Clock ticking, races dwindling for Kentucky Derby hopefuls

The Kentucky Derby is eight weeks away, which leaves plenty of time for considerable changes to the field.

And yet, we really don’t have much time. Each Derby contender now has just one or two chances to win one of the 20 stands located in the oversized starting gate at Churchill Downs.

That means each prep race, including Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita, takes on added importance as horses enter or exit competition. Others will disappear from the trail due to illness or injury.

For now, the Derby favorites are horses that have 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 Derby weekend hotel room near Churchill Downs for less than $400.

No one understands this better than the trainer who has won the race a record-tying six times.

We don’t take horses to the Derby, Bob Baffert said this week. “They’re taking you to the Derby.”

Recent events served as a further reminder. Just over a week ago, Baffert probably would have listed his top Derby candidates as Plutarch, Litmus Test and Brant.

Then, on February 25, Baffert revealed that Plutarch had suffered a slight setback after his victory last month in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita and would not compete in the Derby.

Three days later, Litmus Test collapsed to third place in his first start of the year, the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.

Between these disappointments, however, there was some 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 had a Beyer speed figure of 100. Only one 3-year-old, the winner of Fountain of Youth Commandment, has a higher figure this year in a race over 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 has increased significantly.”

Suddenly, Cherokee Nation might be Baffert’s best hope, although 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. AP 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, posted a 101 Beyer figure in his flashy 1,400-yard debut last summer, and followed that victory with another in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. But he finished 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 at 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 refreshment did him good. He grew up a little bit. He’s not a very big horse but he’s starting to grow up at the moment. … It’s a tough race. There’s some good horses in there. It’s a pretty salty prep race, but they usually are.”

Baffert has another San Felipe starter in Potente, a colt by Into Mischief who cost $2.4 million as a yearling. He’s only raced once, winning a sprint five weeks ago, and while Baffert would have preferred to run him in a two-lap race, there isn’t one available for 3-year-olds at Santa Anita.

As he saw with Cherokee Nation, 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 has the chance to see if he can run further than his breeding suggests. It’s an obvious sentimental favorite; he is coached by Mark Glatt, whose wife of 25 years, Dena, died Feb. 12 of cardiac arrest. She was 57 years old.

Not so big capitalization

With Westwood, the heavily favored Skippylongstocking and San Pasqual Stakes winner, eliminated, Saturday’s $300,000 Santa Anita Handicap is reduced to five starters, none of whom have won a Grade 1 or 2 race. In fact, new morning line favorite Just a Touch has never won a stakes race, although he has finished second or third six times in seven tries (he was last in the Kentucky Derby 2024).

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 two years ago but lost his last two stakes races by a combined 56¾ lengths.

The other two starters are Vodka Vodka, whose only stakes victory came in a turf race reserved for 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 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 Grade 2.