Trainer Bob Baffert will leave some horses at Churchill Downs this spring rather than bringing all of his stable back to California, said the trainer when reached by phone Thursday afternoon.The story was first reported by Ron Flatter at Horse Racing Nation.Baffert stressed that he is not abandoning the West Coast.“I've always had a barn there before and I'm just splitting it up,” he said. “It's not like I'm deserting California. I have a lot of horses that have same conditions. I have more opportunities to run there than we do in California because the horse colony is a little low right now. So I need to run those horses.”Churchill's flagship spring-summer meet, featuring the Kentucky Derby, runs from Saturday, April 25 through Sunday, June 28.“I'm going to stay through,” Baffert said. “We used to stay through the meet years ago, but now I'm going to do it now because we need places to run. So I need horses here. I have so many horses in the same category. I can't run them. We just train, train. And so we'll split them up and then we'll mix it up, and so now I can run them. I can have them there and we can find more opportunities.”Baffert said that he is in the midst of getting the Churchill barn ready and putting together a team to run the Churchill stable. He declined to say exactly which horses would be going to Churchill, but noted, “I'm bringing all those good horses for Derby weekend, so there will be some nice horses there because if you go to Kentucky, you better bring the A team. You're not going to win there with the B team. It's tough.”Baffert also said that the timing of the meets played a factor.“California this time of year, there's a lull in our racing. And so there's just nothing really until Del Mar.”The post Baffert to Leave Horses at Churchill For The Summer After Derby Meet appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.