All Is Not Ship Shape for Baffert

Sometimes, shipping a horse into Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J., can be more of an adventure than running in the race.

Two years ago, it took 20 hours for three horses--Touch Gold, Free House and Anet--to travel from California to the track on the north New Jersey shore. Extenuating circumstances--an oil leak in Kentucky and the crash of a cargo plane that closed the airport in Newark, N.J.--resulted in the horses being flown into Atlantic City and vanned the rest of the way.

When Monmouth ran the $1-million Haskell Invitational Handicap two days later, it didn’t seem to matter. Touch Gold, Anet and Free House finished 1-2-3.

Trainer Bob Baffert, who trained Anet, will be at Monmouth on Saturday, trying to win another stake with another horse whose trip to New Jersey was no picnic.

Silverbulletday, heavily favored in the $250,000 Monmouth Breeders’ Cup Oaks, was only shipping from Churchill Downs, but her flight out of Louisville was late leaving by six hours, and then the van ride from JFK Airport, in New York, took twice the time because of rush-hour traffic. Silverbulletday arrived Wednesday in 100-degree heat, in the middle of a mid-evening power outage that knocked out the betting on Monmouth’s simulcast program.

Baffert’s filly hasn’t run since she was thrown in against colts in the Belmont Stakes on June 5. She led the 1 1/2-mile race for a mile before finishing seventh, only her second loss in 13 starts.

Silverbulletday had won the Kentucky Oaks and the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes as Baffert resisted running her in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. She scared away all but four rivals Saturday, drawing the outside post in a field that includes Bag Lady Jane, West’s Secret, Chatter Patter and Boom Town Girl.

Horse Racing Notes

The voice you’ll hear today--and for the rest of the Hollywood Park meet--belongs to Alan Buchdahl, a replacement for track announcer Michael Wrona, who has returned to Australia to be with his seriously ill grandfather. . . . Michael Sandler, publisher of the Daily Racing Form from 1973 until his retirement in 1989, died Sunday after a battle with leukemia. . . . Puerto Madero’s sesamoid injury will sideline him the rest of the year.