Ron Correll
Senior columnist
Tracksideview.com

ARCADIA, Calif.  – The sun is up, but there’s a slight haze over the San Gabriel Mountains as they loom above Santa Anita Park Friday for the 2009 Breeders’ Cup World Championships. A high in the low 70s is forecast for the first day of horse racing biggest weekend.

This is the second year in a row for the championships to be held at Santa Anita on the synthetic surface. That fact has kept away a few of the best dirt horses in the United States, but the Europeans are out in force as they will try to duplicate what they did in 2008 when Raven’s Pass took the Classic, the premiere event on the 14-race card.

A home-grown trainer may have a lot to say about how the Americans do this year and he has been on a tear recently at Santa Anita Park. That trainer is Bob Baffert, and he has won the eight out of nine races that he has entered a horse.

Baffert has four good shots in the big dance this year and he gets started today with Always a Princess in the Juvenile Fillies. He unloads his big guns on Saturday with Lookin at Lucky in the Juvenile, Zensational in the Sprint and Richard’s Kid in the Classic.

The Hall of Fame trainers has two of the morning-line favorites in Lookin at Lucky, but he drew the far outside in a 13-horse field and Zensational drew the rail. Baffert wasn’t happy with either but he said they will have to deal with what they were dealt.

Baffert said they always wanted to find out how fast Zensational really is so they will be sending him from the gate and he will try to get the lead. It then will be a case of seeing if anybody can catch him. Lookin at Lucky comes late so he will have to find a place to fold over so he won’t get caught out wide going into the first turn. Baffert gets the services of Garrett Gomez on Lookin at Lucky, and Baffert believes this colt is his top hope for the 2010 Kentucky Derby. Victor Espinoza has the call on Zensational and Espinoza has been on the colt in his last four races and knows how to put a horse on the lead.

Always a Princess also gets Gomez in the irons and has one win out of two starts. She broke her maiden at five-and-a-half furlongs, and then jumped into a mile-and-a-sixteenth race where she went right to the front but was not able to hold off Blind Luck (the favorite in the Juvenile Fillies). Always a Princess should be much tighter today at the same distance. Blind Luck has been pegged at 3-1 while Always a Princess was made 6-1.

Richard’s Kid is 12-1 on the morning line in a Classic that includes the likes of Zenyatta, Rip Van Winkle, Einstein, Gio Ponti, Summer Bird, Mine That Bird and Colonel John; all Grade 1 winners.

The 4-year-old son of Lemon Drop Kid has been in Baffert’s care since July. The colt has a first, second and a third in four races with Baffert. His first race was a seventh-place finish, but I think Baffert was trying to figure out how Richard’s Kid would run.

He was second in the Courgar Handicap at Del Mar, and then won the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar before finishing a fast-closing third in the Goodwood on Oct. 10 at Santa Anita during the Oak Tree meet. The mile-and-an-eighth Goodwood may have been a little short for Richard’s Kid. He was less than a length back at the finish.

The Breeders’ Cup Classic in the perfect distance at mile-and-a-quarter for the ‘Kid,’ and Baffert said the colt could not be training any better.

Southern California (Santa Anita Park in particular) is Bob Baffert’s world and I’m just hoping to be part of it at the betting window.