ARCADIA — The jockey and trainer of 4-year-old Locked and 3-year-old Rodriguez lavished praise on those colts after their latest starts, using terms normally reserved for horses who actually, you know, won their races.
Locked and Rodriguez both finished second.
Wins could come Saturday, when those rising stars are among the horses to watch on Santa Anita Handicap day, one of the highlights of Santa Anita’s winter-spring season.
Locked is the 3-2 favorite over fellow out-of-state shipper Hit Show (5-2) on the morning line for a nine-horse field in the $300,000, Grade I Santa Anita Handicap, a classic 1¼-mile race for 4-year-olds and up. Rodriguez is the 9-5 second choice behind his Bob Baffert stablemate Barnes (even money) in a field of six in the $300,000, Grade II San Felipe Stakes, the penultimate test for California 3-year-olds aiming for the Kentucky Derby.
The 11-race card, featuring four stakes, starts at noon. Temperatures in the 60s and a 21% chance of rain are forecast. The Santa Anita Handicap has been contested on a fast track in 74 of its 87 runnings and 23 of the past 24.
Locked and Rodriguez both come out of races in which they finished second to the nation’s top-ranked horses in their divisions and faced less than ideal circumstances.
Locked, a son of 2017 Horse of the Year Gun Runner who has won at the Grade I and Grade II levels in Kentucky and New York for trainer Todd Pletcher, went into the Grade I Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park near Miami on Jan. 25 as the favorite. But he had his head turned when the starting gate opened and dropped farther off the pace than usual. He and jockey John Velazquez rallied to finish second, 6¼ lengths behind White Abarrio, whose victory lifted him to No. 1 in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s national rankings.
“I thought he ran probably the best race of his life,” Pletcher said of Locked right after the Pegasus. “Unfortunately, from that post (10 in a field of 11) you can’t make any mistakes.”
Pletcher has decided to fit Locked with blinkers for the first time Saturday. While Velazquez rides big races in Florida, Jose Ortiz will be aboard Locked for the first time since they finished third to 2-year-old champion Fierceness and Muth in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.
Either Locked or Hit Show, a Grade II winner in Kentucky for trainer Brad Cox who’ll have Prat riding, can be the first Santa Anita Handicap winner from out of state since Jimmy Jerkens-trained Shaman Ghost in 2017 and Bill Mott-trained Ron the Greek in 2012.
The top local threats are Mirahmadi (Juan Hernandez riding), the speedier part of a Baffert duo with New King (Mike Smith); Express Train (Hector Berrios), the 2022 Santa Anita Handicap winner trying to be the first 8-year-old to win the Big ’Cap since Olhaverry in 1947; and Katonah (Tiago Pereira), the San Pasqual Stakes winner.
If you like Locked because he has competed with the best and faced adversity, you can make a case for Rodriguez to score a mild upset of Barnes in the San Felipe.
Rodriguez, whose front-running maiden victory in January earned the highest Beyer speed figure for any of the San Felipe horses, was a close second in the betting to Baffert’s Citizen Bull in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes on Feb. 1. But when Citizen Bull and Martin Garcia broke on top, Hernandez decided to cede the early lead to the horse who has not only the same trainer but the same owners. Citizen Bull led the 1-mile race all the way to beat Rodriguez by 3¾ lengths, confirming the 2-year-old champion’s No. 1 spot in the NTRA’s 3-year-old rankings.
“It was pretty impressive what he did, running second,” Baffert said right after the race. “He’ll get a lot out of this.”
“I think he’s going to be better next time,” Hernandez said.
This time, Prat will take over Rodriguez, a son of Authentic, while Hernandez sticks with Barnes, the $3.2 million son of Into Mischief who stretches out to 1 1/16 miles after dominating the 7-furlong San Vicente Stakes.
Rodriguez has come back to post the fastest workouts in this field, and Baffert said Friday the colt does appear to have benefited from the Lewis Stakes experience.
The San Felipe will award 50 Kentucky Derby qualifying points to the winner, all but guaranteeing a spot in the field May 3.
“This is our March Madness starting,” said Baffert, who also has Mellencamp (Smith) in the San Felipe.
A key question is whether Barnes, from post 3, or Rodriguez, from post 4, will take the early lead. Baffert said he won’t give instructions to Hernandez and Prat.
Aiming to stalk the leaders could be Journalism, the Los Alamitos Futurity winner making his 3-year-old debut with Umberto Rispoli riding for trainer Michael McCarthy.
“Even though it’s a smaller field, it’s a competitively matched field,” McCarthy said Friday.
The Santa Anita Handicap picks here: 1. Locked, 2. Hit Show, 3. Mirahmadi
The San Felipe picks: 1. Rodriguez, 2. Barnes, 3. Journalism.
Picks for the full card from all four handicappers in the Southern California News Group consensus are available online.