posted December 6, 2006 at 17:35 EST in Triple Crown Articles

Thoroughbred racing has a new #1, in wins that is. Russell Baze rode his 9,531st winner on Friday in the 4th race at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, California. The 48- year-old Baze passed Laffit Pincay Jr., who was forced to retire due to a neck injury. Pincay had held the record of 9,530 since 12/10/99.

Baze won the record-breaking race on the turf course named for Johnny Longden, who himself once held the record. The mount was Butterfly Belle. Prior to Pincay, Willie Shoemaker had the record, which he took from Longden; Shoemaker held the honors for 29 years. Baze was quoted as saying he would not do much celebrating, he would just relax. His goal is to get to 10,000 wins. Baze’s first winner came in 1974 at Yakima Meadows in Washington aboard a horse trained by his father.

Baze has not come close to the career marks of the previous title holders; he is 0-2 in the Kentucky Derby and 0-3 in the Breeders Cup, and has not faced the top level of competition at major racing venues. He stays in Northern California, where he gets the best mounts from the top trainers.

Here are some stats from 2005: Baze had 375 winners and earned 7.3 million dollars in purses. On the East Coast, Edgar Prado won only 299 races and earned 18.6 million in purses. In SoCal, Cory Nakatani won only 142 races and amassed 9.8 million for his connections. So, while my hat is off to Mr. Baze, let’s keep this record in perspective.

FURLONGS:
Look for a lot more “shippers” at the Gulfstream Park meet which opens Jan 3rd in Hallandale, Florida. Why? Because they now have slot machines.
Gulfstream has announced that 7.5% of the take from the slots will add 18% to the purses for the entire meet, which leads us to the Triple Crown races and ends in April.

For racing questions and free picks, email Pete at jrclemente@hotmail.com.