The stable is flying now, but trainer Bjorn Baker could tell you a thing or two about the ups and downs of racing.
Saturday, on Day One of The Championships at Randwick, the Baker, Rachel King combination landed a win to treasure when the Street Boss colt Green Spaces ($4.40) saluted by a very convincing 3.19 length margin in the $2 million, Group 1 ATC Australian Derby. It was a very special win, given that Bjorn Baker’s father, Murray Baker, had sent out five winners of the ATC Australian Derby between 2008 and 2020. Now Bjorn’s name is up there on the AJC Derby honour roll … a very proud moment. And it was a special win for King as well as she added an historical component part to the result as she became the first female rider to win the ATC Australian Derby. Baker and King had put their names on the scoreboard earlier in the day, in the first race on the card, when the first-timer Blue Door ($4.40), who had won her only trial by 7.63 lengths, upstaged the $2.60 favourite The Next Episode in the Group 3 Kindergarten Stakes to already have Baker in a jubilant mood. King also saluted aboard the Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young trained Newlook in the Group 2 Chairmans Quality, giving the rider a tidy haul of a Group 1 and Group 2 and a Group 3 win on the day. Baker also ended up with three winners on Saturday, but that was split over two meetings with Coulter ($3.20) making it back-to-back wins at Wyong. Racing never stops though and, while you can imagine that Saturday would have ended in a big celebration, Baker and King were back at it on Easter Monday at Rosehill, claiming another two winners together … and neither of them were ‘gimmes’. Compensation ($3.10), much in the manner of Blue Door’s win on Saturday, had to upstage the main fancy Loera ($2.45) in the opening race to claim his first career win in his second start. Four races later, the $14 outsider Point And Shoot got home with a last to first flourish.
King hugged the inside rail all of the way down the home straight to snare Our Kobison ($17) in the dying moments of the race to give the Baker stable a second double over the Easter weekend in the tightest of finishes. If the post had arrived two strides earlier, the result would have gone the other way. While it was an inch perfect ride by King, you could also say when your luck is in, it is in.
All of this has been a welcome change of fortune for the Baker stable.
It was a little more than three months ago when they had two prime contenders for the $3 million Magic Millions Classic in the form of Warwoven and Paradoxium.
The expectations were high and the excitement was building, but neither runner ended up facing the starter … Paradoxium ruled out after suffering from travel sickness and then contracting pneumonia … while stewards ordered the scratching of the long-time race favourite Warwoven at the eleventh hour due to what they perceived as lameness.
That is why Baker can tell you a thing or two abouts the ups and downs of racing.
In happier terms, Baker also ‘lost’ two hard to replace stable stars, Arapaho and Stefi Magnetica, to a well-earned retirement, so 2026, until Saturday, had really been a time of flux the stable.
The wheel of fortune, as it does, has turned though … in big way … in a big weekend of results which has seen Baker and King at the top of their game and a return to the good times.
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