The final West Coast prep for the Kentucky Derby is the Grade I Santa Anita Derby, which features just five runners. As is the rule for championship series points races, any field of five will yield just 75% of the total points to the finishers, meaning the winner here would only gain 75 Derby points instead of one-hundred. If the field shrinks to four or fewer with a late scratch, that total will lessen to 50%. 

On the surface, this race is headlined by Michael McCarthy’s Journalism and Bob Baffert’s Citizen Bull. Both horses have enough points already to get into the Kentucky Derby, but this is a good measuring stick race for these strong three-year-olds, who look to get one more tune up before the Run for the Roses. For the other three entries, a top two finish is a must to even have an opportunity to reach Churchill. 

Now entering here with the target on his back, Journalism will face a much tougher test against a more seasoned Barnes, as well as the two-year-old champion Citizen Bull, who comes off a win in the Robert B. Lewis two months ago.

Citizen Bull started his racing career last summer with a maiden win over Del Mar’s dirt course, following that up with a third in the Grade I Del Mar Futurity. In October he won in a gate-to-wire effort in the American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita, only to top that effort with another gate-to-wire victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. By Into Mischief – No Joke, by Distorted Humor, this colt’s top bloodlines make it clear why he was able to have early success. With a long layoff following his Breeders’ Cup, Citizen Bull once again starts with plenty of rest here, but if his Robert Lewis is any indication, the extra time off may be to his benefit. “The champ is back,” Baffert said after the Lewis. “The ‘Bull’ looked good coming down (the stretch). It’s funny, you see him and you don’t realize that he has those gears. He won’t show you that in the morning, but he does have gears.”

There is no doubt following his Robert B. Lewis where Citizen Bull will be positioned in this small field by Martin Garcia. With plenty of natural speed, he should be right on the lead. With his pedigree and connections, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Citizen Bull at a shorter price than Journalism come post time, as he is clearly his toughest opponent to date.

While Citizen Bull will garner most of the attention for Bob Baffert, he returns the whopping $3.2 million Barnes from his runner-up performance in the San Felipe. By Into Mischief out of the American Pharoah mare All American Dream, the strong bloodlines explain the price, but this colt has some things to prove. In just his third start last time, Barnes was unable to hold off the oncoming Journalism as he stretched out in distance.In many ways, however, he showed improvement from his first two wins by going two turns. After setting honest fractions early, Barnes was simply run down by a more seasoned colt in the stretch. 

With his stablemate likely to set the pace, Juan Hernandez should be flanking Citizen Bull for the first half mile, conserving some energy to hopefully get the extra sixteenth in this nine-furlong try. This is one that could improve rapidly from race to race, and will need to take another step forward to best Journalism this time around as well as Citizen Bull. 

Rounding out this field are a pair of John Shirreffs trainees in Westwood and Baeza. Both exit from maiden tries with three lifetime starts. Westwood has yet to win and starts at a long 20/1, the outside breaking Baeza has improved in each start with an impressive win last time. Going a mile over this track, Baeza stalked the lead and took over convincingly at the top of the stretch, drawing away to win by four and three-quarters. At a fair 6/1 to start, this could be one that has some upside to challenge the top three, but would still need to improve in a major step up in class. 

This Santa Anita Derby could shape up to be a duel between the top choices Journalism and Citizen Bull, both of whom should reach the gate at Churchill in a month if all goes well. Bob Baffert’s “other” entry Barnes does get a second crack at two turns, and a chance to justify his lofty yearling price tag here. However this breaks, this talented group is certainly one to keep an eye on in May.

The Santa Anita Derby is the tenth race on Santa Anita’s Saturday card with a post time of 7:30 PM EDT.