Trainer Bob Baffert, who has won the CashCall Futurity a
record five times, has designs on number six when the $750,000 Grade I stake
for 2-year-olds is run at 1 1/16 miles on Cushion Track here December 17.
“I could have as many as four horses in there,” said
Baffert, listing Real Quiet Stakes winner Liaison, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile
Sprint winner Secret Circle, Del Mar Futurity winner Drill and So Brilliant,
scheduled to prep in the $100,000 Hollywood Prevue Stakes November 24. Drill is
slated to first run in the $1-million Delta Downs Jackpot Stakes in Louisiana Saturday.
Liaison joined the list with an auspicious stakes debut in
the Real Quiet at the CashCall distance of 1 1/16 miles for his second victory
in three starts.
Liaison, owned by Arnold Zetcher, is by Indian Charlie out
of the Victory Gallop mare Galloping Gal.
Baffert figured that Victory Gallop owed him his first Real
Quiet victory after costing Real Quiet the 1998 Triple Crown by a nose in the
Belmont Stakes.
Baffert, who trained Real Quiet to victories in the 1997
CashCall (then-called Hollywood) Futurity and 1998 Kentucky Derby and Preakness
Stakes, won his first Real Quiet after being disqualified from first in 2005
with Bob and John and finishing second with Prayer for Relief last year.
Baffert said he liked the distance potential of Liaison
because he appears to have inherited Victory Gallop’s staying power more than
Indian Charlie’s brilliance.