2025 Belmont Stakes Trainer Profile: Bob Baffert

Key Takeaways:

• Hall of Famer Bob Baffert has won the Triple Crown twice (with American Pharoah and Justify) and a record eight Preakness wins, but only three Belmont victories from 13 starters.
• He returns to the 2025 Belmont Stakes with Rodriguez, who won the Wood Memorial, but a bruised foot caused him to miss both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.
• Rodriguez is a front-runner who excels on the lead but is untested from off the pace, making race shape and fitness key factors in his Belmont performance.
• After a three-year ban at Churchill Downs, 2025 marks Baffert’s full return to the Triple Crown stage.

Few trainers in all of horse racing are as recognizable as Bob Baffert. He started with quarter horses, but switched to Thoroughbreds in 1979, and this breed has been the focus of his career ever since. In the ensuing decades, he has climbed all the way to the upper echelon of horse racing. He has won four Eclipse Awards for outstanding trainer, most recently in 2015, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009.

Baffert has won most of the top dirt races in the world. He has won the Breeders’ Cup Classic four times, the Kentucky Derby six, the Preakness eight, the Belmont three, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile six times, the Dubai World Cup four times … listing every major dirt race Baffert has won might take from now until the Belmont Stakes.

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Bob Baffert in Triple Crown Races

No active trainer has more success in Triple Crown races than Bob Baffert. He is the only active trainer with a Triple Crown winner—and, in fact, he has two, American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018. And, those winners are just scratching the surface of his success in the series of three-year-old classics.

Kentucky Derby

Bob Baffert has been running in the Kentucky Derby for almost 30 years. He almost won the very first Derby he ever entered, in 1996—Cavonnier was just nosed out by Grindstone that year. It didn’t take him long to win, as he won the next two with Silver Charm (1997) and Real Quiet (1998).

He has won the Kentucky Derby four more times since then with War Emblem (2002), American Pharoah (2015), Justify (2018), and Authentic (2020). His six wins tie him with Ben Jones for the most Kentucky Derby winners ever.

Baffert also trained Medina Spirit, who crossed the wire first in 2021, though he was subsequently disqualified after a positive test. That also led to Baffert being suspended from Churchill Downs for three years. He was allowed to compete in Louisville again beginning in the fall of 2024, and he entered both Citizen Bull and Rodriguez in the 2025 Kentucky Derby. Rodriguez was scratched due to a foot issue; Citizen Bull finished 15th.

Preakness Stakes

As good as Bob Baffert has been in the Kentucky Derby, his record is even better in the Preakness. He has won the Preakness Stakes eight times, an all-time record.

His success in the Preakness started when his success in the Derby began: Silver Charm (1997) and Real Quiet (1998) won at Pimlico as well. Baffert won the Preakness next in 2001 with Point Given, who bounced back from his Derby misfire. War Emblem (2002) proved his Derby was no fluke with a Preakness victory. Baffert returned to the Preakness winners’ circle with Lookin at Lucky in 2010, continued successful Triple Crown bids with both American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018), and then won his eighth with National Treasure (2023).

Baffert did not have a horse in the starting gate for the 2025 Preakness. He had planned to enter Rodriguez, though he decided he needed more time for the horse to recover from the foot bruise that kept him out of the Kentucky Derby, and bypassed the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

Belmont Stakes

Compared to the other Triple Crown races, Bob Baffert has both the fewest starters and the fewest wins in the signature race at Belmont Park. Between 1996 and 2024, Baffert has run just 13 starters in the Test of the Champion.

Among those, three have found the winners’ circle. In addition to American Pharoah and Justify, Point Given (2001) also won the Test of the Champion.

Bob Baffert in the 2025 Belmont Stakes

Bob Baffert is planning to enter one horse in the 2025 Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course: Rodriguez. Rodriguez is unraced since winning the Wood Memorial—he was entered in the Kentucky Derby, though had to scratch due to a foot bruise, and the issue did not heal in time to enter him into the Preakness. However, Baffert expects Rodriguez to be ready for the final jewel of the Triple Crown at Saratoga Race Course.

Rodriguez

Rodriguez was a dark horse through most of the Triple Crown prep season. On debut, in a 6 ½-furlong maiden special weight sprint at Del Mar, he vied on the pace but couldn’t go with stablemate Romanesque late, settling for second. January 4 at Santa Anita, stretching to a mile for the first time, he bounced out to the lead and galloped clear to win by seven lengths—in a race that turned out to be pretty good, as the second-place finisher was none other than Kentucky Derby third-place finisher (and fellow Belmont Stakes contender) Baeza.

After the maiden win, it was on to graded-stakes company and the Derby trail. He was one of three Bob Baffert entrants in the Robert B. Lewis at Santa Anita on February 1, and was bet to the second choice behind his champion stablemate Citizen Bull. Citizen Bull got the lead and won gate to wire, while Rodriguez was left to chase in second all the way around, finishing 3 ¾ lengths behind the winner. The San Felipe (G2) on March 1 was similar, in the sense that he didn’t get the lead and never looked like a winner: stablemate Barnes set the early fractions and then couldn’t hold off eventual Preakness winner Journalism late, while Rodriguez tracked the pace and weakened to third.

Baffert sent Rodriguez to Aqueduct for the Wood Memorial (G2) on April 5. Despite a ten-horse field being bigger than the groups he was facing in California, no one in that larger group could match Rodriguez’s West Coast speed. Rodriguez led at every call, skipping home 3 ½ lengths clear of Grande to earn 100 Derby points.

Two big questions surround Rodriguez in the Belmont Stakes: his foot, and pace. The Belmont is a tough enough race to win even when everything goes according to plan in a horse’s prep, so there’s a concern around just how ready Rodriguez is going to be for 1 ¼ miles at Saratoga Springs after missing a start in the Kentucky Derby and then having a Preakness return scrapped. Judging from recent history in the Belmont Stakes—winners tend to come from more recent races like the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Peter Pan.

Furthermore, Rodriguez has yet to prove that he can win from off the pace. So, the question will be whether anyone else goes with him early. The likely short field could play to his strengths as a speed horse. But, if anyone else gets fearless early, Rodriguez could be in trouble.

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