Baffert dominates the Los Alamitos Futurity, a race he has now won 14 times, both when it was the Hollywood Futurity at Hollywood Park and at Los Alamitos. He entered three 2-year-olds this year, winning with the longest shot of the three. Wynstock was coming off a 7 1/2-length, one-mile maiden win Oct. 15 at Santa Anita Park, a race he also won on the lead. In two efforts at 6 1/2 furlongs before that, he was unplaced while racing well off the pace and with trouble at the start. Jockey Kyle Frey rode Wynstock for the first time in his maiden victory and is 2-for-2 on the colt.
Coach Prime, a $1.7 million son of Quality Road and Baffert trainee, went off as the 4-5 favorite, with Baffert-trained, graded stakes-placed Wine Me Up the second choice at 19-10. Wynstock was the fourth choice of the five-horse field at 13-1. When the gate opened in the 1 1/16-mile Futurity, the five runners broke together. Wine Me Up took a brief lead, but Wynstock surged to the front around the first turn and set all of the fractions, beginning with a quarter-mile time of :23.53. Wynstock maintained a length advantage into the backstretch. Wine Me Up and Coach Prime began their runs in the second turn, while Stronghold also challenged from the rail. Into the stretch, however, the race came down to Wynstock and Stronghold.
“When he gets in front, he has the heart of a lion,” Frey said. Baffert said that he thought Wynstock would be on the lead as he was in his initial victory.
This was Baffert’s first win in the Futurity since 2020, when he completed a seven-race winning streak that began in 2014. He first won the race in 1997 with Real Quiet, and his other winners include Point Given in 2000.