133RD BELMONT STAKES

June 9, 2001

Bob Baffert

Ahmed Bin Salman

Gary Stevens

BOB BAFFERT: It's the easiest one-and-a-half-mile race I ever won.

BOB CURRAN: We're going to get started and we'd like to welcome and congratulate Gary Stevens, Prince Ahmed bin Salman and Bob Baffert, mainly because you've won. We'll start with the Prince and Bob.

AHMED BIN SALMAN: Just like winning the world. It was extremely disappointed on the Kentucky Derby, nobody's fault. I guess that horse would not run. The Preakness, I was again disappointed, Saudi Arabia, wasn't there. Today is something special, something you cannot say in words, especially victory for the people of Saudi Arabia. They are the supporter behind me the whole Thoroughbred Corporation. So special to win a race with such talent. Bob Baffert is not only an outstanding trainer, a nice human being, good man to work with. Also Gary Stevens he's my close friend, and he is the only man that rode classic for me in Saudi Arabia and Europe and America. Gary have a very soft spot in my heart for me, of course my best friend Richard. Worked so long together all this time not by me alone. Teamwork. I enjoy an outstanding teamwork and I'm tickled to death like you say in America.

BOB CURRAN: Bob you've had some painful Belmont days and you've been gracious, always come down, win or lose. How does it feel to come down a winner?

BOB BAFFERT: I had mixed thoughts, emotions about it, still thinking about the Kentucky Derby. But, I mean, the thing is about the horse, he was, you know, we knew he was a great horse and today was his day to really put on a show for everybody and Gary just rode him beautifully, rode him with so much patience and confidence that down the backside, you could tell I knew Gary, you know, about the half-mile pole, I told him before, "you're either going to be cussing me or praising me," so I figured he was praising me down the backside for having him ready. It's one of those things where this horse is just, like I say, easy just getting it together. And hopefully if he stays sound, he should get better with age. He's just learning how to run and just a big powerful horse and so I was quite impressed myself watching him come down the stretch.

BOB CURRAN: You've won the Belmont. Lost some painful ones. How does it feel to you today?

GARY STEVENS: I'm like Bob, excited obviously about his performance today. It's bittersweet. I feel that this horse, when it's all said and done and he's retired, eventually he should have a Triple Crown in his belt next to the whole thing. It's not going to be there. But we've got a long year left and some Classics left. And I think when it is all said and done, people are going to know what a great horse is. He put on a show today, an unbelievable show. I didn't know how far in front I was at the eighth pole and I didn't care. I knew he was going to get a little bit of a rest after this. It was important for everybody to see how good he is. He actually was idling with me a little bit the last eighth of a mile; that's why I kept after him. I thought somebody had to be coming. I saw the stretch drive on video, he was actually ready. I thought he was wondering why I was riding him. He's never gone a mile and a half and thought the race should be over with. He's something very, very special and I just feel graced to even be able to ride a horse like this. Once again, I would like to thank Prince Ahmed bin Salman and Bob Baffert for putting him in my hands on these big days. It feels pretty good. I've never ridden a horse like him, I don't know if I ever will. If things end for me tomorrow, as far as my my riding career, I'll know I finally rode the best horse I ever sat on.

BOB CURRAN: Glad you came out of retirement?

GARY STEVENS: Yes, I am.

BOB CURRAN: We'll open it up to questions here and upstairs.

BOB CURRAN: This is a question -- Gary was talking about Chris Antley after he finished the race.

GARY STEVENS: This last 6, 7 months has been a very difficult time for a lot of different people, and with Chris Antley's death back in December, that was a very difficult time for all of his friends and family and there comes a point where you've got to put those thoughts out of your head and carry on with your job, and, you know, just carry on with life. And this week back here at Belmont, there's been a couple of different tributes held for Chris. There was an interview I did for NBC a couple of weeks ago and it brought back a lot of memories and difficult memories. And to be quite honest with you, some things that I didn't necessarily want to think about this week with it being such a big week, I wanted to stay focused on the race and not other things. That was impossible to do. I was able to put it out of my head today until I crossed the finish line and that was the first thing that came into my head, was just thinking about Chris and that's it.

BOB CURRAN: We have a question upstairs. Gary, can you compare Thunder Gulch to Point Given?

GARY STEVENS: No. It's difficult to compare horses from different years. This is Thunder Gulch's son. Really the only thing you can compare about the two is their heart and stamina. Thunder Gulch stands out in this colt. I think this colt may have taken it to a different level. He's bigger, stronger, very, very athletic, he's big-boned. He's got everything that Thunder Gulch had, except doubled. So I really don't want to compare them because it's difficult to compare horses from different years, different company that they were keeping. And I think that Thunder Gulch is stamping himself as a great stallion right now. And I'm sure that this colt, he's going to stamp himself as one of the greatest of all time.

BOB CURRAN: Someone just handed me a note. Prince Ahmed bin Salman was too supersticious to announce it before but he is going to donate one percent of today's purse and Preakness purse to the Grayson Jockey Club Research.

AHMED BIN SALMAN: I think always like to do the gentlemenly thing for the horse business and charity. This makes me feel good. Sometimes I do without mention because I'm shy. Always believe people want to do genuine thing for charity should not talk about it.

BOB CURRAN: Thank you on behalf of Mr. Bowman (phonetic) and the Foundation.

BOB CURRAN: Question for Bob is after the first two races the Derby and Preakness, what were you thinking leaving the paddock today?

BOB BAFFERT: Today, trying to get to my seat before everybody else so I could see the post race. I felt good about the horse. We got him there in one piece. He's driven me crazy the last couple of weeks. Always waking up with a knot or scar, something on his body. He's a big playful kid and I was glad that we got him saddled. We got Gary on him. You could see he was on his toes. I go up there, was completely relaxed, I went to my box thinking, well, here it goes. And, you know, if today should be the day and so -- but, you know, you can have a horse ready, you think he's ready, all of a sudden they get to the half-mile pole -- I told everybody in my group -- I said if -- Gary is just sitting up there with a hold we're in good shape. ^ if he looks like he's scrubbing on a washboard half mile. Three eight pole, we're in trouble. Down the backside I was pretty well-convinced the horse showed up. It was a matter of if anybody else was going to show up like he is.

BOB BAFFERT: No, I mean I feel very confident getting him ready. Belmont has always been a kind of track. We ship in here from California all the time. If your horse is ready usually gets over the track pretty well. It was a thing that I think a lot of people will talk about it. Maybe it's, you know, being here, whatever. But I run so many horses in Stakes all over the country. We know what we need to do. How to get prepared for every race. I know what tracks I can do it with and what tracks I can't do it. Belmont is the kind of track you can ship in and run off the plan. Once we had that system down, I wasn't really worried about it.

BOB CURRAN: I think the Prince is going to go off and do an interview with ESPN, he'll be back. Do we have one more quick question while he's here?

BOB CURRAN: What was it like to watch the Preakness in Saudi Arabia.

AHMED BIN SALMAN: Like watching television anywhere else in this state. It was live, NBC.

AHMED BIN SALMAN: To be honest with you, I was very emotional. Because disappointment from the Kentucky Derby. I know the horse is great and I also bred the horse and Bob's done an outstanding job with him in my opinion; I'm not saying this because I just won the Belmont. This jockey is the best jockey on earth, Gary Stevens. Played a politician, Pretending nothing happened. It's okay. I kept it inside. Only person found out I'm really upset is my wife. So when I watched it was quite emotional experience. Usually for me it's difficult to cry but I did cry that day.

BOB CURRAN: Thank you. He'll be back.

GARY STEVENS: Bob and I figured this horse out. No matter where he's at. He wants to be towing me along with confidence even in the Santa Anita Derby it was a different situation than the Kentucky Derby. Even though he was laying close to a fast pace, I jumped him out of the gate, hard for about three or four strides and then we had gone, you know, barely a 16th of a mile and snugged him up and taken a nice hold of him and given him confidence. Whereas in the Kentucky Derby, I rode him, you know, just over an eighth of a mile. I scrubbed after him pretty hard to get in position; I thought I needed to be. And got close to the rail, and when I took a hold of him, we were flying, it was like "can't slow down now." The horse, is he telling me he can't slow down. Today he broke very alertly. And I just, you know, took a real light hold of him but a snug hold of him to give him some confidence. As we were going into the first turn, I sensed we weren't going very fast and I had A P Valentine just up inside of me. And going into the first turn I thought I had an opportunity to fold A P Valentine down behind the two pace setters and be in the ideal striking position in third. You know, I gave him his head going into the first turn and pushed A P Valentine down inside of me and got to where I wanted to be and then just pretty much galloped him to the quarter pole.

BOB CURRAN: We have a question upstairs. Bob, he won the Santa Anita Derby with such ease. Did it lull you into a false sense of security for the Derby?

BOB BAFFERT: False sense of security? You know we always think if you're going to do something different, maybe you can always think back, what you would have thought helped you. If we would have won the Derby I could have said, ran in Derby, he was a fresh horse, ready for the Triple Crown. But you know he's a really big horse and a big horse you don't want to do too much because they can get hurt. So he actually, the Santa Anita Derby came up really basically very soft. And so even Gary brings me back a tired horse, maybe I didn't do enough between then. I should have worked him three-quarters maybe, I don't know. I think this horse, if I had to do it over, maybe I should have taken him to woods, deeper racetrack, run against Monarchos. You can flip flop it. If I had taken him there and he got beat, maybe I should have left him. Anything you say we'll never know.

BOB CURRAN: Will you accept another question from upstairs?

BOB BAFFERT: Sure. Give me the toughest ones they've got. Somebody trying to get me to say I suck. Go ahead. Today I came I told Canyon -- Canyon, what did I tell you about these fans?

CANYON BAFFERT: They don't like you.

BOB BAFFERT: They don't like me too well. They'll say a lot of bad things about your dad, laugh and smile. Did they say a few bad things about me?

CANYON BAFFERT: Yeah.

BOB BAFFERT: They didn't say anything about me after the race, did they?

CANYON BAFFERT: No.

BOB BAFFERT: We shut them up.

BOB CURRAN: When you're old and gray how are you going to explain this horse didn't win the Triple Crown?

BOB BAFFERT: It's one of those things we'll never know. We can go back and forth and maybe the track surface, you know, we talked about being so hard. He doesn't like that. And so I don't know, we will never be able to figure that one out and so it wasn't his day, didn't happen, so you can't, if you look back you're going to drive yourself crazy. We have to figure out how we keep him healthy and sound and keep going on. A lot of places I want to go; Breeders' Cup, World Cup next year. We want to go a lot of places. Main thing right now to keep him happy, healthy and let him grow into his body. Really enjoy this horse. They don't come around often these kind of horses.

BOB BAFFERT: I would have been very concerned if I would have been sitting in the one hole going come on. All those European horses, first time they come here they're a little skiddish like that. I was concerned when he got in the gate, you know, he got in there, you could tell that he was ready to roll, I was watching the warm up. I saw he was doing his little jiggy-jog, that's a good sign. It was one of those things, once the gate came open he broke fine. My body, I just became completely relaxed, I watched him there. I watched the monitor, watched him go down the backside. Saw the first quarter 23 and 3 and I could see McCarron, he was really taking hold of Balto Star and Gary he let the horse tug away, he's going easy. When they said 48 and he's up there close, I'm thinking, this is really looking really good for me right now. And down the three, 11 and 3, the quarter pole, I thought Gary didn't bring a book with him again. He'd have to keep that big dude busy. I kept looking for Monarchos because I really thought Monarchos was going to make another big run. I kept watching for somebody. Somebody started making a move.

BOB BAFFERT: No.

BOB BAFFERT: How did they finish?

GARY STEVENS: A P Valentine?

BOB BAFFERT: There was somebody else --.

BOB BAFFERT: No, it wasn't.

BOB CURRAN: : Upstairs has another question.

BOB CURRAN: Does this make you feel better about losing the Belmont with Silver Charm and Real Quiet?

BOB BAFFERT: When I lost those races, it was like, I didn't, once it's over, I've run so many races and everything else, when you get beat all you do is you go back and think, what can I do for this, you know, to make it better. You go over and think and figure out, I won't make that mistake, if I did or not, you don't know. It's trial and error. Unfortunately, more error than anything. I think it's one of those things, if it's meant to happen, it's meant to happen. I mean John and Debbie Oxley, they were meant to win the Derby. They are good people, they put a lot of money in. They were very deserving. John Ward, he's been around for ever. They win the Derby, that's the way it is. You can't worry about that. There was a Belmont with my name on it. Unfortunately, we left another 5 million out there, 15 million now.

GARY STEVENS: $15 million.

BOB BAFFERT: 15 million.

BOB CURRAN: Bob, the plans for the horse from here on out.

BOB BAFFERT: Right now we're just going, going to go back to Kentucky and stay for about a week or so and go back to California. Put him in a padded stall.

BOB BAFFERT: If you guys knew what I had to go through with this son of a gun last week. By the way, I was in the bathroom today, I'm having lunch --.

BOB BAFFERT: Bathroom during lunch. Some guy said I met you at Del Mar, I saw a friend of your brothers. Looked really good. He said I heard he's not training that well. Well, I go, really? That's what everybody told me. I thought, well, he was dead lame before the Preakness and he's not training well, he's really going to run big this time. I heard it a couple of times that he wasn't training well.

BOB CURRAN: Question about the status of Flame Thrower, Bob.

BOB BAFFERT: We're going to x-ray him. I think he's got a condylar fracture and it didn't look -- he wasn't walking that bad. So I'm sure that he'll heal; they'll be operating tomorrow.

BOB BAFFERT: I guess I can tell you guys now. What day was that on?

GARY STEVENS: Anybody see stitches above his left eye?

BOB BAFFERT: This is what happened.

BOB CURRAN: This about Flame Thrower.

BOB BAFFERT: Point Given. What day was that on? The day he got his stitches. What day did I tell you guys? What day did he get his stitches? Thursday? Okay. He wakes up in the morning, I get a call and he had -- we did him up that boletus mud. Sometimes boletus, if you put too much, he's sensitive. It can put a light blister. He had serum come from the leg. We thought, I can't believe how sensitive he is. It didn't swell up. It was there and weird, I've never seen that. Clean him up. Wash him up. Cream on him. Bandage him up. Fix him up. Put him in the stall. Ten minutes later my assistant ^ John said good Bob, Bob. If this horse is trying to kill himself, I don't know what happened. He's got a cut on his eye. We look he's got a slice on his eye. He wasn't out of our sight for 30 seconds. We're looking for like a nail or something. Are we putting this guy to sleep in the second row? There's more to it. So -- tough crowd here. So tell him what happened to your horse last week. So, we bring him in there, we sew him up and so we had a tranquilizer for him. That afternoon I go to check him out. Walking him around he didn't look good. He was acting like we put him in the stall, he was down or sad, you know. So he starts, like, to roll a little bit like getting a little colicky, gassy. I thought that's real nice. Call the vet in there. Do him with oil, give him some medication, start walking around for about an hour. All of a sudden he came out of it. I stayed there for four hours watching hime until he passed his -- you know. We were sitting in the chairs in front of the stall waiting for him. Fed him, went to dinner, came back, he was starving. He's a big eater. Nice hot mash, he ate that up. He had his hay net out there. I was afraid if I put the hay net -- with the gas, I didn't want him to get colicky in the middle of the night. I didn't put it up there. I gave a little bit of alfalfa and put it in the corner. Later that night, About 12:30 at night, my grooms heard this horse was screaming around the barn area, our shed. It turns out that he was so hungry that he was trying to get the little hay out front of his stall, so he put his knee and head underneath the weapon. He came up and broke all the snaps. And he got out and one of the screws bent. You notice he's got a new scar down the side of his rib; that happened that night. If that would have opened him up, I wouldn't have been able to run him. He looks down and hears the screaming. There's T-Rex screaming like that. So turn on the lights, he goes, "oh my God, it's him." I found out the next morning. They didn't tell me until the next morning. He's a big kid and gets himself into these jackpots. I think he was like that when he was younger.

BOB CURRAN: Any questions for Gary or Prince Ahmed?

GARY STEVENS: The Prince just said I was right. He was special as a two year old and more special as a three year old. And I think with maturity he's going to continue to improve. All I hope is that he doesn't improve too quickly to where his value becomes so much this guy retires him on me. No, he's special, he's gifted. And like I said before, I'm honored to be able to climb on his back and manage him around there.

GARY STEVENS: Really didn't have to do anything to get in position. As I said, he broke very alertly. I was going to go ahead and lay 4th. The pace slowed down dramatically going into the first turn. As Bob said, Balto Star went 23 and 4 is what I think he said. I knew they were walking. Chris had a big hold of Balto Star. I used Point Given a little to go into the first turn to get position on A P Valentine. From that point on, I was very tempted to go to the lead at the mile pole just as we turned into the backstretch because I couldn't take more hold of Point Given without possibly cutting his hair off. That's how hard he was pulling. They picked the pace up a little as we straightened out the backside. I moved Point Given well off the rail to relax him a little bit; it worked, he did relax. And basically I tried to get him to bide his time until we started into the turn. And as we started into the far turn above the three-quarters pole, he grabbed me, drug me. A P Valentine was breathing up on his hip just entering the far turn and Point Given sensed that and he took the race from me, from there. And basically the only thing I did was keep him focused turning into the stretch so we didn't have the same thing happen that we had happen in the Preakness where he got to looking up in the grandstand. I wanted to make sure I had his full attention when we turned into the stretch and the race was basically over very early on.

BOB CURRAN: Gary, before the Derby you were very reticent to brag on the horse, you worried we would build our heroes up and be disappointed. Looking back now was everybody right at the beginning that this was truly a one of a kind type of animal.

GARY STEVENS: I think it has been justified but only time will tell. I think he's proved himself that he's the top of the three year old crop. But I not only think that he's the top of the three year old crop, I think that he's going to go on this year and do more special things with the older horses. He's definitely that caliber. You know

he -- I thought that he was going to speak for himself in the Derby, the same way as he has the Preakness in the Belmont Stakes, he has spoken for himself in these last two races and I think he's going to continue to do it the rest of the year. That's what I was waiting for, that's what I was hoping for and this game sets you up for big falls constantly. A horse like this it's very easy to let them put you up on this pedistal and you put them up on this pedistal but that's what makes horse racing. I mean they all get beat. They all get beat. Unfortunately we got beat on the wrong day.

AHMED BIN SALMAN: My long-term plan is to be able to breed horses good Thoroughbreds in the Kingdom in Saudi Arabia and bring them here. Not like what my friends do. Train them, bring them. No just breed them. Some of them, two year old, bring them in this country and win stake races. Of course my ultimate goal and ambition and quote, unquote in the horse business, is to win the Kentucky Derby, the only one, then of course then to buy the whole -- (inaudible) -- Japanese Club, Singapore. I'm not greedy, I'm very happy.

AHMED BIN SALMAN: The funniest thing. Won the English Derby, I was not worried at all. With a horse like Point Given, one thing that is advantage of owning a horse like that, you don't have to go to a diet center. You're always a nervous wreck. You can't compare orange and apples. English Derby is a different type of race and I achieved it. I thought to be able to achieve with homebred Preakness winner.

BOB CURRAN: Congratulations again. Thank you for coming down.