Trainer Neil Drysdale and owner Tom Baxter waited more than 16 months to see Grade 1 winner Fourty Niners Son rediscover his winning ways with a one-length victory in the San Luis Rey Handicap (G2) on March 24 at Santa Anita Park.

The win left Baxter convinced that Fourty Niners Son finally has recovered from surgery to remove a chip in his left front ankle that was injured during an unplaced finish in the 2005 John Deere Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1).

The victory was worth $120,000 to vault Baxter among the leading breeders by earnings for the week ended March 26.

Fourty Niners Son, winner of the 2005 Clement L. Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita’s Oak Tree meeting, was limited to three starts last season due to his injury. He concluded his 2006 campaign with an unplaced finish in the Eddie Read Handicap (G1) on July 23 at Del Mar.

“We just never could get him back to where he was sound,” Baxter said. “If it wasn’t this, it was that. So we just gave him enough time off”

Fourty Niners Son entered the San Luis Rey off a fourth place finish in an allowance race in his seasonal debut on March 3 at Santa Anita.

Fourty Niners Son is half brother to Cindy’s Hero, the 2000 Del Mar Debutante Stakes (G1) winner who also was bred in Kentucky by Baxter. Both Cindy’s Hero and Fourty Niners Son are out of Cindazanno, by Alleged.

Baxter and his wife, Elizabeth, own T&E Cattle Company in Grand Island, Nebraska, and also maintain a residence in Rancho Santa Fe, California. The couple’s California residence is located about four miles from Del Mar.

“I only go to Del Mar twice—every morning and every afternoon,” Baxter said, “During the races, I go down and watch them train in the morning and watch them run in the the afternoon.”

The Baxters currently have ten horses in training with a group of trainers that, in addition to Drysdale, also includes California-based Jack Van Berg, David Hofmans, and Kathy Walsh and Nebraska-based David C. Anderson.

“I like to do it that way,” Baxter said. “I get more conversation—more input. I learn from that.”