Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert will have a division of his 100-horse stable at Churchill Downs this spring.
Baffert is expected to have widespread participation in lucrative stakes during the week of the May 2 Kentucky Derby and have runners at the remainder of the Churchill Downs spring-summer meeting, which runs through June 28.
Baffert wrote in a text message on Thursday that a division in Kentucky “gives me more opportunities to run some of my horses that have [the] same conditions.” Baffert’s decision to have a base at Churchill Downs in the coming months was first reported by Horseracingnation.com.
At the current Santa Anita winter-spring meeting, Baffert ranks third in the standings with 21 wins from 71 runners through Thursday. Doug O’Neill leads all trainers with 29 wins.
Of his 21 wins, Baffert has won 12 stakes, including three Grade 1 races. He won the Malibu Stakes with the now-retired Goal Oriented and the La Brea Stakes with Usha, both on Dec. 28, and the Beholder Mile on March 7 with Splendora.
Currently, Baffert’s main division is based at Santa Anita, with a satellite stable at Los Alamitos that consists largely of 2-year-olds and runners in the early stages of returning to training.
Baffert has had a presence at the Churchill Downs spring-summer meeting as far back as the late 1990s and early 2000s. He won a career-best 13 races at the 1999 Churchill Downs spring-summer meeting and had eight wins there in 2003.
Baffert, 73, has won the Kentucky Derby six times, most recently in 2020, equaling the late Ben Jones on the all-time list.
The Baffert-trained Medina Spirit finished first in the 2021 Kentucky Derby, but he failed a post-race test and was disqualified. Baffert was suspended from racing at Churchill Downs by track management from 2022 until 2024. Since late 2024, Baffert has won six races at Churchill, including two stakes.
A move to Churchill Downs this spring will give Baffert ample opportunities to run in maiden or allowance races that may not fill as frequently at Santa Anita. Churchill Downs, boosted by revenue from historical horse racing machines, has a purse structure considerably higher than Southern California tracks, which do not have an ancillary form of gambling to subsidize purses.
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