Baffert dominates Los Alamitos as Sabino Canyon wins Derby again

Bob Baffert’s Los Alamitos meet has already become the kind of stretch that changes how the races are bet. Through the first six days of the nine-day meeting, he had five wins from seven starters in six races, and the latest push came when March of Time won a Sunday allowance at 5 1/2 furlongs. That is not ordinary short-meet success. It is a barn firing from multiple angles, one that forces horseplayers to tighten their prices and leaves rival stables chasing a moving target.

March of Time added another layer to the run because the gelding is not just another Baffert starter in the box. He races for a partnership that includes Jill Baffert and the families of Major League Baseball players Alex Bregman and Walker Buehler, a sign that the barn’s depth is spreading across connections as well as race conditions. When one outfit is winning allowance races, stakes, and then showing up again with another live horse in the next turn of the program, the meet stops feeling like a series of isolated events and starts looking like a controlled operation.

Sabino Canyon gave the strongest proof yet that the streak was not built on one flashy horse. The maiden, after two prior starts including a turf debut, won the $100,000 Los Alamitos Derby on Saturday by a half-length over Start the Ride, closing from third on the turn under Ricky Gonzalez. Sabino Canyon returned $5.60 and stopped the 1 1/8-mile trip in 1:50.45, giving Gonzalez his first career stakes win for Baffert. The victory was Baffert’s 16th in the race overall, his 10th straight Los Alamitos Derby, and it came in the 13th running of the Derby at Los Alamitos after the event’s Hollywood Park era as the Swaps Stakes from 1974 through 2013.

Faran widened the picture even further. The $3.4 million yearling from the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale won on debut by 1 3/4 lengths in 1:16.74 at 6 1/2 furlongs as the 3-5 favorite, with Umberto Rispoli back in the saddle after the January spill at Gulfstream Park that left him with serious leg injuries. It was Rispoli’s first win with Baffert in 17 mounts, and Baffert said Faran was not fully cranked up and only needed a race into him.

That is why the Los Alamitos roll reads like more than a local hot streak. Baffert had Nooni pointed to the Grade 2 Great Lady M, a $200,000 sprint for fillies and mares at 6 1/2 furlongs that Sweet Azteca won in 1:15.67 on July 4. With Sabino Canyon, Faran, and March of Time already doing damage, the meet looks less like a short burst and more like the launchpad for the next wave at Del Mar.