SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Leadership in the 3-year-old sprint division will likely be up for grabs when an outstanding and evenly matched field of 10 goes postward in Saturday’s $500,000 Woody Stephens at Saratoga. The race lost one of its key players when the connections of Colloquial, whose 106 Beyer Speed Figure earlier in the year is among the fastest posted by any 3-year-old this season, announced their horse would be scratched from the Grade 1 event due to lameness in his right front leg.
“The main thing is the horse is not 100 percent himself, so we don’t want to run him like that,” trainer George Weaver said on Thursday when confirming the decision not to start Colloquial. “We will do some diagnostics and once we get things clarified we will come up with a game plan going forward. We don’t feel comfortable running him this weekend. He’s a super, super talented horse, one of the most talented horses I ever had.”
Weaver said he had been targeting the seven-furlong Woody Stephens for Colloquial since his sensational maiden win at Aqueduct in his 2025 debut on Feb. 7.
The loss of Colloquial leaves a bevy of key contenders in the Woody Stephens, with favoritism at post time likely to be up for grabs until the final wagers are in the tote. The group includes Neoequos and Citizen Bull, the 13th and 15th finishers, respectively, in the Kentucky Derby; Macho Music and Madaket Road, who ran one-two in that order in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile on the Derby undercard; multiple Grade 1 winner Chancer McPatrick; and the Brad Cox-trained pair of last-out, impressive entry-level allowance winners Patch Adams and Gunmetal.
Citizen Bull is one of two horses trainer Bob Baffert will send out in the Woody Stephens along with Madaket Road. Citizen Bull is shortening up for the first time since finishing third last summer in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, a race that served as a stepping-stone to subsequent victories at 1 1/16 miles in the Grade 1 American Pharoah and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to clinch the 2-year-old championship.
Citizen Bull launched his 3-year-old campaign with a gate-to-wire, 3 3/4-length victory going a mile in the Robert B. Lewis at Santa Anita. However, he was a disappointment in his last two outings, finishing a tiring fourth in the Santa Anita Derby before checking home a distant 15th after setting a contested early pace in the Kentucky Derby.
Citizen Bull will race without blinkers for the first time Saturday.
“We’ve been working him without blinkers. I almost took them off for the Derby,” Baffert said. “We have to do something different. And I think shortening up will help him.”
Madaket Road will put blinkers back on for the Woody Stephens after futilely chasing Macho Music from start to finish when second in the Pat Day Mile and a tiring fourth five weeks earlier in the Florida Derby.
“I took [blinkers] off going longer because we were trying to get him to relax, but he wasn’t really focused in the Pat Day Mile,” Baffert explained. “You got to let him roll away from there.”
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Neoequos ran creditably in all three of his starts around two turns, which included a third-place finish behind Derby winner Sovereignty in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth. However, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. has felt all along that his horse would probably be better suited at distances ranging from seven furlongs to a mile.
“I feel this is what he wants to do, one turn,” Joseph said. “We’ll see if he’s one turn at the Grade 1 level.”
Macho Music earned a career-best 97 Beyer Speed Figure with his dominant performance over a sloppy track in the Pat Day Mile, although his trainer, Rohan Crichton, feels his horse was primed for that kind of effort no matter the surface that day.
“I don’t think it mattered what kind of track he ran on, he was just feeling and acting so good both physically and mentally. I knew he was going to run his best race,” Crichton said. “And the way he’s been training ever since leads me to believe he is going to run his best race again on Saturday.
“One thing I’m glad about is that he’s drawn outside Madaket Road, because it seems by putting the blinkers on him again it’s clear what their intention will be right from the outset.”
Chancer McPatrick won the Grade 1 Hopeful and Champagne going seven furlongs and a mile at 2, although he has failed to reproduce that same form in three subsequent starts around two turns.
“He’s undefeated around one turn and winless around two,” trainer Chad Brown said when asked about the cutback in distance. “And I thought his last breeze over the main track here was the best I’ve seen from him all year.”
Patch Adams earned a lifetime-best 96 Beyer edging away to a popular 2 1/4-length allowance victory on Derby Day while racing with Lasix for the first time in his career. His stablemate Gunmetal is coming off an equally promising 3 3/4-length allowance win going six furlongs April 8 at Keeneland.
– additional reporting by David Grening
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