Baffert scratches Brant from Woody Stephens, shifts focus to Six Speed

Bob Baffert turned the Woody Stephens into a different betting race with one move: Brant is out, Six Speed is in, and Irad Ortiz Jr. stayed attached to a horse with enough speed to matter over Saratoga’s seven furlongs.

Baffert said Brant would not run in the Grade 1 on June 6 at Saratoga and may instead turn up in the Grade 3 Maxfield Stakes at Churchill Downs on June 28. “I’m not going to bring him, I’ll find another spot for him, that’s a tough race,” Baffert said. For a colt owned by Amr Zedan, bought for $3 million at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales March select juvenile auction, the decision pulls a recognizable name out of a race that already had 17 nominations and one of the biggest stages of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival.

The scratch matters because Brant was not just another entrant. He was a Grade 1-winning 2-year-old who finished fifth in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes on March 7, his only start at 3. In that race at Santa Anita Park, he was the 4-5 favorite in a seven-horse field and set a pressured pace before flattening to fifth. That profile would have given bettors a clear early-race marker in a $500,000 Grade 1 at 7 furlongs. Without him, the market loses one of its more familiar names and the race shifts further toward the other speed horses and the runners waiting behind them.

Six Speed is the horse stepping into that spotlight. He worked five furlongs in 1:00 on Saturday morning over Saratoga’s main track, his second work since being transferred from Bhupat Seemar to George Weaver. Before the Kentucky Derby, where he finished 13th after setting the early tempo, he had won three one-turn races, including the Group 3 Dubai 2000 Guineas, and had finished second in the UAE Derby at 1 3/16 miles. That blend of sprint speed and enough route form to stay involved is exactly what makes him interesting back at 7 furlongs.

Weaver’s decision to run him anyway, with Ortiz aboard after the rider switch from Brant, keeps Six Speed squarely in the conversation. BloodHorse’s field listing had Crude Velocity, the undefeated Pat Day Mile winner, as the morning-line favorite, and the rest of the lineup still includes Civil Liberty, Englishman, Gilded Bandit, Obliteration, Solitude Dude, Stradale and Taj Mahal. Baffert has already won the Woody Stephens three times, with Bayern in 2014, American Anthem in 2017 and Arabian Lion in 2023, and this latest move suggests the same weekend formula: protect the right horse, place him where the spot is best, and keep a live runner in the biggest race.