Three Heating Up: Barnes Impresses in Stakes Debut

Welcome to this capsule look at three horses who are heating up on the Triple Crown trail, provided by America's Best Racing. In the first 2025 edition of this blog, the focus is on the changing landscape of the 3-year-old male division since the start of winter (Dec. 21) with the last juvenile races of 2024 and the first 3-year-old races of 2025 now in the books. Journalism, winner of the Los Alamitos Futurity Dec. 14, would have topped this list had his race fallen within the boundaries outlined above, but his breakthrough win came a week before the cutoff date. 1. Barnes There were so many racing analysts raving over Barnes' debut win Nov. 27 at Churchill Downs that I went back and re-watched the race multiple times to try to see what I was missing. Sure, it was a somewhat fast race according to the speed figures, but he was fully extended to hold off a challenger at 5 1/2 furlongs and looked pretty green in doing so. My eyes did not see a future Kentucky Derby winner. Five-and-a-half weeks later, Barnes looked like a more professional racehorse in dominating the grade 2 San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita Park by 5 1/2 lengths, with Bob Hope Stakes winner Bullard, a 3-year-old I still like, third and beaten by six lengths. A $3.2 million purchase named after Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert's longtime assistant Jimmy Barnes, this colt by leading sire Into Mischief obviously was well-regarded long before his career even started. He improved from a 98 to a 99 Equibase Speed Figure and from an 87 to a 94 Beyer Speed Figure in the seven-furlong San Vicente, so he's fast in addition to the mental maturation he showed in his stakes debut. I still have my doubts about how he will handle 1 1/4 miles in May and I wouldn't be inclined to bet him in any Kentucky Derby Futures pool at the odds he's now listed, but my overall perspective shifted significantly and I now consider Barnes a legitimate Derby contender. 2. Built Built won the Gun Runner Stakes on the first day of winter Dec. 21 at Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots for trainer Wayne Catalano. He impressed me in winning by 6 3/4 lengths and boosted his Beyer Speed Figure 15 points to a 92 and his Equibase Speed Figure seven points to a 95. Built completed his final five-sixteenths of a mile in :29.76 with a final sixteenth in 6.26 seconds in his first try in a race around two turns, which is extremely promising. Built is in the hands of a terrific horseman in Catalano, who has more than 3,000 wins as a trainer and more than 1,500 wins as a jockey on his résumé. As he's by Hard Spun out of a Curlin mare and having shown improvement when stretching out from seven furlongs to 1 1/16 miles, Built has a very strong chance to excel with added distance on the Derby trail. The one obvious concern coming out of the Gun Runner was that Built was allowed to set a criminally slow pace in that race, but he isn't a need-the-lead type as he won his previous race from a length off the pace after the opening half-mile. Needless to say, I'm optimistic about the chances of Built to make an impact on the Derby trail and perhaps the first jewel of the 2025 Triple Crown. 3. Rodriguez If you've read this blog over the past decade-plus, you know I very rarely include maiden winners in the Heating Up section. I made an exception for Rodriguez, a colt that fellow America's Best Racing editor Patrick Reed alerted me to, because I thought his Jan. 4 win in a two-turn mile race at Santa Anita was just ultra-impressive. Trained by Bob Baffert, Rodriguez set a solid pace through a half-mile in :46.33 and still finished well with a final eighth of a mile in :12.91 to win by seven lengths. Daily Racing Form gave Rodriguez a 101 Beyer Speed Figure (revised from a 93) and he boosted his Equibase Speed Figure to a 96. That Beyer number is particularly eye-catching for a 3-year-old colt in January. The last few years we've only seen a handful of 3-year-olds per class reach triple digits before Kentucky Derby day, so that sharp improvement from a 79 to a 101 while stretching out from 6 1/2 furlongs to one mile serves as a promising indicator. The Authentic colt is a close sibling to 2017 Southwest Stakes (G3) winner One Liner, by Authentic's sire, Into Mischief. Rodriguez entered the race off a second to stablemate Romanesque in his Nov. 23 debut at Del Mar, a runner-up finish flattered when Romanesque finished second to Barnes later on the same Santa Anita card in the San Vicente. Suffice it to say, it was a strong weekend for the Baffert contingent.