Horse Trainer

Hall of Fame horse trainer Bob Baffert was in good spirits and resting comfortably Monday in Dubai after suffering a heart attack and having two stents inserted into one blocked artery and one stent into another, according to horse owner Bernie Schiappa. Baffert, 59, was in Dubai for the $10-million Dubai World Cup, where his horse, Game On Dude, is scheduled to run Saturday. The Daily Racing Form reported that Baffert was feeling ill late Sunday night into Monday morning.

Hall of Fame horse trainer Bob Baffert was in good spirits and resting comfortably on Monday in Dubai after suffering a heart attack and having two stents inserted because of blocked arteries, according to an official at Santa Anita. Baffert, 59, was in Dubai for the $10-million Dubai World Cup, where his horse, Game On Dude, is scheduled to run on Saturday. The Daily Racing Form reported that Baffert was feeling ill late Sunday night into Monday morning. "We called 911, and the paramedics came right away," Bernie Schiappa, a co-owner of Game On Dude, told the publication.

When Karin Hauenstein led her three horses down Vine Street, the girls in short skirts stilled their stiletto-heeled sashays, the incense hawkers stopped calling out to passersby, and Trader Joe's shoppers gaped through the glass at the convoy clip-clopping up the far right lane. Whether anyone registered more than surprise is hard to say. But on that recent afternoon, Hauenstein was making a statement. The 39-year-old horse trainer has come south from Santa Barbara County to protest the commercial slaughter of horses.

Reporting from Louisville, Ky. — For trainers with the good fortune of sending several horses to the 15-race Breeders' Cup that runs Friday and Saturday at Churchill Downs, hopes for a financial windfall start in the first day's fillies and juvenile races. California-based trainer Bob Baffert has nine entries, including four running Friday, after withdrawing the feverish 30-1 longshot Prayer for Relief from Saturday's $5-million Classic. The country's top trainer, Todd Pletcher , also has nine horses running, including three Friday and Classic threats Uncle Mo and Stay Thirsty.

Watching horse trainer Bill Spawr at work is a reflection of everyone who rises each day dedicated to a career they would like to think will one day provide a significant measure of satisfaction. Spawr, 72, has spent more than 50 years trying to make sense of horse racing. None of his horses has won a Triple Crown, and his best showing in a Breeders' Cup was fourth place. Yet, every day at the fall meeting at Santa Anita Park, he was inside his barn at 3:15 a.m. And Saturday, the veteran trainer sends out 5-year-old gelding Amazombie as one of the favorites in the $1-million Breeders' Cup sprint race at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. "I've learned some of the answers, but you never get to know them all, because horses are individuals," Spawr said last week in his wooden barn at Santa Anita that houses 32 animals.

Outfitted in his trademark cowboy hat and long black overcoat, Lloyd Wilkins took a stroll down West Bennett Street in Compton on a recent weekday morning, engaging residents along the way. "Hey, man, she's a beauty," Wilkins said as horse trainer Ricardo De La Torre approached atop a pristinely groomed quarter horse. A short time later two other riders sauntered by, greeting Wilkins with a wave. "This is what I'm talking about," Wilkins said, gesturing toward the equestrians.

Blane Schvaneveldt, a hall of fame quarter horse trainer who dominated Los Alamitos Race Course for decades, racking up nearly 4,000 victories at the Orange County track, has died. He was 76. Schvaneveldt died Monday at Los Alamitos Medical Center, the track announced. He had been hospitalized Friday morning with heart arrhythmia. Inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2001, Schvaneveldt had won 3,982 races and 38 training titles at Los Alamitos since 1968.

The topic of the day, every day, in United States horse racing, is how to fix it. A good start toward a solution stands about 6 feet 6, hails from England, trains horses there and is at Santa Anita this week, intending to gather up large numbers of dollars to take home and convert to pounds. Which he did at last year's Breeders' Cup. If personality drives the bus, you want John Gosden's hands on the steering wheel. Gosden is Cary Grant in Ernie Els' body. He is the Big Easy with a sly smile, a wry wit and a charismatic charm.

Frank Whiteley Jr., a trainer of some of horse racing's biggest stars and a member of the sport's hall of fame for 30 years, died Friday in Camden, S.C. He was 93. No cause of death was released, but Whiteley had been ill for some time. The trainer of, among others, the brilliant filly Ruffian as well as multiple stakes winners Damascus and Forego, Whiteley got his trainer's license in Maryland in 1936, beginning a career that would last for 49 years. "Frank was just a wonderful horseman, who did it the grass-roots way, and there just aren't that many around any more," hall of fame trainer Shug McGaughey, who worked for Whiteley, told bloodhorse.

Dale Baird, who has more wins -- 9,445 -- than any other trainer in thoroughbred history, died Sunday in a traffic accident in Indiana. He was 72. Baird was traveling west on Interstate 70 when he apparently lost control of his sport utility vehicle that was hauling an empty horse trailer, crossed the median into eastbound traffic and collided with a car carrying two young men, the Daily Reporter of Greenfield, Ind., reported. Baird and the teenagers in the other car died at the scene.