Bob Baffert's holding all the cards at Breeders' Cup

Should Bob Baffert ever decide to give up the ponies, perhaps poker could be his next career.

The world's most famous racehorse trainer is holding arguably his hottest hand of horsepower coming into this weekend's Breeders' Cup World Championships at Del Mar Racetrack near San Diego. He'll saddle 11 horses in total over the two days, four of those in the end-of-year racing festival's marquee race: the $6-million Breeders' Cup Classic.

Of those 11 horses, two - Drefong in the Breeders' Cup Sprint and Mor Spirit in the Dirt Mile - are morning-line favorites. Yet, despite having won the last three editions of the Classic, Baffert finds himself with just the second, co-third, and fourth betting choices for the race.

Gun Runner is the 9-5 morning-line favorite.

In Baffert's Classic quartet is Arrogate, last year's Classic champion and North America's richest-ever racehorse. As a late-blooming 3-year-old, Arrogate was unstoppable. The big grey colt came onto the scene when he won the Travers Stakes in record time at Saratoga, and then rolled to wins in the Classic, the $12-million Pegasus World Cup Invitational, and the Dubai World Cup.

But since his dominant performance in Dubai, Arrogate has been somewhat flat, a common theme among horses who travel overseas for that race. He finished a poor fourth and a slightly more promising second, respectively, in his next two starts.

Arrogate may not be the same super horse he was at this time last year, and perhaps the traveling has stripped him of his spunk. And to thicken the plot, his last two losses came over Del Mar's dirt course, leading punters to believe the colt just may not like that track more than anything.

(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

"He looks healthy," Baffert said of Arrogate in an interview with horse racing television channel TVG earlier this week. "But, you know, has he lost his fastball?" the interviewer asked. "We won't know until we run him," he responded.

"But right now I don't see anything there that would really (make me) think that I am worried about him. If I felt a little bit funny that he wasn't going to perform like he's capable of, I wouldn't run the horse."

Win or lose, Arrogate will retire after Saturday's race.

"So far, I like what I see," Baffert said. "But I like what I see with my other ones, so they are all going to be pretty tough."

Those "other ones" include West Coast, Collected, and Irish-bred Mubtaahij.

In the same interview, Baffert said he doesn't yet know how good West Coast could be. The 3-year-old colt won this year's Travers and the Pennsylvania Derby a month later.

Unlike Arrogate, Collected has done his best running at Del Mar, beating Arrogate in the Pacific Classic in August, and is undefeated this year. There's also Mubtaahij, who Baffert describes as a "tough, grinder type."

Arrogate is the second choice in the race at 2-1, while both West Coast and Collected are 6-1. Mubtaahij is 12-1.

"I like my hand going in," says Baffert, "but we still got that one obstacle out there, that Gun Runner, who's looked sensational since he's been here."

Still, a four of a kind is a good hand to have.