This week on HorseCenter Brian Zipse and Matt Shifman take an initial look at the 2025 Kentucky Derby by revealing their first rankings for next spring’s run for the roses. Your hosts discuss what they like about each promising juvenile and their prospects moving forward.

This group of 2-year-olds contains five horses that ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, six winners of Kentucky Derby points races, three sired by Into Mischief and three trained by Bob Baffert.

Baffert, with his six previous Derby wins, again eligible again to race at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May. He has a strong early hand with three on this way-too-early list. Citizen Bull won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and will be the favorite for the first leg of the Triple Crown when these horses become 3-year-olds on Jan. 1. Gaming finished third in the Juvenile. Barnes is an unraced $3.2 million purchase who is turning in impressive workouts at Santa Anita.

In last year’s edition of this show, the guys listed successful horses such as Fierceness, Dornoch, Nysos and Muth. Be sure to enjoy HorseCenter’s coverage of the 2025 Derby, and thanks for watching the show.