Kentucky Derby 2025: Why Neoequos is in and Built is out

Louisville, Ky.

Built, whose lead owner believes he will be better going one turn, will not be entered for Kentucky Derby 2025. Instead, he will line up in what looks like a loaded renewal of the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile on next Saturday’s undercard.

“It really just boils down to us doing what we feel in our gut is the best for the horse,” Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners president Aron Wellman said Friday morning at Churchill Downs.

Allowance winner Neoequos, who finished third for trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. in both the Fountain of Youth (G2) and Florida Derby (G1), moves from the waiting list into the field of 20 that will be entered Saturday night.

“I always thought we were going to go in,” Joseph said Friday from his base in Florida. “I never thought Built was running. They were taking their time a bit. Now we’re officially in.”

For now, Eclipse Award-winning jockey Flavien Prat is booked to ride Neoequos, although he would switch to Baeza if the Santa Anita Derby (G2) runner-up draws in with two more dropouts.

Since winning the 1 1/16-mile Gun Runner Stakes to finish his 2-year-old season, Built is 3: 0-1-1 in 2025. Spending his winter at Fair Grounds in New Orleans with trainer Wayne Catalano, the Hard Spun colt was a close second in the 1 1/16-mile Lecomte (G3), a distant third in the 1 1/8-mile Risen Star (G2) and tiring fifth last month in the Louisiana Derby (G2).

“His form as the races have gotten longer throughout the season has tapered off a little bit,” Wellman said. “He just isn’t acting as though the classic distance is what he wants right now at this stage of his career. So we’re going to cut him back to a one-turn mile, which we think could be really right within his wheelhouse, and see how he performs.”

Catalano was disappointed, but he accepted the path being taken with Built.

“You get to the Derby, and then you’re not running,” Catalano said. “You know how it goes. We’ve got to do what’s right by the horse. ... It’s probably the right thing to do. I don’t know if he’s a mile-and-a-quarter horse. But who’s in there who might be a mile-and-a-quarter? There ain’t a lot of them who’ll be mile-and-a-quarter horses. But he’s kind of shown us a little bit that he doesn’t want the distance.”

Despite skipping the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby, Wellman would not rule out the 1 3/16-mile Preakness on May 17 as a possibility. But he sounded more pinpointed on seven-furlong possibilities for Built late this spring and into the summer.

“If he’s as potent and effective as we hope he is, then we’ll probably focus on one-turn races,” Wellman said. “You’ve got races like the Woody Stephens (G1) on Belmont day. You’ve got the Allen Jerkens (G1), formerly known as the King’s Bishop, at Saratoga. Seven-eighths races. We’ll learn about him in the Pat Day Mile if he’s a superior horse around one turn.”

Neoequos, whose owners are led by the same C2 Racing Stable that campaigns Pegasus World Cup (G1) winner White Abarrio, is a Neolithic colt whose maiden and allowance victories came in sprints. Joseph does not think the Derby distance, though, is out of the question.

“On the figures he hasn’t gotten slower going longer. That’s why we’re giving it a shot,” he said. “Realistically we don’t know if he wants to go a mile-and-a-quarter, but he wasn’t too far behind Tappan Street, and he wasn’t too far behind Sovereignty (in the Florida Derby). He beat Burnham Square, so he deserves a chance. He earned it, and we’ll give him the chance and see what happens.”

Neoequos breezed a bullet half-mile in 48.43 seconds Thursday at Gulfstream Park. Joseph said the Florida-bred colt was on his way to Churchill Downs on Friday morning.

Wellman’s group still has a huge presence in the Derby with three-time graded-stakes winner Journalism ready to be named the morning-line favorite when entries are taken and posts are drawn Saturday night. He said the presence of Journalism, who is trained by Michael McCarthy, was not a factor in taking Built out of the Derby.

“He could have added some pace to the race, perhaps,” Wellman said. “But at the end of the day, that’s just not the way Eclipse plays the game. If there are owners on the outside looking in who do believe that their horse deserves a shot to get into that gate, then we’re not going to prevent them from doing that.”

Built turned in a 59.4-second breeze that was the fastest of nine workouts covering five furlongs Thursday morning at Churchill Downs. Both Catalano and Wellman said that drill complicated the decision to bypass the Derby.

“Of course,” Catalano said. “He worked unbelievable. I was just looking at a picture they got of the stride on the gallop-out. It was amazing.”

“It made it harder, actually, because we had been pretty convinced all along that we were going to go to the Pat Day Mile,” Wellman said. “We wanted to get him to his last breeze, see how he came out of it, see how he performed, see if the shape of the Derby was changing in any way. We’ve bided our time. The fact that he performed so well (Thursday) actually made it more difficult to huddle up with Wayne (on Friday) morning. But at the end of the day, Wayne and I really had a heart-to-heart, and we felt in our hearts and our guts that this was the right move.”

Catalano has had just one Kentucky Derby horse. Crypto Star finished fifth for him in 1997.

“It’s heartbreaking not to get a guy like Wayne Catalano to the Kentucky Derby, because we wanted so badly for him,” Wellman said. “And of course, it’s a dream come true for our partners. It’s a huge honor to qualify for the race. Wayne did his job. He got him in there, but we’re going to try our best to stay true to the notion that we’re going to do what’s best for the horse.”

Built joins a Pat Day Mile field that will include Bob Baffert-trained colts Madaket Road and Gaming, both of whom were Kentucky Derby possibilities themselves.

“Look, it’s a Grade 2 for $600,000 on Derby day,” Wellman said. “It’s going to be a war. Even though we’re coming out of a race like the Kentucky Derby in favor of the Pat Day, we’re not taking it for granted by any stretch of the imagination. We know it’s going to be a tough race.”

If Built were to win next Saturday, Wellman still offered some hope that the Preakness could be in the immediate future. As he put it, “If he runs well, and we can emulate Wayne Lukas’s strategy with Seize the Grey last year (and apply that next month) with Wayne Catalano, then we’ll put that under consideration.”