$250,000 Holy Bull Stakes, Feb. 4, 2023 (20 qualifying points for first, 8 for second, 6 for third, 4 for fourth, 2 for fifth)
Winner: Rocket Can, by Into Mischief
Trainer: Bill Mott
Jockey: Junior Alvarado
Owner: Frank Fletcher Racing Operations
Distance / time: 1 1/16 miles / 1:44.97
Win margin: 3/4
Beyer: 82 

ARCADIA, Calif. – Jockey Frankie Dettori moved to Santa Anita this winter with the hope of finding a leading contender for the Kentucky Derby in the final year of his illustrious career. On Saturday at Santa Anita, Dettori won the Grade 3 Robert Lewis Stakes on Newgate, who is a candidate to reach the historic race at Churchill Downs on May 6.

$196,000 Robert Lewis Stakes, Feb. 4, 2023
(all horses ineligible for qualifying points)

Winner: Newgate, by Into Mischief
Trainer: Bob Baffert
Jockey: Frankie Dettori
Owner: SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stable, Robert Masterson, Stonestreet
Distance / time: 1 1/16 miles / 1:43.11
Win margin: Neck
Beyer Speed Figure: 100 

ARCADIA, Calif. – A 3-year-old colt suspected to have distance limitations is putting those doubts to rest this season at Santa Anita.

Newgate, runner-up in a Grade 3 mile last out, won his first graded stakes Saturday in the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis. Newgate won the mile and a sixteenth race by a neck over longshot Hard to Figure in a race conspicuously void of depth. All four runners are trained by Bob Baffert.

LOUISIVILLE, Ky. – A two-day hearing in a U.S. District Court to weigh arguments on whether Churchill Downs can continue to ban trainer Bob Baffert from this year’s Kentucky Derby concluded Friday afternoon, and a decision on a request by Baffert’s attorneys for a temporary injunction is expected within the next several weeks, if not sooner.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Cyclone Mischief was rated No. 12 in Daily Racing Form’s inaugural Derby Watch for the 2023 road to the Kentucky Derby. He would improve significantly on that position when list two is released next week with a big performance in Saturday’s $250,000 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

ARCADIA, Calif. – A single trainer rarely controls a division as thoroughly as Bob Baffert controls California 3-year-olds. The situation reaches an extreme on Saturday at Santa Anita.

The Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes drew four entrants, all trained by Baffert, continuing a months-long trend. Baffert-trained colts foaled in 2020 won 18 of the 22 non-restricted special-weight maiden dirt races in Southern California since Del Mar last summer, and 7 of 8 dirt stakes.

The aftermath of the 2021 Kentucky Derby still hangs over the sport of Thoroughbred racing and its most famous horse race nearly two years later and three months before the 149th Run for the Roses is to be conducted, May 6, at Churchill Downs.

Blazing Sevens, who appears to be trainer Chad Brown’s lone Kentucky Derby hope at this point, will make his 3-year-old debut in either the Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds on Feb. 18 or the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park on March 4, Brown said Tuesday. Both races are Grade 2s with a purse of $400,000. The Fountain of Youth is run at 1 1/16 miles, a sixteenth shorter than the Risen Star.

Banishing, the fastest 2- or 3-year-old maiden winner at the ongoing Fair Grounds meet, has resumed galloping after missing a period of training due to a cut on his leg.

Banishing was injured during the night of Jan. 20, forcing his connections, Godolphin and trainer Brendan Walsh, to scratch the colt from an intended Fair Grounds allowance-race start the following day. Walsh said Banishing became cast in his stall and opened a wound on a hind leg that required suturing.

“He started galloping again four or five days ago,” Walsh said Tuesday.