After starting the year rather slowly, things have picked up nicely for trainer Phil Bauer.

Coming off a year in which he won four graded stakes, he had only one through the first half of this year. But he told Horse Racing Nation at the time that he wasn’t concerned. “We’ll see what we can do the second half of the year.”

Then he went to Saratoga, where he posted a record of 17: 6-4-1. Then he got a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile contender when Jonathan’s Way won the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes in September.

“In this game, you’ve got to be realistic,” Bauer said Tuesday. “Last year was a banner, record year for us. You look back at the races that we were able to participate in, and then also the races we were able to win. You’d like for it to be carbon-copied, but I think you have to have realistic expectations. So I would say we’re doing well again and happy on all fronts, as far as horses, the way they’re performing, and then the meets we’ve had recently. I think spring was a little slower than we anticipated, but we’ve kind of picked up the pace a little bit, and things are going just fine.”

This will be the third Breeders’ Cup for Bauer, a private trainer for Rigney Racing, owned by Louisville, Ky., businessman Richard Rigney and his wife, Tammy. They finished sixth with Buchu last year in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and last in that race the year before with Xigera.

Bauer has 28 horses in training, all at his Churchill Downs base, and he provided updates on 11 of them for the latest in HRN’s Barn Tour series.

Jonathan’s Way. The Ohio-bred son of Vekoma debuted at Saratoga and won a six-furlong maiden special weight by 4 1/4 lengths. Then in the Iroquois on Sept. 14, he led at every call and won by 2 3/4 lengths, earning a 90 Beyer Speed Figure from Daily Racing Form. “Every year with the 2-year-olds you have expectations for certain individuals, and sometimes they’re realized, others are not. But he was one early on that you pinned a lot of hope on and definitely was at a point in his training we felt like taking him to Saratoga was a realistic expectation and goal. And (he was) able to make the races up there with a good performance. … Based on that maiden score, we put a plan together to try and make the Breeders’ Cup, and he jumped through that next hoop with the Iroquois win. And his breezes back have been very good for us. So at this point, we’re right on target.” He’ll ship to Del Mar on Oct. 28, and Joel Rosario, his jockey for his first two starts, will ride again. “You look at the rest of them out there, numbers-wise and all that good stuff, he fits right in there. So we’re excited, and, fingers crossed, hold our breath, and everything goes well the next couple weeks.”

Buchu. The 3-year-old Justify filly opened her year with a win in the Appalachian (G2), but is 0-for-5 since. After racing every month from April to August, she got a bit of a break and returned in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) on Saturday, finishing seventh. “Our main goal at the beginning of the year was the QEII, so very proud of the barn and the filly to make that goal. Her last few races, she’s just been compromised with her running style. Turf racing, they all kind of run home usually about the same pace, and she’s just had too much work left to do. … We’ll take a step back and regroup, definitely look for some class relief in her next start or so and see where we’re at at the end of the year. But she’s a very consistent filly. I just need to do a better job of getting her in winning spots. … Right now we’re pointing towards probably the Mrs. Revere at Churchill (G2), but that’s a definite question mark with the turf here. I just don’t know if it’ll make it the full month of November. So we’ll just have to wait and see. Maybe have a couple other options in our back pocket if that doesn’t work, but still early, letting the dust settle. ”

Xigera. The 4-year-old Nyquist filly closed 2023 with two graded-stakes wins but is 0-for-4 this year and hasn’t worked since finishing fifth in the Personal Ensign (G1). “It was a hard-luck year for her, nothing went our way. So we just pulled the plug on it and said, you know what, let’s just regroup and try her again at 5. I thought all year her training indicated that she hadn’t lost a step, but her racing, nothing went right. Bad performances are hard to watch, so we sent her for some diagnostics, and nothing major was there, no surgeries required. So we just kicked her out on a local farm here that we’ve done in the past, and it seemed to work with a lot of others. So that’s the game plan with her. We’ll try her at 5. And if not, then she’s done enough that she’ll make a nice mare for Mr. Rigney if her racing career doesn’t return to her top form.”

Claire’s Charm. This 2-year-old Violence filly was second by a neck in her debut at Saratoga and then won her next start at Churchill. Bauer thought she might go to the Breeders’ Cup as well, “but we didn’t get any entry luck in the Pocahontas the same day as the Iroquois and got left out on the AEs that day. So went to Plan B of focusing on local stakes, if we could get her maiden broke, which she did. … She’s one that you’ve just seen advance so much mentally from her two starts. She’s been a lot of fun to watch train, and we think very highly of her. Maybe a blessing in disguise that our ambition was halted with not getting in the Pocahontas. And we ran her back in the maiden, where she was able to get that broke. We’re targeting the Rags to Riches on the 27th, which is a prep for the Golden Rod (G2) at the end of November here at Churchill. So she hopefully will get two starts here to end her 2-year-old season. She’s one that I think has just continued to get better and better, another one we had up at Saratoga this summer that you always held high expectations for, and it’s nice when they can kind of live up to them.”

Halina’s Forte. The 4-year-old Mitole filly is 2-for-7 this year and was sixth last out in the Dogwood (G3). “Halina’s Forte got us our first stake win at Saratoga this summer (in the Galway), and just a real honest, hard-knocking filly. We thought she was a little bit of a tired horse after the Saratoga meet, so we gave her a little bit of a breather here in September. She’ll probably have her breeze in the next week or so and point toward something here at the Churchill fall meet, not sure exactly what yet. But I think she’s appreciated a little bit of a breather, and we’ll just her back up and see where she takes us.”

Princess Madison. The 3-year-old Speightstown filly broke her maiden on third try in April then won a Saratoga allowance. She followed that with a third-place finish in the Charles Town Oaks (G2) and was sixth last out in an optional-claiming allowance at Churchill. “Same deal with her. Her race here, we thought it was definitely a winning spot. Went into the race with a lot of confidence, and she couldn’t have run worse. Looked for an excuse out of it, and just came up with a horse that had done some shipping around and running some hard races. So took the same approach as Halina, and we just backed off. And there’s a non-two allowance condition at Churchill that we’ll target, and hopefully we’ll have her battery fully charged for that one and she’ll return to the form she showed all summer that indicates that she’s pretty good herself.”

Two Sharp. The 3-year-old Twirling Candy filly, unraced at 2, has alternated second-place finishes with wins in her four starts this year. She was second by a neck in the Prioress (G3) and then won a Keeneland allowance Saturday by 6 1/4 lengths. “Mission accomplished Saturday. Our goal was to just give her a race that she would probably be superior in and hopefully get some more education. I thought that’s what got her beat at Saratoga in the Prioress, just being in a situation that she had never been in, down on the inside against a really nice filly in Brightwork. And you could tell, she didn’t switch leads, she was kind of shying away from that horse putting pressure on her. And so we just felt like, hey, she’s very lightly raced but extremely talented, and we need to get her to a point mentally where she’s as good as she is physically and talent-wise. So always nice to see when they put performances like that together, and hopefully she was a little more educated and we can step forward again and see if she can’t join the stake competition again in November here at Churchill. I’m not sure where we’ll go yet, but it’ll be probably something here locally, which means she’ll probably have to take on some olders. But numbers-wise, she’s running some really good numbers and should fit wherever she goes.”

Speedy Traveler. The 3-year-old filly by Last Samurai is 3-for-5 this year, winning an optional-claiming allowance last month before being scratched from a planned start in an optional-claimer Sunday with only four other horses in the field. “We were excited about her race on Sunday at Keeneland, and Saturday afternoon, she spiked a temp on us, so we had to scratch, which is always frustrating when you look like you could be a part of a short field. But we couldn’t run her, had to treat her, and we’ll just regroup. She’ll run in something here at Churchill, but need to get her back to the track first and see how she comes out of her illness.”

Legadema. The 3-year-old Arrogate filly has a 5: 2-0-3 record this year and finished third last out in the Dogwood (G3), her first start since June. “I was very pleased the way she came off the little break and got graded-stakes-placed in the Dogwood in September. She’s a very hard-knocking filly, tries really hard, but I don’t know if she’s as talented as some of the other ones in the barn. So very proud of her resume that she’s built this summer, and we’ll look to try and find her a winning spot, which is difficult when you win as many races as she has. So I think there’s an open allowance the first weekend of Churchill that we’ll probably target.”

Angkor. The 6-year-old gelding by Anchor Down opened his year with an optional-claiming allowance win at Churchill but is 0-for-4 since. He was third in the Forego (G1) at Saratoga and then second to Bango last out in at Churchill. “He’s a cool old horse, been a lot of fun this year, running in some big races and really good efforts on his part. He’s out of conditions, so we’ll try and find him the best spots that he can be competitive in and go from there. I think there’s a race opening weekend in November.”

Warrior Johny. The 5-year-old gelding by Cairo Prince won an optional-claiming allowance at Saratoga before returning to graded-stakes company and finishing off the board in three tries. “Warrior Johny, very similar to Angkor, he’s just a nice, honest, older horse. I just need to do a good job of putting him in spots where he’s able to win it. I don’t know if he’s a horse that can win those graded stakes, but certainly he’s a horse that can sometimes get a piece of them. One that we’ll just try and keep happy and have fun with, and maybe on his best day he can win some races for us. But he’ll be a horse that, as long as he’s sound and happy, we’ll try and spot him right and have some fun with him.”