Even though the 2025 season got off to a tough start for him, with no wins in the three Triple Crown races, legendary trainer Bob Baffert bounced back at the Del Mar summer meet, showing everyone you can never count Baffert out. He took home both of the track’s top juvenile championships, marking a record-extending 12th win in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante with Bottle of Rouge and a historic 19th victory in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity with his standout colt, Brant.

This amazing comeback, though, comes with a pretty big challenge. On X, the New York Racing Association announced a list of potential Breeders’ Cup Classic competitors. But it turns out that none of the horses trained by Baffert ended up in the race with 14 starters.

It’s true that horses like Sovereignty, Journalism, Baeza, Fierceness, Sierra Leone, and a few others have made the cut, but it’s interesting to note that none of Baffert’s horses like Nysos and Goal Oriented were named. What’s the reason for the absence of his potential participants?

As we can see from Horse Racing Nation’s 2025 Breeders’ Cup potential field, Baffert has two horses in reserve: Goal Oriented (whose status is “possible”) and Nysos (whose status is currently “unlikely”). Nysos, the Nyquist colt, last raced in the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar, and he came out on top with a win. So, that was in July, and since then, the horse hasn’t raced at all.

As for Goal Oriented, the colt underpeformed at his recent race. The Not This Time colt raced in the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby at Parx Racing, finishing behind the frontrunners Magnitude in second place and Baeza, who took home his first graded stakes win of his career. But there’s this one horse that seems to have some magical abilities for Baffert as we approach the end of the season.

The potential next big horse for Bob Baffert

So, about a year ago, Citizen Bull couldn’t quite snag a Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity win for Bob Baffert. But the horse ended up winning three races in just two, and later, it was also named the 2024 2-year-old champion. As we kicked off 2025, everyone was buzzing about this Baffert-trained colt and how he was set to take the Kentucky Derby by storm. But after Sovereignty and Journalism stepped in, those predictions faded away, turning it into a two-horse race. Looks like we could be in for a similar scenario, but this time it might just turn out in Baffert’s favor.

Brant, a $3 million Gun Runner colt from Zedan Racing Stables, made a name for himself with a solid win at the Del Mar Futurity on September 7, 2025. So, there was this slightly tense moment during the break when Brant ran into a rival, but he managed to pull through with jockey Flavien Prat on board. He jumped ahead and held off a tough challenge from his stablemate Desert Gate, crossing the finish line a length ahead in 1:21.92.

Baffert snagged his 19th win in the Futurity, making it five wins in a row for this race. Brant, who was sired by the champion Gun Runner and is out of the Liam’s Map mare Tynan, ended up being the top-priced purchase at the 2025 OBS March 2-Year-Old Sale, going for a whopping $3 million. His first win by 5 1/4 lengths and that Futurity victory—both at Del Mar—highlight his amazing speed and knack for adjusting on the track.

With all his current accolades, Brant is definitely a top contender for the Juvenile at Del Mar on October 31. We’ll just have to wait and see if the racehorse can snag that Breeders’ Cup Juvenile win and maybe even become one of the favorites for the 2026 Kentucky Derby down the line.