The Kentucky Derby will be run in eight weeks, which allows plenty of time for considerable changes in the field.
And yet, there’s really not much time at all. Each Derby candidate has only one or two chances remaining to earn one of the 20 stalls in the oversized starting gate at Churchill Downs.
That means every prep race, including Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita, takes on added importance as horses run into or out of contention. Others will disappear from the trail because of illness or injury.
For now, the favorites are horses coming off victories in races in Louisiana, Florida and Arkansas — Paladin, Commandment, Nearly, Renegade and Class President.
But anyone who thinks they know what will happen between now and May 2 probably also believes they can find a hotel room on Derby weekend near Churchill Downs for less than $400.
No one understands that better than the trainer who has won the race a record-tying six times.
You don’t take horses to the Derby, Bob Baffert said this week. “They take you to the Derby.”
Recent events served as another reminder. Barely more than a week ago, Baffert likely would have listed his top Derby candidates as Plutarch, Litmus Test and Brant.
Then, on Feb. 25, Baffert revealed Plutarch had a minor setback after his win last month in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita and would not make the Kentucky Derby.
Three days later, Litmus Test faded to third place in his first start of the year, the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.
In between those disappointments, though, there was surprisingly good news for Baffert. Cherokee Nation, winless in five career starts, ran the fastest mile (1:34.50) in nearly a decade at Santa Anita. It was only a maiden race, but Cherokee Nation won by 10 lengths and earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 100. Only one 3-year-old, Fountain of Youth winner Commandment, has a higher figure this year in a race longer than a mile, and that was by one point.
“What he did … was pretty impressive to me,” Baffert said of the son of Not This Time who sold for $1.15 million as a yearling. “His stock went way up.”
Suddenly, Cherokee Nation could be Baffert’s top prospect, though he’ll have to prove it next month in the Santa Anita Derby, in which he’ll need to finish first or second to have enough points to qualify for the Kentucky Derby.
Brant, right, ridden by Flavien Pratt, finished third behind Ted Noffey and John Velazquez, center, and Mr. A.P. and Antonio Fresu, left, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar in October.
(Gregory Bull / Associated Press)
Or maybe it’s Brant.
The son of Gun Runner who cost $3 million at a sale last March recorded a 101 Beyer figure in a flashy 5½-furlong debut last summer, and followed that win with another in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. But he was third in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and hasn’t raced since.
That changes Saturday with Brant making his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 2 San Felipe, one of four graded stakes on an 11-race card at Santa Anita. He is the even-money favorite on the morning line for the 1-1/16-mile race, which will award 50 Derby points to the winner, guaranteeing a spot in the starting gate.
“He looks good,” Baffert said. “The freshening did him well. He grew a little bit. He’s not a real big horse but he’s starting to grow right now. … It’s a tough race. There’s some nice horses in there. It’s a pretty salty prep race, but they usually are.”
Baffert has another San Felipe starter in Potente, an Into Mischief colt who cost $2.4 million as a yearling. He’s run only once, winning a sprint five weeks ago, and while Baffert would have preferred to run him in a two-turn allowance race, there aren’t any available for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita.
As he saw with Cherokee Nation, though, no one knows who will prove worthy or when.
The 2-1 second choice is So Happy, a winner of two sprint races who was sired by a sprinter (Runhappy) but is getting a chance to see if he can run farther than maybe his breeding would suggest. He is an obvious sentimental favorite; he is trained by Mark Glatt, whose wife of 25 years, Dena, died Feb. 12 from cardiac arrest. She was 57.
Not-so-Big ’Cap
With heavily favored Skippylongstocking and San Pasqual Stakes winner Westwood scratched, the $300,000 Santa Anita Handicap on Saturday is down to five starters, none of whom has won a Grade 1 or Grade 2 race. In fact, new morning-line favorite Just a Touch never has won any stakes race, though he’s been second or third six times in seven tries (he was last in the 2024 Kentucky Derby).
The only graded-stakes winners in the field are Baffert’s Getaway Car, who won a Grade 3 sprint as a 2-year-old, and Midnight Mammoth, who won a Grade 3 marathon race two years ago but lost his last two stakes tries by a combined 56¾ lengths.
The other two starters are Vodka Vodka, whose lone stakes win came in a turf race restricted to California-bred horses, and British Isles, who has never won a stakes race. The latter’s trainer, Richard Baltas, won this race with Idol in 2021. Baffert has won it six times.
The first of the four stakes races is the $300,000 B. Wayne Hughes Beholder Mile, with Splendora the 4-5 favorite for Baffert after winning four straight races, including the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint last fall at Del Mar and the D. Wayne Lukas Stakes last month at Santa Anita.
El Potente is the 5-2 favorite in the wide-open, $200,000 Frank E. Kilroe Mile, which this year was downgraded to a Grade 2.