Bob Baffert grew up on “The Baffert Ranch” close to the Mexican border. The family kept cattle and enough chickens to supply eggs to restaurants in Nogales, Arizona.
When Bob was 10 years old, his father, Bill Baffert ‘The Chief,” bought some quarter horses, which are smaller than thoroughbreds and built for speed over shorter distances, he plowed a dirt track in the family’s oat hay field. Bob started riding each morning before school.
Bob became skilled enough, so that over the next few years, he could earn $100 a day as a jockey in match races on the outskirts of town.
Bob eventually matured into a young man too big to be a jockey, and he turned to training horses. He graduated to sanctioned races in the area and earned his first victory in 1970 while still a teenager. While keeping his foot in the game, Bob studied Animal Sciences at the University of Arizona, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in the Race Track Industry Program.
Staying in the training business, Bob trained horses for a farm in Prescott, married, and tried substitute teaching. His first winner as a trainer occurred at Rillito Park, now a registered National Historic site in Tucson, making $330 from a $600 purse. While the purse was small people took note of the 20-something ambitious newcomer with prematurely white hair. Fortunately for Bob, when several local trainers got caught doping horses, they asked him to run their stables until they returned from suspension.
Baffert said, “I never learned from a real trainer so it was trial and error, mostly error,” according to the LATimes. “All of a sudden, I started winning races. I was the king of Arizona.”
The next logical step seemed like Los Alamitos, the Orange County track, which ran only quarter horses in those days. Los Alamitos had better races and bigger purses. Through the mid-1980s, Baffert worked his way up to become a top trainer.
After considerable success, fast-food magnate Mike Pegram persuaded Baffert to try thoroughbreds, which was another world. The horses could be temperamental. The people wore Rolexes and arrived at the track in fancy cars.
“I show up with my cowboy hat and pickup truck,” Baffert told the LATimes. “I was scared to death.”
Baffert gave himself three years to make it or leave. Bob worked hard to pick the brains of established trainers such as Charlie Whittingham, Laz Barrera and especially Wayne Lukas, who had also started with quarter horses.
His success was noticeable and his career was on a roll, he twice came up short at the Belmont with Silver Charm losing by three-quarters of a length in 1997 and 1998 with Real Quiet finishing second by a nose.
Bob married his second-wife, Jill in 2002 and their son, Bode, was born. Early in the morning Bob, Jill and Bode were often seen together at the track working with the horses.
While on a trip to the Dubai World Cup in 2012, Baffert suffered from what he thought was a bad case of indigestion. Instead he had a heart attack, and doctors inserted three stents to repair the damage done.
This journey from the small border town of Nogales, Arizona to the peak of racing history after three previous opportunities to end the quest for the Triple Crown ended happily today.
Bob Baffert’s perseverance provided the horse racing community with its first Triple Crown winner in 37 years, just when many were beginning to question if anyone would ever win the Triple Crown with a victory at Belmont.