‘It’s King Kong Versus Godzilla’: Baffert Relishing Saudi Cup Battle Between Forever Young and Nysos

[Wandering Eyes]

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA — Bob Baffert may have won two Triple Crowns, six Kentucky Derbys, 21 Breeders' Cup races, and four Dubai World Cups but there is an itch that still needs to be scratched: the Saudi Cup.

“We've gotten pretty close,” he said Thursday morning from King Abdulaziz Racecourse, and he's not wrong.

Baffert has been represented in five of the six runnings of the world's richest race and has finished second twice, with Charlatan (Speightstown) then Country Grammer (Tonalist). Last year was his sole omission, and to make up for that, this year he will saddle two horses, with the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile winner 'TDN Rising Star' presented by Hagyard Nysos (Nyquist) being joined by his stablemate and runner-up in the GII Laffit Pincay Jr Stakes, Nevada Beach (Omaha Beach).

In any other year, he'd be sitting pretty, but there is the small matter of the defending champion and GI Breeders' Cup Classic winner Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}) in the field. Baffert conceded that this will be no easy mission, and he was full of praise for the odds-on favorite and his trainer Yoshito Yahagi, who had exited the press conference suite just moments before.

“That was a fantastic race,” Baffert said of the thrilling stretch-long tussle between Forever Young and Romantic Warrior (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) 12 months ago. “I was watching that race in my office at Santa Anita, and Romantic Warrior, he looked so good going to the gate, and all of a sudden he took off, he got bold, and it looked like the race was over, and then Forever Young, he's just–he's a unicorn.

Bob Baffert during a Thursday press conference at King Abdulaziz | Emma Berry

“I'm telling you, he's unbelievable, and I have so much respect for that horse. He just put his head down, and what he did as a 3-year-old, to win in Saudi, Dubai, come to the Derby, and come so close, that is just unheard of, you know, a horse shipping that much. Credit to his trainer and his staff, and his jockey, riding with so much confidence, but that horse is an incredible horse, and he's a good-looking horse. I saw him the other day, he looks healthy, and he's going to be tough.”

Of Yahagi, who is arguably Japan's most internationally recognized trainer with a haul of victories which stretches beyond Saudi and America to Dubai–with Forever Young's sire among his five winners there–Australia and Hong Kong. He has also won Japan's Triple Crown with Contrail (Jpn).

“He's like the Charlie Whittingham of Japan,” Baffert added. “He's tough, and he looks like he's having fun, that's what I love about him. And when he says his horse is ready, they're ready. He said last night his horse is ready, and I didn't like to hear that, but that's what makes these races great. These races are supposed to be tough, and bring the best horses here. It's like that baseball movie, if they put up the money, they'll come, and so, we're here.”

Yahagi is himself a big baseball fan. He was proudly sporting his L.A. Dodgers shirt along with a self-confessed hangover the morning after last year's Breeders' Cup Classic, which happened to clash with the final game of a tense World Series in which the Dodgers, with their smattering of Japanese imports, proved as tough to beat as Forever Young. But Baffert will be doing his level best to ensure that Riyadh does not remain a field of dreams solely for his rival. He will also take on the Yahagi-trained American Stage with 5-year-old Imagination–both of them sons of Into Mischief–in the G2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint, but in Nysos, he says that he has his strongest chance yet to add the Saudi Cup to his portfolio.

“I think Nysos is a brilliant racehorse,” he said. “He's got his work cut out, but he's got a good draw position, he's outside, he can just stalk, he's smart. He can go to the lead, he can come off the pace, whereas the horses I brought here before were one-dimensional, and they had horses hook them early and then got tired at the end.”

The long stretch at Riyadh, on a dirt track modelled on the easy, sweeping turns of Belmont Park, is famously attritional, as Baffert knows to his cost.

He continued, “We won a little Derby here [with Pinehurst in 2022] and stuff, but we've fallen short. I always tell everybody, I'm watching at home, it looks like I'm home free and I'm looking for the wire, and all of a sudden they show the 100-meter mark and I've lost millions of dollars just to make that last 100 meters. They just come get you there at the end. It's sort of a deep racetrack, it's a soft, very forgiving, safe racetrack, but it gets tough: that stretch is just so long. I prefer shorter stretches.”

Nevada Beach | Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia

Following a dominant victory in the GIII Robert B. Lewis Stakes in February 2024, Nysos was not seen in action for the remainder of his 3-year-old season. Injury niggles kept him off the track until May 2025, when he ran Mindframe (Constitution) to a neck on comeback to finish second in the GI Churchill Downs Stakes. Thereafter he has remained faultless in four starts, including his first Grade I success at the Breeders' Cup. On that same day at Del Mar, Nevada Beach, then three, finished seventh in a Breeders' Cup Classic for the ages, in which Forever Young was chased home by Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), Fierceness (City of Light), Journalism (Curlin) and Mindframe.

“He wants to go a mile and a quarter, and you need a horse that can go a mile and a quarter to run here,” Baffert said of GI Goodwood Stakes winner Nevada Beach. “I feel pretty good about both my chances. I think the Breeders' Cup [Classic] was a weird-run race, he was on the inside, and he was sort of tight in the inside there and the track that day was just really speed. But he won after that, he's come back and run two big races, so I feel he's more mature now. He gets over this track really well. He's big, he reminds me a lot of Country Grammer–a big, long-striding horse that gets over this track.”

The second-place finishes for Charlatan and Country Grammer came in the two years following a disappointing effort in the inaugural running from McKinzie, who, like Nevada Beach, was owned by the triumvirate of Michael E. Pegram, Karl Watson and Paul Weitman.

“I thought McKinzie was going to run really big, and he didn't pick up his speed at all, so, you're just hoping that when they turn for home, that they're running, and hopefully it's going to be Nysos, and I hope that Nevada Beach is right there too, but Nysos and Forever Young–it's King Kong versus Godzilla,” Baffert said.

While Nevada Beach is likely to go on to next month's Dubai World Cup from Riyadh, Nysos will return to California.

“We'll take him back home, and just freshen him up and point for the Breeders' Cup Classic,” he added. “I've brought good horses here, and I think Nysos, hopefully, is the best one I've brought here. It's one of those things where I just felt like I wanted to come back, and if we were to win, I want to be here, I want to enjoy it.

“All I can hope for is when they turn for home, that Nevada Beach and Nysos, they're there in contention. It would be great to see my horses hook up with Forever Young. Last year, it was really fun to watch that race. It was incredible–that's what the Saudi Cup is supposed to be about: two great horses just going at it.

“I think Nysos is a great horse. Forever Young is a great horse, maybe there's another. I've come here and I got beat by [80-1 shot] Emblem Road, so you never know. Crazy things happen in this race. I just hope that the horses show up–that's all you can ask for.

“I like challenges, and this is a race I've never won, so it's on my bucket list, and we're going to keep coming until we win this thing. We're not going to give up.”

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