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FILE – Jockey Junior Alvarado reacts aboard Sovereignty (2), as he crosses the finish line aboard Sovereignty (2) ahead of Journalism (7), with jockey Umberto Rispoli up, to win the 157th running of the Belmont Stakes horse race, Saturday, June 7, 2025, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, file)
The Associated Press
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ARCADIA, Calif. — Bob Baffert and Todd Pletcher are taking aim at the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile with three horses each, hoping they find at least one contender for next year’s Kentucky Derby in the bunch.
Baffert seeks a record sixth Juvenile win when he saddles undefeated 4-1 shot Prince of Monaco, 4-1 shot Muth and 15-1 Wine Me Up in the 1 1/16-mile race. Pletcher goes for his fourth win in the race, having taken it last year with Forte.
This year, Pletcher has 7-2 early favorite Locked, Fierceness and Noted in the field of 11. Trainer Brad Cox has 4-1 shot Timberlake in the Juvenile, too.
“There’s some nice 2-year-olds in there,” Baffert said. “Pletcher has got some good ones.”
The Juvenile highlights five races Friday that kick off Breeders’ Cup weekend at Santa Anita, where Baffert is based.
“I don’t think it’s a big advantage,” he said. “I think I’ve won more races out of town than I have here.”
The Juvenile winner is typically tabbed as the early favorite for the next year’s Kentucky Derby and the race has frequently decided the Eclipse Award for top 2-year-old male horse.
Locked is the early 15-1 favorite in the initial Kentucky Derby future wagering, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.
“We’ve been excited about him all summer and it’s been great to see his development. Hopefully, he makes another move forward in the Juvenile,” Pletcher said. “Of course, any time you have a promising 2-year-old at this time of year you can’t help but be thinking about the classics moving ahead.”
Baffert was banned from the Kentucky Derby the last two years and Churchill Downs Inc. said it was extending the six-time Derby winner’s exile to 2024.
“It’s impacted my business because we bought a lot of these horses thinking I was going to be back and spent a lot of money,” he said. “They came with it afterwards.”
Over $31 million in purses is up for grabs in the 14 Breeders’ Cup races. Two horses died at Santa Anita in the days leading up to the year-end world championships.
In the other races on Friday:
— Ireland-bred Big Evs is the early 3-1 favorite in the $1 million Juvenile Turf Sprint.
— Tamara, a daughter of three-time Breeders’ Cup winner Beholder, is the early 4-5 favorite in the $2 million Juvenile Fillies.
— She Feels Pretty is the early 4-1 choice in the $1 million Juvenile Fillies Turf.
— Ireland-bred River Tiber is the early 3-1 favorite in the $1 million Juvenile Turf.
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ARCADIA, Calif. — A horse set to run in this weekend’s Breeders’ Cup died Tuesday at Santa Anita, and a short time later, Belmont Stakes winner Arcangelo dropped out of the $6 million Classic because of a foot issue.
Trainer Jena Antonucci said she ran out of time trying to resolve an issue with Arcangelo’s left hind foot. The colt had not trained the last few days after having the shoe on that foot removed last weekend.
“I need to fully figure out where he is and what is going on, and I need time to do that. As we have said since Day 1, it is horse first,” said Antonucci, the first female trainer to win the Belmont. “The left hind foot is resolving. But we’re still not 100% there, and I want to know what it is.”
Arcangelo had drawn the No. 1 post and was listed at 7-2 odds on the morning line for the Classic. His scratch reduces the field to 11. Kentucky Derby winner Mage had been expected to run in the Classic but never arrived at Santa Anita after spiking a fever last weekend.
Practical Move was returning from a morning gallop when he collapsed near the eighth pole. His rider wasn’t hurt. Breeders’ Cup officials said they suspected “a cardiac event.”
Veterinarians from the California Horse Racing Board, 1/ST Racing and the Breeders’ Cup tended to the 3-year-old colt.
Santa Anita is hosting the two-day world championships for a record 11th time, and the first since 2019. That year Mongolian Groom suffered a fatal leg injury in the Classic and had to be euthanized. He was one of 42 horses to die at the track in 2019, prompting a series of safety and medication reforms.
This weekend is the first Breeders’ Cup to be run under the full jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, which oversees unified medication and safety rules for the sport.
Practical Move was the early 3-1 second choice for the $1 million Dirt Mile on Saturday at the 40th world championships.
He had five wins in eight career starts and earnings of $923,200. Practical Move won the San Felipe and Santa Anita Derby on his home track before a fever forced him to miss the Kentucky Derby in May. He then took six months off and returned to win a race on Oct. 6 at Santa Anita.
The bay colt was trained by Tim Yakteen.
Another Breeders’ Cup contender who was injured near the end of a workout last Saturday at Santa Anita is not recovering as well as his owner had hoped.
Geaux Rocket Ride had surgery to repair a displaced condylar fracture on Sunday. It’s a repetitive strain injury that results in a fracture to the cannon bone above the fetlock because of large loads transmitted during high-speed workouts.
“Rocket is having an unexpected response to the surgery and isn’t recovering as we hoped,” according to a social media post by owner Pin Oak Stud. “He appears to be in no pain and is eating. Our boy is still fighting hard so we will keep fighting for him.”
The colt was transferred to the Chino Valley Equine Medical Hospital for further evaluation.
Geaux Rocket Ride had been pre-entered to run in the Classic.
The 3-year-old colt was injured near the end of a seven-furlong workout, which came one day after a workout was postponed because of what Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella said were “tender feet” as the result of having been re-shod last Thursday.
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The Kentucky Derby is a tradition that’s never been canceled.
Postponed once by World War II and again by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, America’s greatest race has rolled on since 1875.
At Churchill Downs on Saturday, 20 horses will compete to wear the garland of red roses in the 149th edition. But the race will again be without the sport’s best known and hugely successful figure for nearly three decades.
Bob Baffert trained American Pharoah to the first Triple Crown sweep in 37 years in 2015. He repeated the feat with Justify in 2018. In all, the white-haired trainer has won 16 Triple Crown races. Yet Baffert is still serving a two-year suspension from Churchill Downs.
“I’ve just moved on,” the 70-year-old Hall of Fame trainer told The Associated Press recently, declining to elaborate.
His reverence for the Derby is obvious: “There’s no more exciting moment when you have a horse that has a chance to win the Derby,” he said, having officially won it a record-tying six times.
Baffert will sit out for a second straight year. Read on to find out why.
WHY IS BAFFERT STILL BANNED FROM THE DERBY?
Churchill Downs Inc. prohibited him from entering horses at any of its tracks for two years after his 2021 Derby winner Medina Spirit failed a post-race drug test. The horse was later disqualified from that victory in a ruling handed down last year.
Medina Spirit tested positive for an anti-inflammatory medication. It’s considered a Class C drug, with a lesser potential to influence performance, but any level of detection on race day is a violation. Medina Spirit died after a workout in 2021.
Baffert already has served a 90-day suspension by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission because of medication violations involving his horses. The suspension caused him to miss all of the 2022 Triple Crown series.
DID BAFFERT CHALLENGE HIS PUNISHMENTS?
Yes, on several fronts.
He made multiple attempts in Kentucky to overturn the track’s ban and his suspension. He also was unsuccessful in suing Churchill Downs Inc. in federal court, with a judge denying his injunction.
Baffert was suspended for a year by the New York Racing Association for repeated medication violations, although none occurred in that state. That penalty expired in January.
Medina Spirit’s Derby disqualification remains on appeal.
WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS OF PUNISHMENTS?
Last year, Baffert had purse earnings of $9.7 million, which ranked him 12th among trainers nationally according to Equibase. That’s despite missing three months while serving his suspension.
“They’ve hurt my reputation,” Baffert testified in federal court in February. “My horses should’ve made much more money. I didn’t run for 90 days, and I had to let people go.”
In 2021, his stable earned $14.6 million. So far this year, it has earned $4 million.
Several owners have remained loyal to Baffert, entrusting their expensive horses to him in the hopes of winning Triple Crown and Breeders’ Cup races. Horses he turned over to other trainers while suspended have come back to his barn.
But Medina Spirit’s failed drug test and Baffert’s punishments generated plenty of unflattering headlines for a sport desperate to appeal to a younger audience and to show it cares for its equine athletes.
WHAT ABOUT NEW ANTIDOPING RULES?
Horse racing’s new antidoping rules won’t take effect until May 22 — two days after the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Under the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act that was created by the federal government nearly three years ago, antidoping and medication rules will be uniform nationwide. Penalties will be doled out to horses and trainers by HISA’s independent enforcement agency with the goal of speedier test results, rulings and appeals.
While it’s hard to say exactly how Baffert would have fared had the new rules been in place in 2021, surely it would not have taken nine months for Kentucky racing officials to decide to disqualify Medina Spirit and suspend the trainer for 90 days.
WILL ANY FORMER BAFFERT HORSES RUN IN THE DERBY?
Yes. Reincarnate, a 50-1 shot, is a Derby starter who was previously trained by Baffert. He’ll be saddled by Tim Yakteen, a former Baffert assistant who also has his own entry, Practical Move, the early co-fourth choice at 10-1.
Last year, Yakteen saddled two Baffert horses: Taiba and Messier.
A new rule required all suspended trainers to transfer horses to non-suspended trainers by Feb. 28 in order for those horses to be eligible to race at Churchill Downs.
Baffert saddled his first horse in the Derby in 1996. This will be only the seventh time he hasn’t had an entry.
WHEN DOES BAFFERT’S TRIPLE CROWN EXILE END?
May 20 in Baltimore. He is pointing National Treasure toward the Preakness that day, making it nearly two years since Baffert entered a Triple Crown race. He’ll also have a filly in the Black-Eyed Susan on the undercard. Baffert owns a record-tying seven victories in the Preakness.
The Belmont Stakes, a race Baffert has won three times, is June 10 in New York.
WILL HE WATCH THE KENTUCKY DERBY?
Yes, like last year, the California-based Baffert plans to watch the race on TV with family and friends.
WHEN CAN HE RETURN TO CHURCHILL DOWNS?
Baffert’s suspension ends July 3, the last day of the track’s spring meet.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Churchill Downs never gave advance notice nor reached out to explain its two-year suspension, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said Friday in federal court, and reiterated that the penalty has caused irreparable harm to his business and reputation.
Baffert has sued the historic track and is seeking a temporary injunction to stop his suspension following a failed drug test by the now-deceased Medina Spirit after the colt came in first in the 2021 Kentucky Derby.
The suspension for a series of failed tests by his horses runs through the end of the upcoming spring meet and could exclude Baffert from the Derby for a second consecutive spring.
Almost a year ago, Kentucky racing officials disqualified Medina Spirit and suspended Baffert for 90 days for those failed tests. Churchill Downs elevated Derby runner-up Mandaloun to winner.
“They’ve hurt my reputation,” Baffert said during nearly two hours of testimony in U.S. District Court. “My horses should’ve made much more money. I didn’t run for 90 days, and I had to let people go.”
Churchill Downs wants the case dismissed, citing nine failed tests by Baffert-trained horses as justification for disciplining horse racing‘s most visible figure. The list of violators includes 2020 Kentucky Oaks third-place finisher Gamine, who was ultimately disqualified.
Medina Spirit failed his test for having in his system the corticosteroid betamethasone, which Baffert and attorney Clark Brewster have argued came from an ointment rather than an injection.
Track president Mike Anderson said the decision by Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen stemmed from Baffert’s “refusal to take responsibility for repeat violations” during a news conference at his backside barn after Medina Spirit’s failed test was revealed.
“We wanted to make a statement that this was a consequence of not doing the right thing,” Anderson said.
Attorneys Matt Benjamin and Christine Demana, who are representing Churchill Downs, also disputed Baffert’s contention that business has suffered by noting his latest crop of promising 3-year-old colts on this year’s Derby trail.
One of them, Arabian Knight, won last week’s Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn by 5½ lengths to give Baffert his record sixth win in the race. The horse is ineligible to earn Kentucky Derby qualifying points as the winner because of Baffert’s suspension.
A slide presented also showed that Baffert horses made 477 starts from May 10, 2021, through December 2022 and won marquee races such as the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (Corniche, the Eclipse winner) along with Grade 1 wins in the Pennsylvania Derby and Malibu Stakes (Taiba).
Friday’s 3 1/2-hour hearing followed four hours of testimony on Thursday. District Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings gave no indication when she would rule. But Brewster said he expects a decision “within several days.”
Baffert testified that he had had a good relationship with Churchill Downs, though he noted that he was paying for his seats at the track and having to “grovel” to get them. He also insisted that he tried to be a good ambassador for horse racing, especially after American Pharoah and Justify won the Triple Crown in 2015 and 2018, respectively.
“I think today was great because I finally got to tell my story in a nonbiased atmosphere,” he said. “I hope for the best, and hopefully we’ll be here.”
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