Pegasus: Baffert Looks to Make More Memories at Pegasus; Cyberknife Carries Banner of Cancer Awareness

By David Joseph —-

Apr 27, 2015; Louisville, KY, USA; Horse trainer Bob Baffert talks with media and spectators during morning work outs at Churchill Downs. Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports ORG XMIT: USATSI-224104 ORIG FILE ID: 20150427_jla_sf6_137.jpg

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – As trainer Bob Baffert remembers it, the last Tuesday in January 2017 started off with some bad news from South Florida: Arrogate had drawn the rail for the inaugural running of the $12 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park.

“Well, that week was the week of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse and I was in England,” Baffert said. “We flew in there, to London, for the beautiful ceremony. it’s really classy. And we were all excited about, the Longines. It was just a really nice setting and just first class. And we got to walk around as tourists and went to see a lot of those sites there.

“They drew the race and I woke up to a text that we drew the one. We didn’t like that. And California Chrome was on the outside. We just knew that the horse was doing well.”

Nearly three months after Arrogate and California Chrome turned in gripping performances in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1), they were set for a rematch in the Pegasus, which carried the world’s biggest purse. Arrogate’s half-length victory in the Classic locked up the 3-year-old male Eclipse Award title and the World’s Best Racehorse title for the Juddmonte colt. Despite his narrow loss in the Classic, California Chrome was voted the older male dirt Eclipse Award and Horse of the Year.

In late August at Saratoga, Arrogate emerged in a very big way, winning the Travers (G1) by 13 ½ lengths while breaking the 37-year-old track record for 1 ¼ miles. His win in the Classic showed that the Travers score was no fluke.

The inaugural Pegasus beckoned. For California Chrome it would be a career finale before heading off to stud. Arrogate, a son of Unbridled’s Song, was on a five-racing winning streak. All the pre-race hype centered on the showdown between the beloved Cal-bred and the exciting Baffert runner. It was an ideal match.

“It’s amazing that they put [the Pegasus] together the way they did,” Baffert said, “because when I first heard about it, I was like, ‘This can’t happen.’ But they did. They pulled it off.

“I think it was very important for racing, that they did that because it justifies that when you go and pay a million dollars for a yearling, there’s a way out. You can’t count on being a stallion. To run for more money like that, I think it really brought more people into the sport

Baffert noted that it was unfortunate that the emergence of the $20 million Saudi Cup in a late February slot changed the landscape for older horses at the start of the calendar year. The Pegasus with its current $3 million purse is the richest race run in North America outside of the Breeders’ Cup.

“It’s still a good race, because it gives you one more race before you go out to be a stallion,” Baffert said.

Gun Runner was unable to compete in 2017 because of travel restrictions in place following an outbreak at Fair Grounds in New Orleans. He completed his racing career in the 2018 Pegasus and has quickly become one of America’s top sire. In 2021, Knicks Go started his Horse of the Year campaign with a win in the Pegasus. Arrogate’s score at Gulfstream helped him finish with over $17 million in career earnings.

“Good horses have won that race,” Baffert said, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2009. “We were lucky one year and won it with Mucho Gusto. I really didn’t think he could win it. Remember, Omaha Beach was in the race, he scratched and the race sort of fell apart.”

Mucho Gusto prevailed by 4 ½ lengths in 2020, making Baffert the only two-time winner of the race. He returns for the first time since Mucho Gusto’s win with Defunded, a 5-year-old gelding co-owned by Mike Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman, who has won his last two starts. Baffert said he is happy to be back in Pegasus.

“It’s exciting. It’s a very important race,” he said. “It’s got a lot of energy. I think Gulfstream does a great job. It’s a party. It’s become something really huge for South Florida and they do a great job promoting it. it’s important that if you have a horse, we have to make sure that we’ve got to help promote them and have good horses in them. It’s good for the business. It’s good for the sport.”

Baffert emphasized that the Pegasus stands alone as an entertainment event that is preceded by a major race.

“It’s a tough ticket,” he said. “I remember we went down there with Arrogate and we went back down there with Gun Runner when he beat us. We met and hung out with Post Malone. My kids hung out with him. It was a really cool. And they invite really cool people. These great athletes show up there. It shows that racing can be cool, that it is cool.

“That’s what you want. Racing is cool and we don’t get it out there enough. That race represents it, and it’s a good vibe. It’s exciting and it’s a great race leading up to it.

Baffert had prepared Arrogate – who died in 2020 while at stud – in rainy California before heading off to London for the Longines event. He had planned to start Arrogate in the San Pasqual at Santa Anita at the beginning of the month but scratched because of the wet conditions. The colt continued to work well and Baffert and Juddmonte opted to enter off a nearly three-month layoff. Then Arrogate ended up on the rail.

“I didn’t like that when we drew the one hole,” Baffert said. “When you draw the one hole, you’re sort of at the mercy of the break and it has to go well. But you can’t worry about it. It’s out of your hands once they draw the race.”

California Chrome was in a far worse spot in post 12 and ended up five paths wide on the first turn. Meanwhile Arrogate had gotten away well and was getting a ground-saving trip a couple lengths behind Noble Bird.

“Mike Smith just rode him like a quarter horse out of the gate,” Baffert said, laughing.

With three quarters of a mile to run, Smith guided Arrogate off the inside to commence what turned into his winning move. California Chrome was nearby, just to his outside, but could not answer. Arrogate was in front by the five-sixteenths pole and clear with a quarter mile to run.

“What a show he put on when he tipped out,” Baffert said. “Unfortunately, California Chrome didn’t bring his A game that day, but still the horses that were in there were great horses.

“Arrogate was such a great horse. What a race he put on. I’ve never had a horse put on so many great races just back-to-back to back-to-back, from his Travers to the Breeders’ Cup to that race to Dubai. I think it caught up with him. It was fun and the fans, they love it when good horses are in the race and they show up. You love to see that.”

Cyberknife Carries Banner of Cancer Awareness into G1 Pegasus

Owner Al Gold’s Horse of a Lifetime has Big Stage for Final Start

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – About the time Al Gold was faced with potentially life-threatening cancer, a horse of a lifetime came into his racing operation.

Gold, a horse owner for 50 years, named the young colt Cyberknife in recognition of the medical device used to successfully treat his prostate cancer. As Cyberknife began fulfilling expectations created by his pre-racetrack training, Gold hoped the horse and its name could raise awareness about prostate cancer, the importance of screening for the disease and the technology that improved his own quality of life during treatment.

More than $2 million in purse earnings and two Grade 1 victories later, Cyberknife will carry those banners along with jockey Florent Geroux and Gold’s black and gold silks for the last time in Saturday’s $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) presented by Baccarat at Gulfstream Park.

Trained by Brad Cox, Cyberknife will break from post 10 as the 5-2 program favorite in a capacity field of 12 older horses, plus an also-eligible. Post time is 5:40 p.m. with live coverage on NBC from 4:30 to 6 p.m. EST.

Gold clearly handicapped well in picking out the horse to name Cyberknife.

“I’d never had a Grade 1 winner before,” Gold said. “I’d had a Grade 2, a couple of Grade 3s in partnership with people. But this was far more outstanding than anything else I’d ever had. My next biggest winner won $399,000, so this is $1.6 million more.”

Gold paid $400,000 for Cyberknife, a son of 2017 Horse of the Year and 2018 Pegasus winner Gun Runner, at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky’s 2020 Selected Yearlings Showcase. Not long afterward, Gold’s cancer was diagnosed. His research and close friends led him to the non-invasive Accuray CyberKnife System that uses robotics and artificial intelligence to pinpoint radiation directly to hard-to-get tumors, sparing a lot of healthy tissue. Gold says he had five 18-minute treatments that allowed him to continue his normal life.

“I wasn’t there when the horse was picked out,” said Gold, who races as Gold Square LLC. “[Racing manager] Joe Hardoon and Chad Summers were there. They really loved the horse. When we got him to Ocala to be broken, Susan Montayne, who owns a farm there, said this horse was special. All three liked the horse a lot, so we gave him that name.”

Sixteen months after the cancer diagnosis, Gold won his first Grade 1 with the Brad Cox-trained Cyberknife taking Oaklawn’s Arkansas Derby. A month later he was at Churchill Downs, with his first Kentucky Derby (G1) starter. In Kentucky, he met other cancer survivors treated with CyberKnife, including a woman who had brain cancer.

“It brought a lot of exposure to CyberKnife,” Gold said of the device.

Cyberknife finished 18th in the Kentucky Derby. The colt subsequently gave Gold another Grade 1 victory in Monmouth Park’s Haskell Invitational, New Jersey’s signature race at the track Gold lived near for 30 years and his state residence for more than 60. Now the 4-year-old colt will close out his career at the owner’s new hometown track, with Gold living in Delray Beach about 45 minutes from Gulfstream Park.

It’s a long way from Cyberknife’s racing debut at Churchill Downs in 2021. He finished first that day but ran greenly and was disqualified for interference.

“There were ups and downs with this horse in the beginning,” Gold said. “His third race to break his maiden, he was just hanging on. He just wasn’t trying, pulling himself up. The Lecomte [his stakes debut a year ago], he went wide, looked like he was going to blow the field away and just stopped. There was always good and bad with him until he got himself together.”

In his last race, Cyberknife finished second by a head behind favored Cody’s Wish in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) at Keeneland. The narrow defeat probably cost him being a finalist for the Eclipse Award as leading 3-year-old champion.

“If he had to get beat in the Breeders’ Cup, that was the horse you wanted to win, because that was a better story than anything, that Cody’s Wish,” Gold said of the horse named for a young man born with Wolf–Hirschhorn syndrome.

It was suggested that trying to win a $3 million race the week of the Eclipse is a nice alternative.

“We’ll have to settle for that,” he laughed. “It’s a great race for us because it fits perfectly with our schedule. He goes to stud next month, so this will be his last hurrah.”

Then it’s on to Kentucky where Cyberknife will join Spendthrift Farm’s stallion roster. The stud deal struck after Cyberknife won the Arkansas Derby stipulated that the colt would be retired before the breeding season begins in mid-February.

“It’s a very enjoyable experience for the two years I’ve had him,” Gold said. “It’s bittersweet now that he’s going to stud. I’ll miss all the fun, the enjoyment I had with him but he’s off to a second career.

“I would have loved to have raced him as a 4-year-old for the whole year. But at the time I made the decision, right after the Arkansas Derby, I was very happy. I got a few offers. The best offer I got was Spendthrift, and I was very happy to go through with it. And I still am. I bought some broodmares and I’m looking forward to breeding to him.”

Cox said that Cyberknife is the epitome of a plan coming together, that racing is full of horses who didn’t pan out after being named for a person or something meaningful.

“Most of the time it doesn’t work out that way,” he said. “It’s obviously a very meaningful name to Al. With the Kentucky Derby, it was well-documented tying his name to promote prostate cancer awareness. It’s been a positive in that regard. Hopefully he does well in the Pegasus and continues to spread the word as a stallion.”

ABOUT THE STRONACH GROUP AND 1/ST