Baffle Stakes
6 1/2 furlongs Dirt Stake Purse $100.000 Three-Year-Olds. At SA
Baffle Stakes has been around since 2018 basically in this form except the first five years it was only $75.000. It has the usual sort of history: Mb Stables won the first edition with Cellar and pops by every few years to win again. He repeated in 2021 with Tormented and again in 2023 with multimillionaire Drinkin Creepin. This year’s favourite, the winner of last year’s BC Juvenile Turf Sprint, Gaelic Commander, looks prepared to make his seasonal debut a success. It looks like the closest competition will come from Ideal Candidate, which ran a fast closing fourth in that race and may benefit from the longer route of SA’s downhill course. Here’s the field:
Horse Owner Odds SRF
Gaelic Commander High Voltage *2-1 99
Ideal Candidate Aer Stables 3-1 97
Pleasure Connection Nakamura Stables 5-1 89
Fear Lugo Williams9 6-1 95
Bold Luka Lemax Farms 8-1 90
Long Cocky Caleb Riggins Racing 10-1 92
Newtown Anner Mo Mentum Farm 20-1 99
1 Sf Value Rock Creek 92
Sf Value has won three of his last four (that’s all his turf races) and failed only a close fourth in the $175.000 Algonquin Stakes at WO. His most recent win an allowance race at GP in November and a six-furlong turf bullet work at MNR show he is fit for this run down the hill.
2 Ideal Candidate Aer Stables 97
Ideal Candidate was a deep closing fourth in the BC Juvenile Turf Sprint and has been kicked back since then. His works have been sharp coming up to this, so he looks like he should give Gaelic Commander a good run for his money.
3 Pleasure Connection Nakamura Stables 89
Pleasure Connection has never raced on turf and never had a published work on turf, but if Nakamura says he’s ready for turf, then I will believe he is fit for turf. If those dirt works translate according to scale they translate better than any in the race, and Nak probably has some farm works he’s looking at that make him want to be here.
4 Newtown Anner Mo Mentum Farm 91
Only three races for Newtown Anner and only one on turf, and that was a turf sprint restricted to nonwinners of two at GP. Looks a big hill to climb, but his works are good enough, though limited. We’ll see how he does.
5 Fear Lugo Williams9 95
Fear Lugo just finished eleventh in the BC Juvenile Turf Sprint when he changed hands being sold by Mb Stables for $99.000 and has been conditioned since then. His works seem to be getting stronger than the time back to his win in the grade 3 Futurity at AQU, so if he has appreciated the time off, he should be a threat here.
6 Long Cocky Caleb Riggins Racing 92
After running up the track in the grade 3 Best Pal Stakes, Long Cocky Caleb was sold by S Dot Farm for $95.000. So, there he was, new owner, nothing but dirt sprints and dirt works; tried him in a dirt sprint State Bred at NR where he was odds-on, but he ran third, got a fourth in the $250.000 Bowman Mill at KEE. So, a couple of sharp turf route works and here he is: giving a turf sprint stake a try.
Bold Luka has never been much interested in sprinting. He won a maiden claimer at SAR but ran fifth in the $150.000 Skidmore sprint turf at SAR, so they tried him in the grade 1 Summer Stakes at WO, and the surprising second prompted a run in the BC Juvenile Turf which didn’t go so well, so Red Fox Farm sold him for $125.000. Since trading hands, he has had a couple of route tries, the best result being a fourth in the $100.000 Logan Stakes at SA, but his works look solid for sprinting here, so he is not without a chance.
9 Gaelic Commander High Voltage 99
Gaelic Commander, winner of the BC Juvenile Turf Sprint for Barcelona Farms, has been resting since, and returns looking very fresh under the handling of new trainer High Voltage who acquired him during his down time for $400.000. His juvenile year was spectacular, winning half of his six races and nearly $1,000.000. He looks ready to take off where he left off.
Categories: STAKES ARTICLES, Ungraded