditions were similar on Derby day, when jockey Flavien Prat and Goal Oriented successfully navigated the slop at Churchill Downs in a front-running victory. That was followed eight days later by a 47.6-second breeze when the Kentucky track was dry and fast.

“He ran well, and he worked well,” Baffert said. “He came out of it really well. ... He’s a big, strong horse. A big, long-striding horse. ... I was hoping for a dry track. I think he’s better in the dry. I don’t think he liked the wet too much. He won, but he just won because he’s a good horse. He’s still immature.”

This is a big leap for Goal Oriented, who cost $425,000 at the September 2023 Keeneland yearling sale. Three graded-stakes winners may tie a Preakness low, but Journalism, Sandman and Gosger are more than Goal Oriented ever has faced.

Baffert all but tamped down the expectations associated with his name and his track record in the Preakness. He displayed genuine respect for morning-line favorite Journalism, who finished second to Sovereignty in the Kentucky Derby.

“I think Journalism is a really good horse,” he said. “If Journalism wins, then the showdown will be between him and Sovereignty in the Belmont. That’ll make that race sexy. But to me, it’s so historical to win the Preakness. It’s a very historical race to win. A lot of people will be watching. You know, Journalism, we’ll be watching him closely.”

As Baffert spoke, he watched Goal Oriented being led around the shed row behind Sandman, the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby winner who closed to finish seventh in the Kentucky Derby. He and Sandman’s trainer Mark Casse traded restaurant tips and bon mots.

“Where’s Steve?” Baffert asked. He meant trainer Steve Asmussen, who has Preakness entrant Clever Again. The thrice-raced colt brings with him a stakes win at Oaklawn and the pedigree of his sire, Baffert’s 2015 Triple Crown champion American Pharoah.

“He’s over there,” Casse said, pointing to a stall across from the stakes barn. “He’ll rile everything up.”

“I want to look at that Pharoah,” Baffert said. “I saw him when he beat Gaming down there (at Oaklawn). He looks good, and we’re hoping for a Pharoah to jump up and do something. Big. On the dirt.”

Baffert said he did not have much to report about Goal Oriented, who had a jog over the sloppy Pimlico track Wednesday. Then he flipped the interview script to Rodríguez, another SF Racing colt in his barn. The Wood Memorial (G2) winner was supposed to go in the Derby and then in the Preakness, but a nagging bruised foot pushed that next hoped-for start back to the Belmont Stakes on June 7 at Saratoga. He did work a 49.0-second half-mile Sunday at Churchill Downs, but that was too late for Preakness consideration.

“I didn’t get to train him (sooner),” Baffert said. “It took a whole week to get that foot right. And then I breezed him, but I really think (Goal Oriented) is a bigger, strong horse, and Rodríguez was not quite ready. I’d rather just shoot for the Belmont with him.”

That leaves him with Goal Oriented, who figures to be moved forward quickly out of post 1 by Prat. That is the Baffert way in big races.

“I need a National Treasure trip,” Baffert said, referring half-jokingly to his most recent Preakness victory out of the 1 hole two years ago. “I don’t think I’m going to get it.”

He did not come right out and say someone else has the best horse. But Baffert knows he will not have the post-time favorite. So why is he back with a twice-raced colt in a $2 million classic?

“FOMO,” he said. For the uninitiated, that means fear of missing out, even if it is with a horse who will not be the most fancied come Saturday.

“We’re trying to win,” he said. “You want to come here and bring a nice horse. You want to be competitive. You don’t want to breed a horse just to come.”