It Doesn’t Take Much to Really Get Baffert’s Goat

The Hicks have arrived, and from the tone of their e-mail, they’ve come heavily armed with middle-America indignation, so I figured the safest place Thursday was opening day at Santa Anita, knowing the folks from Nebraska had come here on vacation to get away from the livestock.

This was the 25th consecutive time in Santa Anita’s 65-year history for the race track to open the day after Christmas, and really the best day of the year for our family, because all the gifts have been opened, which meant the grocery store bagger would have clean underwear.

This is a big deal for us because the future son-in-law seems to tag along wherever we go, and I can truthfully say now it’s a big deal for the good folks at Santa Anita because they invited the family to spend opening day in the Directors Room, although the room did seem to clear out rather early in the day.

By the way, I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Allan Gruener, who was assigned to sit at our table and who took an elbow to the head every time the bagger got up to make a bet. I would have told the bagger to stop sometime before the last race had Gruener not made such a big deal about being a graduate of USC.

OPENING DAY at Santa Anita used to be a big deal--more than 65,000 people turning out in 1988, 70,000-plus in 1964, and only 27,713 Wednesday--I guess because they weren’t sure what the bagger had gotten for Christmas.

I believe this lack of fan support--you think a big horse like Shaq would run all out if an arena looked empty?--along with the fact Bob Baffert doesn’t know much about horse racing, played a key role in my inability to have fun Wednesday.

Baffert, as you know, is the most recognizable figure in horse racing because he has white hair, and the only way you can really identify a horse is to look at the tattoo in his mouth.

Baffert’s also the guy waving his arms high above his head to get the attention of the media, so it’s really pretty easy to spot him.

Baffert’s been the top trainer at Santa Anita for five straight years, so I spent the morning with him in his barn, and from now on I’m going to have a tough time writing it’s the Ducks who stink.

He spent the first hour telling me no one likes him, everyone is out to get him and that really bothers him.

“I hate it when people don’t like me,” he said, so I probably shouldn’t tell you what he had to say about the Hicks from Nebraska.

“I’ve gotten gun-shy,” he said. “I thought I was trying to promote the sport of horse racing, but I’m telling you if you talk for 45 minutes to a reporter, you’re going to make a mistake and there are people out there who are just waiting for that.”

It took only 16 minutes, but since I’m not the type of person to pounce on somebody just because they’ve made the mistake of calling two of their horses, “goats,” I said I’d keep their identity secret ... in exchange for a few winners.

“Popular should win [in the third],” he said, and later Popular ran a solid seventh in the eight-horse field, which got me to thinking maybe I should move Baffert ahead of Dan Evans and Kevin Brown on my list of losers.

I’ve got a daughter and future son-in-law sitting together--the bagger buying a suit so he could meet the directors’ dress code and everyone in the family relieved when he didn’t arrive wearing a sweatsuit--and a wife gone betting crazy wanting to pick which one of the wagon-pulled Clydesdales would cross the finish line first.

I need help, and Baffert has two of the 12 horses running in the fourth, so I just want to know which of his is better. “True Monarch,” he said, and his other horse, Chaos N Confusion goes on to win, while True Monarch finishes 11th.

The two goats he identified earlier were Brainy and Bay Head King.

OK, so if everyone who went to the races carried a grudge after losing, the world would be a very unhappy place or Nebraska. But here’s the problem with horse racing: more than 27,000 people went to the track, not one of them picked the winners in the final six races, and so $192,902.75 will be carried over to Friday for someone else to win. You would think it would be easy picking the winners too--just eliminate the horses Baffert likes.

Unfortunately, the public doesn’t get the chance to hear Baffert babble, which is their loss. He’s funny, he’s glib, he’s self-effacing, he’s egotistical, he’s self-made successful, he doesn’t listen very well, but he’s a great character, and between every race I’d have him hooked up to the P.A. at Santa Anita, and I’m telling you he’d pack them in and save the sport.

His enemies, and those jealous of his success, would listen in anticipation of him saying something stupid. The public would listen hoping he might pick a winner--and avoid all goats, you know, like Brainy and Bay Head King.

He’s the best at developing young horses, too, although it’d be hard to prove after the Bob Toledo/UCLA-like collapse of Officer, who won five-straight and then dropped three. But he says he has five horses in his stable now who have Kentucky Derby potential--two who might be special. He said he wouldn’t name those two.

I said I’d call him “gutless” in the paper if he didn’t. I also told him if I wasn’t going to name the two goats in his barn, then I certainly wouldn’t name his two Derby hopefuls. So he relented, and took me to the stalls of Strive and High Thunder.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.