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Update: December 30, 2021 at 4:58 pm
Rockefeller | Adam Coglian
With only one field for five newly contracted 3-year-olds, Hall of Famer Bob Baffert will help a powerful pair of athletes in GIII Sham S. on Saturday go a mile and two at Santa Anita.
Rockefeller (Medaglia d’Oro) come back West Bank for Baffert after winning the GIII Nashua S. one-mile round in Belmont on November 7.Quality Sugar) in HOLD American pharoah S. October 1 Rockefeller is a favorite of the 8-5 morning stream in Sham.
Baffert will also tighten the girth with the first winner Del March 28 November long sharp six feathers Newgrange (Violence). That day’s highly rated second-place finisher Got Thunder (Arrogate) gets back into action at Santa Anita on Friday night.
The most recent Baffert of the seven Sham winners include: MGISW McKinzie (Street Sense) (2018), Horse of the True Year (Into Mischief) (2020) and winner of GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile Life Is Good (Into Mischief) (2021).
A big-money winner on the pitch and most recently third with a tough ride at the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on November 5. Mackinnon (American pharoah) back to dirt. Winners at Del Mar Juvenile Turf S. on September 6 and Zuma Beach S. October 3 were a good fourth winner of his previous only attempt at dirt on a debut that will drag 4 1/2 in Arcadia on May 9.
A race qualifying for the 2022 GI Kentucky Derby, excluding Baffert-trained horses, Sham winners will receive 10 qualifying points, with 4 to second, two to three and one for who finished in fourth place. Churchill Downs banned Baffert for two years after it was documented positive for corticosteroid betamethasone by the late Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit (Protonico).
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