Led by Breeders’ Cup winners Corniche and Echo Zulu, as well as last weekend’s significant prep winners – Early Voting, Messier, and White Abarrio – and major stakes winners Newgrange, Rattle N Roll, Slow Down Andy, and Smile Happy, a total of 312 3-year-olds have been made early nominees to this year’s Triple Crown.

The early nominations were announced Monday afternoon by Churchill Downs, which plays host to the first Triple Crown race, the Kentucky Derby, on May 7. The Preakness on May 21, and the Belmont on June 11, complete the series.

Grade 3, $200,000 Robert Lewis Stakes; 1 1/16 miles; Santa Anita; Feb. 5, 2022
(10 Derby qualifying points for first, 4 for second, 0 for third, 1 for fourth)

Winner: Messier, by Empire Maker

Trainer: Bob Baffert

Jockey: John Velazquez

Owner: SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Robert Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Golconda Stable, Siena Farm, Waves Edge Capital, Catherine Donovan, and Jay Schoenfarber

Call Me Midnight worked a half-mile in 50.20 seconds Feb. 5 at Fair Grounds, his first breeze since upsetting the Lecomte Stakes on Jan. 22, but it’s far from certain this was a work toward the Feb. 19 Risen Star Stakes.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Giant Game was scheduled to undergo what trainer Dale Romans described as a minor throat procedure Tuesday after the colt, he said, “displaced his palate pretty bad” when a distant eighth Saturday in the Holy Bull at Gulfstream Park.

“It’s a very common procedure that’s done right in the horse’s stall,” Romans said. “Hopefully, this will correct whatever he’s got troubling him and we’ll have him back in training before the weekend.”

A large field of 3-year-olds is expected when entries for the Sam F. Davis Stakes are drawn Wednesday at Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Fla.

The Grade 3, $200,000 Davis will be run Saturday at 1 1/16 miles as the first Kentucky Derby qualifier held at Tampa this season, with points distributed on a 10-4-2-1 scale. The Tampa Bay Derby (50-20-10-5) follows four weeks later on March 12.

Corniche, the unbeaten winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and a finalist to be named champion 2-year-old male of 2021 at the Eclipse Awards on Thursday night at Santa Anita, is training at WinStar Farm in Kentucky but is not quite ready to breeze, Marette Farrell, the racing manager for his owners, Speedway Stables, said Friday.

Oviatt Class, third in the Grade 3 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita on Jan. 1, has been sidelined with an injury that will keep him out of the major races for 3-year-olds in coming months.

“He hurt his hock coming out of the Sham,” trainer Keith Desormeaux said Thursday. “He’ll be out for four months and that takes us out of the Triple Crown. We’ll have a nice horse for the fall.”

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Todd Pletcher won four races on Pegasus Day, including both the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational and $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park. And he looks just as loaded again here Saturday with 10 starters in eight races that include Mo Donegal in the $250,000 Holy Bull, likely favorite My Prankster in the Grade 3 Swale, top contenders Grand Sonata and Royal Spirit in the Grade 3 Kitten’s Joy, and Greatitude in the Grade 3 Forward Gal.

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Zandon is on schedule to make his 3-year-old debut later this month for Chad Brown.

Jack Christopher – not so much.

Zandon, beaten a nose by Mo Donegal in the Dec. 4 Remsen at Aqueduct in just his second start, will be shipped to Fair Grounds for the Risen Star on Feb. 19 at 1 1/8 miles rather than run in the 1 1/16-mile Holy Bull on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

“We went back and forth on whether to start out with him here,” Brown said. “But we prefer the longer distance of the Risen Star, and it has more points.”

Grade 3, $750,000 Southwest Stakes; 1 1/16 miles; Oaklawn Park; Jan. 29, 2022
(0 Derby qualifying points for first, 4 for second, 2 for third, 1 for fourth)

Winner: Newgrange, by Violence

Trainer: Bob Baffert

Jockey: John Velazquez

Owner: SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Robert Masterson, Stonestreet Stables, Golconda Stable, Siena Farm, Waves Edge Capital, Catherine Donovan, and Jay Schoenfarber

Beyer Speed Figure: 89