Video: A 'changed' Game Winner posts first 2020 workout

Game Winner, 2018’s Champion Two-Year-Old Male, submitted his first workout Thursday as an older horse toward his final season on track.

Off since winning the Los Alamitos Derby (G3) last July, the son of Candy Ride breezed three furlongs in 36.60 seconds at Santa Anita Park. Trainer Bob Baffert caught him galloping out a half mile in just over 49 seconds.

“The horse has really filled out and changed,” Baffert said.

With this just the initial breeze in a series, Baffert hopes to get Game Winner back to the races in May. Churchill Downs runs its Alysheba Stakes (G2) -- an event stablemate McKinzie won in 2019 -- on Kentucky Derby weekend.

Gary and Mary West’s runner went 4-for-4 in 2018, winning the Del Mar Futurity (G1), American Pharoah Stakes (G1) and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile en route to receiving an Eclipse Award.

Last season wasn’t quite as productive, though in hindsight a close runner-up off the layoff to Omaha Beach in a division of Oaklawn’s Rebel Stakes (G2) looks especially respectable. Game Winner went on from there to finish second in the Santa Anita Derby (G1) and placed fifth in the Kentucky Derby.

Plans to try the Belmont Stakes were scrapped when Baffert felt the colt wasn’t quite right. After the July 13 score at Los Alamitos, it was on to the Travers Stakes (G1) until Game Winner came up with a temperature the month of the race.

“I really thought turning 3 he was the best horse,” Baffert said last fall, once plans were made to campaign Game Winner this season at age 4. "I had some setbacks. He wasn't the same horse, and we could never really get him right. He was still running big races, but he wasn't like he was."

Lane’s End Farm later announced Game Winner will join its stallion roster in 2021.