Take your pick. "Bullard" could be Javon Bullard, stellar rookie safety for the Green Bay Packers, or Latrell Bullard, top-notch defensive lineman for the Georgia Southern Eagles, or Edward Bullard, the man who invented the hard hat.
Then again, if you are Michael Talla, the name brings back memories of his rambling youth, when he found himself in a small East Texas town off Route 69, on his way to visiting family in Oklahoma.
"I was a junior or senior in high school," Talla said. "I stopped at a town called Bullard and had a cheeseburger. For some reason the name stuck with me in the back of my mind. When the time came, I thought it sounded like a good, strong name for a horse."
That horse ended up being the yearling son of Gun Runner that cost Talla and West Point Thoroughbreds $675,000 at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. Now unbeaten in two starts for trainer Michael McCarthy, including the seven-furlong Bob Hope Stakes (G3) at Del Mar, Bullard will face the $3.2 million yearling Barnes from the Bob Baffert barn in the San Vicente Stakes (G3) going seven furlongs at Santa Anita Park Jan. 4. Barnes, a son of Into Mischief , won his only start at Churchill Downs in late November.
"You can't get away from Baffert on the Derby trail, and certainly not in Southern California," Talla said. "Bullard is tall and lanky, about 16.3, and he hasn't grown into that body yet. It will probably be six months before he packs on the muscle he'll eventually have."
It was the mid-1960s when Talla enjoyed that burger in Bullard. The Arizona native grew up around Quarter Horses before migrating to California, where he parlayed a swimwear company into a multimillion-dollar business of sports and fitness clubs during the boom years of the 1980s.
Talla and West Point are joined in the ownership of Bullard with his breeder, Three Chimneys Farm, and St. Elias Stable. McCarthy got the horse because ... well, why not?
"I'm not sure how that worked," McCarthy said. "I'm just glad he ended up in barn 59."
The trainer is coming off a banner 2024, during which his 453 starters earned $6.7 million. Along with Bullard, McCarthy's eight graded stakes winners last year included Sweet Azteca, Journalism, Endlessly, and Formidable Man, and they represented eight different ownerships.
Formidable Man wrapped up 2024 with consecutive wins in the listed Oceanside Stakes, the Del Mar Derby (G2T), and the Hollywood Derby (G1T) at the seaside track. He runs next in the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes (G1T) Jan. 25 at Gulfstream Park. Endlessly, adept on turf and synthetics, is a four-time stakes winner who spent several months at the Peacefield Farm of owners John and Jerry Amerman before returning to the McCarthy fold. The homebred son of Oscar Performance was last seen going unplaced in the Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes (G1T) in July.
"He'll start galloping in about a week," McCarthy said. "We'd be looking at the major turf races at a mile, mile and one-eighth for him."
McCarthy met Talla during the 2021 Triple Crown series. The owner was campaigning Santa Anita Derby (G1) winner Rock Your World in partnership with Hronis Racing, while McCarthy won the Preakness Stakes (G1) with Rombauer .
"He's a serious, no-nonsense kind of guy," Talla said of McCarthy. "No frills, and a real horseman. I liked what he did with Rombauer, skipping the Derby and going to the Preakness. Not a lot of trainers would have done that."
Bullard's pedigree also has a McCarthy twist. His dam, Reve d'Amour, never raced, but her dam, Smolensk, was a group 2 winner in France who gave Breeders' Cup winner Ridgewood Pearl all she could handle in the 1995 Coronation Stakes (G1). On top of that, Smolensk's half sister, Better Than Honour, was the dam of two Belmont Stakes (G1) winners. One of them was Rags to Riches—the same Rags to Riches who was officially trained by Michael McCarthy in early 2007 to win a maiden race and the Las Virgenes Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita, while his boss, Todd Pletcher, was serving a suspension.
Between Gun Runner and a family of Belmont winners, Bullard seems equipped to do just about anything except win sprint races. He has a long-striding, low-headed way of going, with an engine that warms to the task the farther he travels.
"You can't downplay the fact that he got two very good pace setups in short fields," said Terry Finley of West Point Thoroughbreds. "You have to stay levelheaded and realistic. At the same time, you don't want to steal the excitement."
Both McCarthy and jockey Umberto Rispoli acknowledged after the Bob Hope that their horse still was on the learning curve.
"His last work was very, very good," McCarthy said. "So good that I thought it was in his best interest to go ahead and run, rather than wait for something like the Bob Lewis or the Southwest. He's certainly taken us to this spot."
Santa Anita's $200,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes (G3) at one mile runs Feb. 1, while Oaklawn Park's $1 million Southwest Stakes (G3) at 1 1/16 miles is Jan. 25. Until then, developing a classic 3-year-old in California is a challenge.
"Unfortunately, there was no way to get to Oaklawn via FedEx this time of year for the Smarty Jones," McCarthy said, referring to the 3-year-old offering Jan. 4 in Arkansas. "That and the loss of the Sham Stakes, which I think is a shame, makes things a little difficult this time of year."
The one-mile Sham, discontinued by Santa Anita last year, was an early January event bearing 17 Kentucky Derby (G1) qualifying points, while the San Vicente is not on the list of official Derby preps designated by Churchill Downs. Once past the San Vicente, McCarthy will be mapping out Kentucky Derby strategies for both Bullard and Journalism, the Curlin colt last seen winning the Los Alamitos Futurity (G2) by 3 1/2 lengths.
"He's becoming a very professional colt, and he had to be very athletic to get up and do what he did at seven-eighths," McCarthy said of Bullard. "There looks to be a fair bit of pace on Saturday, so hopefully we'll be talking more about him after the race."
Talla is on the same page.
"Nothing comes easy at this level, and he'll be in deep water against Barnes," Talla added. "But I like to think Barnes will be in deep water, too."
