Litmus Test joins rescheduled Affirmed Stakes after Delaware Derby scratch

Bob Baffert changed the shape of two 3-year-old stakes with one scratch. Litmus Test, a Grade 2 winner who had been pointed toward the Delaware Derby, instead landed in Santa Anita’s $100,000 Affirmed Stakes for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles and immediately became the horse the Monday field had to account for.

Santa Anita moved the Affirmed to Monday, June 15, after Thursday’s card was canceled following the fifth race because of a power outage. The outage hit broadcast production, the backup generator also failed, and the track retook entries on Friday, turning a shortened program into a fresh stakes setup with Litmus Test as the biggest late addition.

The switch matters because Litmus Test is not being rerouted off a thin résumé. The 2023 Kentucky-bred colt by Nyquist out of Study Hard last won the Grade II Los Alamitos Futurity in December 2025, earned 10 Road to the Kentucky Derby points there, then ran third in the Rebel Stakes and seventh in the Arkansas Derby before a 17th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby on May 2. He will also have a new rider in Emisael Jaramillo, a change that gives Baffert another variable to sharpen after a spring that has not matched the colt’s early promise.

Delaware was not a random miss either. Delaware Park’s 2026 live-racing season opened May 13, Delaware Derby Day was set for June 13, and Baffert had not started a horse there in 21 years, making the original plan notable even before the late scratch. By shifting west, Baffert kept the colt at a familiar Southern California venue and moved him into a race that now includes Secured Freedom and Decisive Win, which gives the Affirmed more shape than it had before the entries were redrawn.

That also changes the race-day read for bettors and rival barns. The Affirmed has been a productive Santa Anita spring stop before, with Gaming winning last year in 1:41.92 and Baffert’s Nevada Beach finishing second. The race record book runs even deeper, with Melair’s 1:32.80 fastest time in 1986 and Valdez’s 10-length runaway in 1979 still standing as the extremes of what this dirt route can produce.

Baffert did not just scratch a colt from one Derby and send him to another start. He redirected a high-profile horse into a race that can restore momentum, and a power outage in Arcadia ended up changing the competitive math for both Delaware and Santa Anita.