| TRAINING |
FA S T O R S L O W? EXAMINING DIFFERENT TRAINING METHODS Bill Heller talks to Jason Servis and Bob Baffert about fast versus slow training methods Bill Heller
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ust hours apart, trainers Jason Servis and Bob Baffert saddled Gr1 winners on Saturday, December 7. Servis’ outstanding three-year-old colt Maximum Security captured the Gr1 Cigar Mile easily at Aqueduct off three extremely slow workouts. Twenty-eight hundred miles away at Los Alamitos, where he also won the Gr2 Los Alamitos Futurity for two-year-olds with
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Thousand Words, Baffert’s Bast won the Gr1 Starlet for two-year-old fillies. Both two-year-olds had fast works, as most of Baffert’s horses do. These two trainers couldn’t be more different regarding published workouts, yet their success in 2019 was eerily similar. Through late December, Servis ranked eighth nationally in earnings ($10.9 million from 563 starts). Baffert was ninth with $10.0 million from just 317 starts. “Jason and Bob—they’re completely different,” Servis’ brother John, who trained 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness
winner Smarty Jones, said. “Jason has a whole different way.” Even with the same client. Baffert and Servis each trained Kentucky Derby threeyear-olds for Gary and Mary West, who own Maximum Security and Baffert-trained Game Winner, last year’s Two-Year-Old Champion. Each three-year-old’s works for the Derby reflected their trainers’ different approaches. Slow works versus fast. Two schools of thought: Horses don’t need fast works in the morning to run fast in the afternoon, or, horses must run fast in the morning to run fast in the afternoon.