Trainer Bob Baffert has won the Preakness Stakes eight times—the most victories in the race all-time by a trainer. On Saturday his attempt at Preakness No. 9 will depend on the immensely talented but lightly raced Goal Oriented. Will the Preakness be too much too soon for this colt, who started his career less than six weeks ago?
1 Goal Oriented (6-1)
- Trainer: Bob Baffert
- Jockey: Flavien Prat
- Last race: 1st in an allowance race by ¾ length
- Career record: 2 starts: 2 wins
- Career earnings: $111,960
- Best career Beyer Speed Figure: 91 (twice)
- Sire: Not This Time
Below, we’ll dig further into Goal Oriented as part of our series profiling all the horses competing in the 150th Preakness Stakes on Saturday, May 17. We’ll look back into his past performances, what questions need to be answered on Saturday and analyze how the post draw affects his chances.
Preakness Stakes profiles 1 Goal Oriented | 2 Journalism | 3 American Promise | 4 Heart of Honor | 5 Pay Billy | 6 River Thames | 7 Sandman | 8 Clever Again | 9 Gosger
Preakness Stakes picks Michelle Yu | Gene Menez | Jody Demling
What to know about Goal Oriented
In the seventh race at Santa Anita Park on April 6, a dark bay/brown colt named Goal Oriented made his career debut. After trailing as the last of seven horses early, he gobbled up his rivals around the turn and powered away for a 3¼-length win. The performance earned an impressive 91 Beyer Speed Figure and drew rave reviews from onlookers who tabbed Goal Oriented as trainer Bob Baffert’s next 3-year-old star.
The buzz ramped up for the colt’s second start, on the undercard of the Kentucky Derby on May 3. Sent off at a little less than 7-5 at FanDuel Racing, TwinSpires and 1/ST BET, Goal Oriented held off the fast-closing and highly regarded Hypnus. While the effort was not as flashy as his debut win, Goal Oriented beat a more accomplished field and matched his 91 Beyer in the process. An argument can be made that he also raced on the worst part of the track that day, the inside, while his main rival was outside.
Goal Oriented wasn’t initially pointed to run in the Preakness Stakes until last week when Baffert announced on May 8 that the colt would run in the second leg of the Triple Crown. The decision seemed odd since Baffert also had Wood Memorial winner Rodriguez in the Preakness. But on the following day, when Rodriguez was removed from consideration for the race, the move to enter Goal Oriented made more sense.
That still doesn’t change the fact that this is a major litmus test for this lightly raced son of budding sire Not This Time. Goal Oriented will be facing the best field he has ever faced, stretching out to a distance (9½ furlongs) far longer than he has ever run and doing so on just two weeks’ rest and less than six weeks after making his career debut.
But if there’s a trainer who can pull this off, it’s Baffert, who has won the Preakness a record eight times. Five of those wins, however, came from horses who had already proved they were at the top of their class, having won the Kentucky Derby.
Goal Oriented seems certain to win a big one some day, and that day could come Saturday.
Post draw analysis
There’s no way to quantify this, but Baffert seems to draw the No. 1 post in the biggest races more than his fair share and more than any other trainer. Goal Oriented is the latest victim. The rail draw likely forces jockey Flavien Prat to send Goal Oriented to the lead, which may have been the strategy all along. But the very quick Clever Again is drawn to his outside and won’t make things easy on this talented Baffert trainee. If he needs to run from a bit off the pace, Goal Oriented already has proven he can win in that scenario, as he did just that in his career debut.
This news was originally published on this post .
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