Santa Anita Derby Winner Taiba Coming To Kentucky With Light Work Schedule; Was On Vet's List After First Start
Trainer Tim Yakteen, left, has a moment with Taiba after their victory in the Grade I, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, Saturday, April 9, 2022 at Santa Anita Park, Arcadia CA.© BENOIT PHOTO
Trainer Tim Yakteen is taking a cautious road with Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby winner Taiba ahead of the Run for the Roses. The 3-year-old son of Gun Runner will only breeze once between his April 9 victory and the May 7 Kentucky Derby (Grade 1), planned for this Thursday at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif.
"I had to recognize that the horse, even though he bounced out of his race in great shape, and looked super, continues to look super, but I couldn't overlook the fact of what he had accomplished," Yakteen said. "More than anything I wanted to make sure I was bringing a horse to Kentucky, to Churchill, with a full tank. It would do me no good to take a horse that I misread to Churchill and have him underperform because I over-trained him."
Also planning to bring Santa Anita Derby runner-up Messier to Churchill Downs, it will be Yakteen's first trip to the Kentucky Derby with horses of his own. He has previously attended the Derby with a pair of horses trained by Charlie Whittingham; though Yakteen served as an assistant to Baffert for seven years, he did not join the Baffert horses on their trips to Louisville.
During his time as the assistant trainer to Whittingham, Yakteen recalled the walkover on Kentucky Derby day in 1988 with the talented but inconsistent Lively One. (Two years earlier, prior to Yakteen's employment, Whittingham had become the oldest trainer to saddle a Kentucky Derby winner with 17-1 longshot Ferdinand.)
"The crowd of the horsemen on the backside, the respect that they had for Charlie, they were so loud and so emotional about it that it actually got several of the horses on their toes," Yakteen recalled. "It was like a salute to the Pope."
This year, the feeling is likely to be significantly different. Formerly trained by Bob Baffert, both Taiba and Messier come into the Kentucky Derby with the shadow of Baffert's months-long battle with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission hanging over their heads. Yakteen was contracted to take over the Derby contenders' training prior to the Santa Anita Derby (announced on March 24, 2022), allowing the horses to earn qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby. Separate from Baffert's 90-day suspension for Medina Spirit's failed drug test and disqualification in the 2021 Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs banned Baffert from competing in the Derby in 2022 and '23 and horses running in his name were not eligible for Derby or Kentucky Oaks points.
Last week, Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas told the Courier-Journal: “I think no matter how those horses run, they'll be Bob's... Now, the general public, a lot of them, won't know the difference. (But) All the horse people will know they are Bob's.”
Yakteen's response?
"I sort of had a lottery ticket dropped in my lap, and I'm just trying to cash it in."
As for what the trainer is looking for in Thursday's work, Yakteen said he plans a six-furlong breeze.
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"We'll get a good drill in him," Yakteen said. "We'll go three-quarters with him and look for a nice strong drill. He's got good energy, and we're on schedule. He looks great."
It's an interesting strategy for the lightly-raced colt, who will look to become the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby in his third career start since Leonatus pulled it off in 1883.
Taking a look back at Taiba's work schedule, the colt was a $1.7 million purchase at the Fasig-Tipton Florida Select sale of 2-year-olds in training on March 31, 2021. He worked a furlong in :10 1/5 during the breeze show for that sale, as seen below.
Purchased by agent Gary Young for Amr Zedan, Taiba was sent to Baffert's stable in California shortly after the sale. His next workout (according to Equibase) came at Santa Anita on April 15, 2021, just two weeks after the sale. He continued to breeze every 7-14 days at Santa Anita until mid-June, when the work pattern abruptly ceased.
Taiba returned to the work tab in late November at Los Alamitos, resuming a 7-10 day breeze pattern all the way up to his first race on March 5, 2022. Baffert saddled Taiba to an easy 7 1/2-length win in the six-furlong race, but the colt was placed on the California Horse Racing Board's veterinarian's list after that race with the descriptor "unsound."
Asked whether he was aware of the reasoning behind Taiba's presence on the vet's list on March 5, Yakteen responded: "No."
The colt's first work back came on March 18, just under two weeks after being placed on the vet's list. He covered five furlongs in 1:00.60 that day, and returned seven days later with another five-furlong move in 1:00.40.
Transferred to Yakteen's barn, Taiba breezed six furlongs in 1:12.20 on March 31. In his final work before the Santa Anita Derby, the colt blew out three furlongs in 37.00 on April 6, three days before the race.
Taiba won the Santa Anita Derby over his favored stablemate Messier by 2 1/4 lengths. Messier returned to the work tab on April 23, but Yakteen opted to wait and give Taiba just one breeze ahead of the Kentucky Derby. Both colts will travel to Churchill Downs on May 1, and neither will breeze at Churchill.
"Messier has come out of his drill in great order, has gone back to the track," said Yakteen, who indicated Messier would have one more breeze. "So far everything's been straightforward.
"With reference to the two horses, Messier and Taiba, they've been exceptionally straightforward and very easy to train. They're smart horses, they're good doers, they really don't have any quirks about them so it really makes my job pretty easy."
