BREEDERS' CUP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

October 29, 2005

Russell Baze

Greg Gilchrist

GREG GILCHRIST: No, I don't know what were the fractions?

GREG GILCHRIST: He's certainly capable of that. And I, you know, he was wide, but he wasn't that wide. I'm like everybody else here, we're watching the race. You know, he's making a nice move. It wasn't a big thing that he was laying third. I mean, actually, I was kind of liking that because when he turned for home, he just didn't seem to have, you know, when he did you go down, he didn't have it in him today, and, you know, I don't see any apparent reason. The horse walked back fine. The only thing is Russell told me, he said, usually this horse, when he's sharp, he's biting the pony in the post parade, doing a few things like that. He just didn't do that. The only other thing I can tell you, in the holding barn today he was very nervous. I mean, he didn't get hot and washed out. He just was -- he used up a lot of energy, I think, acted like a worry horse, you know what I mean? When we got him out, he was fine. As far as being the stall, he just seemed like he wasn't comfortable with the whole situation.

GREG GILCHRIST: No, I'm not blaming the barn. I certainly don't mean to do that. I'm just telling you that's one thing I noticed. I'll tell you this, you know, when a horse has run a lot of trips and a lot of hard ones, and done a lot of traveling, that is a sign that you can find in one sometimes -- you know, horses can't talk. So, we have to watch him and take from those things what we can. And you know, I think maybe it's just the time to -- maybe we just took one too many trips this year, one too many trips, however you want to put it. But you know, hats off to the winner. Hats off to all of them in there that ran so well. I still like him. He's still a good horse, you know. One career race does not make whether he wins or loses. If he wins 10 out of 11 every time, I'm going to keep him around.

GREG GILCHRIST: Well, I think most certainly the first thing, you know, he'll get a flight out of here on Tuesday, and go back home. And I'll probably keep him at the barn for a week anyway. And just so I can check him out, see exactly, you know, if there's any reason for this today, something comes to the floor. And then after that I would think that he is in line for a vacation. He certainly earned it. It would serve him nice to cap it off with this race too, but it just wasn't meant to be. You got to take the bad along with the good. And that's just the way it come up today.

GREG GILCHRIST: Naturally I'm, you know, you know, I don't feel as bad for -- I feel bad for the owner. I feel bad for the horse, the groom, the exercise people, they've all done an excellent job, everybody put into as much as they could. And you know, we prepared the horse as well as we could and we went over there and we just got outrun today. There was -- I'm not big on excuses, you know. When you're winning, you don't have to make excuses, or when you're losing, you shouldn't come up with any either. As far as I'm concerned, he just got outrun today.

GREG GILCHRIST: Not really. It was fine. I mean, you know, probably anybody in there that was watching the race said, here we go again. It's just going to be the same thing. But you know, when he didn't get away from that horse, you know, who was it Wildcat Heir was running alongside of him.

GREG GILCHRIST: The two horse. Whenever he didn't go on and open up, I kind of had a feeling he might be coming up a little empty in there. So I don't think the loss of ground had anything to do with it, Jay.

GREG GILCHRIST: The break was fine, I mean, he might have been a little step slow leaving there, but, I can't really -- you know, he had every chance to win. That's the thing. He didn't have trouble. He had hisself in a good position, turning for home, he took the lead. He just didn't have it the last quarter mile, plain and simple.

GREG GILCHRIST: Thank you. One thing, I'll probably get a new rider next year, because this kid finally got this horse beat. Only kidding.

RUSSELL BAZE: We got banged around a little bit leaving the gate, but he seemed to recover from it well down the backside, into the turn was running up on his own and wanting to run well. Past the quarter pole, he surged, got in the lead, to the front turn from home, kind of eased up. I caught my stick and he lunged forward and give me a bunch a dozen jumps after that. I had nothing left.

RUSSELL BAZE: None whatsoever. He responded well leaving the gate, overcame getting banged from there. He was up into the bit and wanting to run. Didn't seem like we were going too fast, he'd run fractions like that before and finished well for me. At that point, until he quit me, I had no reason to think we weren't going right to win it.

RUSSELL BAZE: Not so as I could notice.

RUSSELL BAZE: Both sides.