Two days before the Kentucky Derby, the Bob Baffert-trained horse Rodriguez was scratched from the race because of a bruised foot.
With Baffert pulling Rodriguez out of the race, Baeza enters the field. Since Rodriguez had the No. 4 post position, the others outside that spot will each move in one spot, with Baeza sliding into the outside post at No. 20.
Baffert has won a record-tying six Derbys but has been barred from participating in the race for the past three years after his horse Medina Spirit was stripped of the 2021 crown following a positive drug test. He still has another horse in this year’s field: Citizen Bull, who will run from the No. 1 spot in Saturday’s race.
Baffert told The Athletic he’s looking ahead to The Preakness Stakes for Rodriguez in two weeks, saying “he needed a few more days” to be ready to race.
Rodriguez has the same massive ownership group and the same trainer as Citizen Bull, and he’s also got the same front-running style. He does not have Citizen Bull’s impressive record, though, with just one graded stakes win and one win aside from his maiden-breaker.
Can Baeza make some noise at the Derby?
Baeza will break from post position No. 20, and given his frontrunning style, he won’t have an easy task getting to the lead from the far outside. He didn’t debut until last December at Del Mar, and it was an inauspicious debut at that, as he finished ninth out of 11. But that race was on grass, and he was a different animal once he got on dirt, compiling a win and two seconds in three starts, including a runner-up finish by less than a length to Derby favorite Journalism in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby. If jockey Flavien Prat can harness that early speed while the others duel up front, he could easily be in contention at the end, given the impressive speed figure for his last-out effort in the Santa Anita Derby. While I’d like to see more experience before he jumps into the madness that is the Derby field, he may well prove a formidable foe. — Teresa Genaro
Betting shakeup
Rodriguez had become a fast riser on the Kentucky Derby odds board. Baffert’s prized horse opened at 12-1 on the morning line, but his odds shortened to 6-1, making him as high as the third betting favorite, before the news broke. — Vik Chokshi
(Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
