A MINT JULEP SALUTE; BAFFERT POISED TO JOIN SELECT COMPANY AT DERBY.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Dust off those cameras and microphones, Kentucky. Bob Baffert is on his way back, and he's ready for his close-up.

The greatest show in racing goes on. Only the straight men change.

Saturday, with Indian Charlie winning and Real Quiet finishing second in the Santa Anita Derby, Baffert became the first trainer to finish 1-2 in this race since Jimmy Smith did it with Knockdown and Star Pilot in 1946.

Now, Baffert, who won the Kentucky Derby with Silver Charm last year, will try to become only the fifth trainer to repeat in that race, joining H.J. Thompson, Ben Jones, Lucien Laurin and D. Wayne Lukas.

It's been a remarkable little run for Baffert, who missed winning the 1996 Kentucky Derby by the nose that separated his Cavonnier and Lukas' Grindstone.

``I know it's going to end some year, but I'll just enjoy it while it lasts,'' Baffert said.

And how.

Like nobody else in his struggling sport, Baffert, the 45-year-old son of an Arizona rancher, seems to be having fun. He's the toast of whatever racetrack he visits, whether it's in the United States or the United Arab Emirates, where he saddled Silver Charm to win the $4 million Dubai World Cup just last weekend. And he's drinking it up.

Even if his jokes say otherwise.

``I'm just getting over Dubai, and now I have to go to Kentucky?'' he said Saturday with mock alarm.

Trainers make unlikely stars.

Owners can be great characters, like Indian Charlie owner Hal Earnhardt, a second-generation Phoenix car dealer who rides a steer in his TV commercials. His slogan - ``No Bull'' - adorns the blue and gold silks that jockey Gary Stevens wore Saturday.

Earnhardt's father also rode a steer on TV. ``What about your brother?'' somebody asked Hal.

``My brother fell off,'' he said.

Jockeys are great athletes, unfairly shortchanged because of their size, and some of the best interviews in sports.

But trainers can be the dullest people in the horse game.

Most of them get to their barns well before dawn - how much fun can they be under those circumstances? - and many treat the most innocuous questions like Freedom of Information requests.

When I was a kid, first following racing, I never understood why more newspaper stories were written about frumpy old trainers than about heroic jockeys. Then I learned: It's because trainers handle the horses and are their spokesmen. Writers talk to trainers because, even if it's like pulling big horse teeth, that's where the information comes from.

Still, at any one time, there's room for one celebrity trainer.

Lukas dominated the stage for more than a decade, interrupted briefly when New York-based Nick Zito won two Derbies in the early '90s.

But now it's all Baffert. His good-natured efforts to promote the sport were as responsible as anything for drawing 70,000 fans to the Belmont Stakes last June to see Silver Charm come up short in his bid for the first Triple Crown sweep in 19 years.

The gray horse and the silver-haired trainer made quite a team.

And now, even as Silver Charm rests up for his next role, probably in the June 28 Hollywood Gold Cup, Baffert is working up a new act.

Indian Charlie might be frighteningly good. And Real Quiet looks like the kind of plodder who - despite knocks on his breeding - might be dangerous in the 1-1/4-mile Derby.

``Having been there with Cavonnier and Silver Charm, I know these horses are good enough (to win),'' Baffert said.

Gary Stevens, who rode Indian Charlie, is a believer.

``If somebody told me in January that he would have just two races (as a 3-year-old) and win this race, I wouldn't have believed it,'' Stevens said of the colt who missed most of his 2-year-old season following ankle-chip surgery. ``But Bob's had confidence since December. He knew what the goal was, he knew what he wanted to do, and he did it.''

Indian Charlie, Stevens said, ``is really seasoned. He's like a horse who's run 20 times.''

That's to Baffert's credit.

``I would have been disappointed if he didn't run like that,'' the trainer said. ``I knew I was going to run 1-2. You know, you hate to brag on those things. . . .''

Baffert doesn't have to brag. The numbers back him up. His horses' $4.3 million in earnings - before the Santa Anita Derby - ranked first in the nation this year. With 43 winners at the Santa Anita meet, he needs five in the remaining 11 racing days to break Gary Jones' 1975-76 season record.

Lukas-trained Skeaping finished 30 lengths behind Baffert-trained Indian Charlie in Saturday's race. That's about how far the spotlight has turned.