bob baffert

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.

It’s always special for Bob Baffert to win the Robert B. Lewis Stakes, since the race is named after the late owner of Silver Charm, one of the trainer’s six Kentucky Derby champions.

Winning the Lewis also is as familiar to Baffert as looking in the mirror and seeing white hair. Saturday’s victory by Plutarch was the eighth straight for Baffert in the $100,000 race for 3-year-olds, and his 14th in the race known until 2007 as the Santa Catalina Stakes.

What made Baffert a little emotional Saturday was his other victory, with Splendora in a $200,000 Grade 2 race that used to be known as the Santa Monica Stakes. The name was changed this year in honor of a friend and fellow Hall of Fame trainer who died last summer.

“When I saw that this race was renamed for D. Wayne Lukas, I wanted to win this one,” Baffert told reporters at Santa Anita. “I miss him. I miss talking to him. He would have loved this.”

It would be easy for anyone to love training or just watching Splendora, a 5-year-old daughter of Audible who won her fourth straight start and her first since last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint. The 2-5 favorite cruised to a 2¾-length victory over Me and Molly McGee in 1:22.09 for seven furlongs.

“She is such a good filly. She just gives me chills,” Baffert said. “She missed the break and got behind, but Juan [Hernandez] rode her with a lot of confidence.”

It was the eighth win in the race for Baffert, who now leads Lukas by two. Lukas’ last victory in the race came in 1996 with the Hall of Famer Serena’s Song, owned by Lewis and his wife, Beverly. It was the next year that Baffert and the Lewises combined to win their first Derby with Silver Charm.

Whether Baffert has another Derby winner in Plutarch won’t be known for 12 weeks, but the colt certainly has the bloodlines. Into Mischief has been the leading sire in North America (by earnings) for the last seven years, including Derby winners Authentic (for Baffert), Mandaloun and Sovereignty, while Plutarch’s dam, Stellar Wind, was the 3-year-old champion filly in 2015.

Plutarch, with Florent Geroux aboard, outruns Intrepid, with Hector I. Berrios aboard, to win the Grade 3 $100,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita Park on Saturday.

(Benoit Photo via Associated Press)

“This horse reminds me of Authentic,” Baffert said. “He keeps getting better every week. I don’t think distance will be a problem with him. This is very exciting. He’s legit.”

Plutarch lost his first four starts, including three in stakes races, before winning a maiden race on the final day of Del Mar’s fall meeting. That race and two others were on grass; Baffert said he did that because he wanted to get the colt in some races.

The surprise Saturday was how close Plutarch was to the lead, tracking the equally surprising pacesetter Intrepido through solid fractions of 47.65 for a half-mile and 1:11.35 for six furlongs. Baffert expected his 6-5 favorite, Desert Gate, to be on the lead, but the horse broke slowly and had to settle about a length and a half off the lead in the bunched field of seven.

Plutarch pushed ahead of Intrepido entering the stretch and the two dueled for most of the last quarter-mile, with Plutarch winning by three-quarters of a length in 1:37.02. He paid $10.20 as the co-third choice with the runner-up. Secured Freedom (3-1) edged Desert Gate for third.

“The longer the better,” said winning rider Florent Geroux, who just this week relocated to California from the Louisiana and Kentucky circuit. “He is a colt who has finally put it together this year. I watched some of his replays from last year and from what Bob told me, it looked like the horse was still a little bit green, trying to figure out what was going on during the race. But today, I felt he broke very alertly for me and put me in a great spot. When I asked him to move along the lane he responded really well.”

Intrepido defeated Desert Gate and Plutarch last October at Santa Anita in the Grade 1 American Pharoah, but finished a disappointing fifth later that month in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Trainer Jeff Mullins said he was pleased with the bounce-back.

“I really didn’t expect him to be on the lead … but he breaks [fast] like that, you’ve got to go with it,” Mullins said. “To be off that long, I’m happy with his race.”

Plutarch earned 20 Kentucky Derby points, giving him 23, tied with Intrepido for third in the standings. Silent Tactic, who won Friday’s Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn in Arkansas, and Renegade, winner of the Sam F. Davis Stakes on Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs, lead with 25. It usually takes about 40 points to get into the Derby.

One of Baffert’s recent Lewis winners captured the Derby, though Medina Spirit (2021) later was disqualified. Newgate (2023) went on to win the Santa Anita Handicap as a 4-year-old, while Nysos (2024) and Citizen Bull (2025) ran one-two in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

The next race for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita is the San Felipe Stakes on March 7, followed by the Santa Anita Derby on April 4.

Notable

Three of the top four finishers from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies make up three-quarters of the short field in Sunday’s featured Las Virgenes Stakes. Super Corredora, trained by John Sadler, won the Oct. 31 race at Del Mar and was named champion 2-year-old filly, with Baffert’s Explora second and Michael McCarthy’s Meaning fourth. Explora is the only one of the trio to race since; she won the Santa Ynez Stakes on Jan. 10. First post on Super Bowl Sunday is earlier than normal at 11 a.m.