Top 'Gun' Rewards Chris Baker's Belief in 'Run'

On the spectrum of Thoroughbred stallions, you won't find too many either side of Gun Runner and Despot. One, charging $250,000 a dance at Three Chimneys, is the most immediately accomplished sire of recent times. The other was claimed for $350 at Waterford Park, some 50 years ago, before being set to work annually producing a handful of half-breds in rural Maryland.

“Liver chestnut son of Stevward,” says the man whose career unites this unlikely pair. “You should have seen us trying to figure out how to breed mares on our own. 'Grab her tail.' There were no helmets and vests worn, I can guarantee you that.”

Chris Baker, chief operating officer at Three Chimneys for the past decade, chuckles at the memory.

“My father, in essence, thought that no uterus should be empty,” he says. “From cows to horses, to cats, dogs, everything. Breed, breed, breed. An old Catholic thing, I guess! But that's where the whole horse thing started.”

It has been quite an odyssey since. Crucially, in a sector of the industry that often feels culpably divorced from its ostensible purpose, Baker cut his teeth on the racetrack. He started at a barn that then housed A.P. Indy, and for a time was even a trainer himself. Baker went on to adapt those experiences to the challenges of breeding, so well that 11 years as general manager for Ned Evans at Spring Hill Farm yielded over 100 stakes winners, including another Horse of the Year in Saint Liam. During a stint at WinStar, he welcomed into the world yet another that would earn those laurels; and now Gun Runner and Baker have together brought their careers to fulfilment in the service of the Torrealba family at Three Chimneys.

Baker cuts a striking figure, nowadays, silver hair flowing beneath the broad brim of his hat. But the ease of his demeanor and conversation has been fully earned: the insights kindly shared with The TDN remind us that none of these things happen overnight, nor by accident.

Baker's forefathers were themselves achieving pretty high production. Baker himself is sixth of seven children; his father was one of nine kids from McKees Rocks, Pittsburgh; and his grandfather, in turn, was one of nine, seven being boys.

All seven brothers went into the family business: a bakery, inevitably. The one who became Baker's grandfather was charged with the care of 100 carthorses that delivered bread for the Baker Brothers Bakery.

“My dad tells of going with his father in a buckboard wagon at weekends to try out replacements for horses that had been retired, or come up lame,” he recalls. “One time this horse just wouldn't go and, after driving away at him for a mile or so, they turn round to go back. And then the horse just takes off. They can't stop him. He's running through the cobblestone streets like a lunatic, all the way back into the barn, where he comes to a screeching halt, dust flying everywhere.”

The panting driver leaned down to his sons cowering in the bottom of the wagon. His words have since been humorously invoked at any appropriate juncture in Baker family history: “Boys, whatever you do, don't tell your mother.”

It is to this gentleman that Baker traces his affinity for horses-though there were also weekends and summers at the farm owned by his other grandfather, an hour or so from his boyhood home in Washington, DC. This one was an attorney (as was Baker's own father) but also raised cattle and tobacco on 600 acres.

“So really we did a lot of our growing up in the country,” Baker says. “And we were riding before we could walk. There were horses for everybody- buckskins, palominos, Tennessee walkers-just not saddles or bridles for everybody! If you were the last to the tack room, you'd be riding with a halter and rope.”

The most expensive was a Chincoteague pony bought by his father for $45. But then a neighbors' daughter went away to college and gave her hunting mare, a retired Thoroughbred, to the Bakers. Suddenly they had a new sense of what a horse could be. Soon they started claiming the odd Thoroughbred from places like Charles Town and Mountaineer, Despot among them.

“And then somebody told my father that a stallion needs to be exercised,” Baker recalls. “Which is right. But next thing I'm the one, at 10 years old, getting run off with, all over the farm.”

Sometimes he would also be told to ride a mare to a nearby farm that stood Quarter Horse stallions. ([Its owners were raising a boy of their own into the game: the future veterinarian, Steve Allday.] Baker remembers being told to stand his mare uphill, and put his shoulder into her chest so that she might keep still. One way or another, then, it was a pretty seasoned young horseman who went off to read Agriculture and Animal Science at the University of Maryland.

It was during his college years that Baker first sampled racetrack work, at Bowie, and subsequently a three-year grounding at Lane's End included stints at Churchill and Keeneland with the farm's trainer at the time, Neil Howard. Baker had been a sufficiently able high school athlete-football, track, wrestling-to have developed an interest in physiological preparation. First and foremost, however, he had grasped that anybody intending to breed racehorses should understand the requirements of those who trained them.

Baker served as Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella's assistant for several years | Benoit

“I believe my experience on the racetrack makes me a way better farm manager,” Baker acknowledges. “And that was very intentional. It was something deeply ignited in me at that age, my early 20s: how could I breed and raise an athlete without seeing that athlete in training and in competition?”

True, that apprenticeship extended far beyond his expectations. He went to Australia and England, to see how things were done there; and ended up serving four years as assistant trainer to Richard Mandella. His resume by then included a year with Neil Drysdale, on hand when a $2.9 million son of Seattle Slew broke his maiden at Santa Anita. Baker was still very junior, at that time, but A.P. Indy gave him a glimpse of the elite Thoroughbred; and Mandella would now provide a wider perspective.

“Richard was a great teacher,” he recalls. “A great taskmaster, as well! I mean, you were going to learn, or you weren't going to be around at all. So I learned a tremendous amount about hard work and horsemanship, the kind that leaves no stone unturned. But also in terms of character, and approach to life.”

Within months Phone Chatter and Kotashaan (Fr) had won at the Breeders' Cup, while the South American conveyor belt would bring the likes of Siphon (Brz) and Gentlemen (Arg).

“Those horses had to go through a lot of filters to make it here,” Baker reflects. “Some had a lot of stamina in their pedigrees and, especially in California, you had to have speed as well. But most of them had good foot, good bone, some constitution. Watching Richard adapting both South American and French horses to U.S. methods, the acclimatization process, the patience required, was a fantastic education. At the same time, of course, he's getting horses like Afternoon Deelites and Soul of the Matter. At one time we had 40 horses in the barn and eight were Grade I winners. It was just a great environment, a great lab to study in.”

Eventually Baker became so absorbed by the track that he thought he might never leave. He took out a license, trained 11 winners over a couple of years. But then he got married, soon a daughter appeared, and a nomadic and uncertain existence became impractical. He returned to Kentucky and worked on a couple of farms until sounded out by his former employers at Lane's End about their client, Edward P. Evans, who was seeking a manager for his farm in Virginia.

Inauspiciously, Evans was doing so for the fourth time in five years. But it suited Baker, as a young father, to be close to family and he backed himself to forge a relationship with this notoriously demanding employer.

“He was tough but fair,” Baker says. “And he expected results. As his brother Shel told me, 'In Ned's life, nobody avoids the penalty box.' But so long as you were doing what you were supposed to, and helping him achieve his goals, he was a great guy to work for. So I just went in and worked hard, was honest and clear with him. And, as we got to know each other, we built some trust and mutual respect.

“He was a very intelligent guy. He could take what looked like complex situations, and distill them to one simple actionable item that would drive success. He read people well, read business well. And he had a highly developed bullshit monitor!”

Evans had been only 27 when buying the farm back in 1969.

“He'd always bred to good stallions: Northern Dancer, Mr. Prospector, Halo,” Baker says. “He'd bred to The Minstrel at Windfields in Maryland and got Minstrella, a champion 2-year-old [in Europe]. But having been operating with 20, 30 mares, the whole scale changed when he sold out of Macmillan [the publishing firm]. That was when he got right up to 90 mares, and his whole intent and focus changed. So when I fell in, it was Year 31 of a 42-year experiment. All the ingredients were there-the physical plant, the bloodstock-and he just needed somebody to help orchestrate things, from an operational standpoint. So, again, it was fortunate timing on my part.”

By that stage Baker had long been absorbed by pedigrees. He was barely 10 when his father would throw him the stallion edition of Maryland Horse to help pick a $1,500 sire. But now he could mix from a much larger palette, including Pleasant Tap-Evans had inherited a third share from his father-and homebreds like Silver Ghost and Stormin Fever.

By the time Evans died, on the last day of 2010, they had raised Saint Liam [sold as a yearling] and Quality Road, whose stud career has lavishly benefited his late breeder's charitable foundation.

“I didn't know everything about managing a farm,” Baker says. “Still don't. But I knew what I didn't know, and knew people to call to fill in the gaps. Working for Mr. Evans was like getting an MBA. We'd go over the financial statements on a monthly basis, we'd go over the annual budgeting with his controller in New York. To that point, I had focused my entire career on developing my horsemanship. But he opened my eyes to the macro, business level.”

Three Chimneys owner Goncalo Torrealba | Keeneland

In the process Baker also obtained a rare, cradle-to-grave perspective on equine potential. When preparing the Spring Hill dispersal, then, Baker was still presiding over matings and foalings, still liaising with pre-trainers and trainers. The authority with which he did so plainly impressed Benjamin Leon, who bought several of the mares and invited Baker to follow them into his operation. Baker having committed to WinStar, however, Leon said: “Chris, these mares are your handiwork. They should be with you. Will you ask Mr. Troutt if I can board them at WinStar?”

So it was that Baker came to be present when Saint Liam's $3 million half-sister Quiet Giant (Giant's Causeway) delivered a Candy Ride colt on 8 March, 2013. He still has a photo of the foal standing for the first time. A few months later, Baker was hired by the new owners of Three Chimneys-but he would not be parted long from Gun Runner.

By typical horseracing happenstance (Goncalo Torrealba's sister and Leon were both clients of the same Miami hairdresser) Leon invited the Torrealbas to his suite for the 2014 Kentucky Derby. Leon hit it off with Torrealba, and was invited to stay at Three Chimneys next time he was in town. When he did so, they look Baker to see all Leon's stock-and very soon sealed a partnership in everything that had come out of Spring Hill.

“So then all those horses were here with me at Three Chimneys,” marvels Baker. “If that's not luck, I don't know what is. It's fantastic, just makes the whole thing very, very meaningful. Because of the long connections, the multiple generations of multiple families.”

This has allowed Baker an emotionally gratifying stake in the outcomes of his own long diligence. Sure, he has only ever monetized his contribution as a salary; but he has felt privileged, throughout, to participate in his employers' far-sightedness.

“For so many people in our industry, just to make ends meet, the goal is to make a profit every time they can,” he acknowledges. “I've been fortunate to benefit from a completely different mindset: to focus on results, on accomplishing things, and ultimately to make a business profitable that way instead.”

The point being that with adequate resources and patience, this approach will eventually pay off commercially, too.

“I remember sitting down with Mr. Evans one time, and we were deciding between two stallions for this mare,” Baker recalls. “And I said, 'Well Mr. Evans, Pleasant Tap suits her greatly, but it's not really a commercial mating. Commercially, you'd want this one instead.' And he replied, 'Commercial sires? Racehorse sires? Who doesn't want a racehorse?' I mean, he could afford to kind of push that aside. But it was so black and white to him: if you can breed a racehorse, you'll be doing the right thing for your mare, for the family, for the whole thing.”

Of course this all ties in with Baker's grounding on the backside. His whole career has been oriented to finding a runner.

“Plenty of people that haven't had that racetrack experience have raised a lot of good horses,” Baker stresses. “I just know that for me, it makes me significantly better, because I understand what's going to be asked of them. I understand physically, mentally, even socially, things that might set them up to succeed. At the end of the day, as producers, we can't make them faster or better than they're individually hardwired to be. But by doing or especially not doing certain things, we can stay out of the way of them reaching their full potential.”

Gun Runner | Sarah K. Andrew

Gun Runner, as such, could not be better named. He's only top “gun”, after all, because he was all “run”. To Baker, of course, the horse will always have an unusually personal resonance. Knowing him so intimately, how does he account for Gun Runner's genetic prowess?

“Well, I certainly can't attribute it to any one thing,” he replies. “I think he's an alchemy of so many things that just came together. The only extremes of Gun Runner are his athleticism and his temperament, his will to win. Mental constitution, as much as anything. If you look at him, he's not too big, not too small; and his pedigree, also, suits a broad spectrum of mares. There's a melding of so many things: the brilliance of Candy Ride, the stamina and durability of Giant's Causeway. And you can go all the way back to Gallorette [foaled in 1942]. Just read her race record, and then keep tipping up the line!”

With this fulfilment of former patrons' legacy, then, Baker's present employment has brought things full circle. He repeatedly insists that he has been fortunate, “all the way through my career, to be in the right place at the right time.” But you also make your own luck. It was only because three different people-Evans, Leon and Torrealba-all recognized the skills of this “fabulous Baker boy” that a single set of fingerprints has remained, almost the whole way through, over one of the most remarkable Thoroughbreds on the planet.

“The Torrealba family has afforded us the opportunity to work with a lot of great horses, and a lot of great people,” Baker says gratefully. “All the way through my career, accomplishment has come through people having the right goals, the right stock, doing the right work. I do think I've worked hard for everybody who's been willing to employ me, but I also think I've been very fortunate to have people that believed in me, and in the teams that we could put together. It always takes a team effort, backed up with good stock and good facilities, and Three Chimneys is certainly an extension of that. So really the only way of looking at it is probably that I've been spoiled, right?”