LOUISVILLE, Ky. _ Nobody can get a horse to peak on Derby Day better than Bob Baffert can. If his star Mastery hadn't suffered a serious ankle injury seconds after dominating a stakes race in March at Santa Anita, the 64-year-old Hall of Famer probably would have been favored to win his fifth Derby on Saturday.
"It's tough to swallow that pill, but you have to," Baffert said Friday. "You just have to accept that you're going to have bad luck. You're a trainer, and you're going to take a lot of lumps.
"What happened to Mastery shows you how brutal this business can be. One minute you win and you think wow, this is the horse we always thought he was. Twenty seconds later, he's hurt. I thought he was the kind of horse who would be a Derby, Preakness, Belmont type. He had brilliance. Unfortunately, those things happen."
So instead of being a major player in the Derby again, Baffert planned to watch it from his couch at home in Southern California. He flew back with his wife, Jill, and their son, Bode, after Abel Tasman gave him the best possible consolation prize, an upset win in Friday's 3-year-old fillies' Derby, the Kentucky Oaks, at Churchill Downs.
Baffert was asked about how it feels to deal with racing's glorious ups and its abysmal downs.
"Well, it's crazy," he said. "That's why I have white hair."
