One thing about Todd Fincher and his scouting report
Mr. Buscador at the opening on Saturday Californian crown. Either he is refreshingly honest, or he behaves like a football coach who gets his opponents up to speed.

“This is definitely not the setup we're looking for because (Bob) Baffert will completely control the pace of the race and it won't be hot,” Fincher said. “If so, a jockey will be fired.”

One coach talks about the other. Fincher left Albuquerque, New Mexico, Thursday morning and made the four-hour drive back to his base in El Paso, Texas, to check on some young horses before flying west to catch up with Señor Buscador.

Fincher didn't paint a rosy picture of competing against Muth and National Treasure, two of the three Baffert entrants and the ones most likely to take the lead at the start of Saturday's $1 million Class 1 race. Maybe even at the end.

“They will be given instructions not to come into contact with each other,” Fincher continued horse racing nation'S Ron Flutter Racing Pod. “It won’t be a fast pace. That definitely won’t be a good situation for us.”

Not for a deep closer like Señor Buscador, who finished 12th in the $20 million Saudi Cup (G1) six months ago before jockey Júnior Alvarado pushed the button. Largely ignored by television coverage and by bettors who slashed his odds to 13-1, Mineshaft's 6-year-old son was about to show why he loved waiting for the early pace to fade.

With a sixteenth of a mile to go, Señor Buscador was still fifth and his mid-track attack was relentless. The difference at the finish line was that the Kentucky-born New Mexico invader defeated Ushba Tesoro by a 6-1 headstand, who was more cheered and more supported by Japan.

The difference in wallet was breathtaking. Call it life-changing. Señor Buscador's connections raised $10 million. Ushba Tesoro settled for $3.5 million.

The connections were complicated. The net faltered after Señor Buscador finished second, narrowly behind National Treasure, in the Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park in January. The Peacock family, led by Joey Peacock Jr., sold an unspecified share of the horse to Middle Eastern businessman Sharif Mohammed S. Al Hariri. Actually leased. That was the word that was spread in the international media.

This partnership allowed Al Hariri to apply his stable colors to Señor Buscador, but it lasted only through the 1 1/8-mile Saudi Cup and a $1.2 million third-place finish at the March renewal of the 1 1/4 mile Dubai Cup at World Championships (G1). It should be nothing more and nothing less.

Despite all the international paperwork traveling 8,000 miles through the digital tail between Peacock in San Antonio and Al Hariri in Saudi Arabia, Fincher remained a constant presence. He was rewarded with benefits in kind.

His biggest earner to date, Flying Connection, needed 17 starts and three money finishes in Grade 1 stakes to earn $993,300 in purse earnings. In less than two minutes, Señor Buscador earned more than ten times as much in distant Riyadh. Fincher himself received a million dollars on his regular percentage alone, although that too was complicated. It started with the owners' share. And their generosity.

“They got $7 million,” Fincher said. “Ten percent went to the jockey. Ten percent went to the trainer, and they gave me another 10 percent to distribute to my stable, my stable. That was a big burden on my shoulders. You would think it would be so nice to distribute all the money to the workers, but it caused a lot of problems.”

Just like a championship baseball team trying to figure out how to split the World Series money. Instead of traveling secretaries, clubhouse attendants and batboys, Fincher had assistants, grooms and hot walkers.

“It was really nice that the hard-working people who have probably worked in a barn for between 10 and 40 years got a big bonus,” he said.

Señor Buscador more than made up for the Hancock family's financial investment in a horse that was slated to be the first to compete in the 2021 Kentucky Derby before an injury forced him out of the race in the spring. Since then it has been reliably long-lasting.

After returning to New Mexico from the Middle East trip, he was released before returning last month and finishing fourth in the Pat O'Brien Stakes (G2) at Del Mar with his new jockey Joe Talamo. The race lasted seven furlongs, not the route of the ground Señor Buscador craves.

The 1 1/8 miles of the California Crown will be more similar to that, but Fincher said the big goal is and will be the 1 1/4 miles that beckon in Del Mar. Not only is there a $7 million carrot dangling in five weeks, but Fincher is hoping for a completely different speed setup.

“We're really looking forward to the Breeders' Cup Classic, where there should be a high pace,” he said.

The vision of improving on his seventh-place finish at last year's Classic will be floating around in Fincher's head. For now, however, he is focused on this weekend at Santa Anita, where he continued to play down Señor Buscador's chances of getting past struggling horses in the sun-drenched homestretch.

“A small field like that, with one guy taking up half the field, is not going to be fast,” Fincher said. “They won’t be fast for us. I think it will take a great, miraculous effort from him to win. I know he’s just as good as those horses, but I just don’t like the setup this time.”

With the Breeders' Cup being the pot at the end of this winding rainbow, the nine furlongs awaiting Talamo-rider Señor Buscador will still be useful.

“I like that we can get the mile and an eighth in him and be absolutely ready for the Breeders' Cup,” Fincher said.

Whether the 54-year-old Fincher appears to be a straight-talker or a sand-bagger is up to bettors. This very dilemma only adds to a colorful story that stretches back to the COVID year of 2020. At that time, Señor Buscador, a debut winner, made his second start and won the Springboard Remington Mile.

On that dreary Friday evening the week before Christmas in Oklahoma, Fincher knew he had something special.

“Young horses helped him run a mile at a hot pace for the first time,” he said this week. “To his credit, it was only his second race, having completed a 5 1/2-eighth mile race. He is impressive. He was impressive every time. He competes against the best horses early on. Once he was healthy, I always thought he could compete with the best. This is rarefied air, but I always thought he was that good.”

With a record of 20-7-2-3 and a gigantic total winnings of $12,711,427, the end of Señor Buscador's racing days is approaching. He wouldn't race at age 7, would he?

“I don't think so,” Fincher said, “unless it's the Pegasus.” The Pegasus is still a possibility. I don't know. Possibly the Saudis. I don't know. After the Breeders' Cup we didn't really discuss anything else. The Pegasus sails in January. There are about three weeks until the breeding season. That’s entirely up to the owner at this point.”