Heating up1. Stellar Wind I dont want to go overboard based on a single performance by a filly already with an Eclipse Award on her résumé, but when Stellar Wind put away Beholder in the stretch of the Grade 1 Clement L. Hirsch Stakes on Saturday it cemented her credentials as a truly elite racehorse. She outfinished a three-time champion and a two-time Breeders Cup winner and earned her second career Grade 1 win. The other Grade 1 win came in the Santa Anita Oaks, which was restricted to 3-year-old fillies. Sure, she finished second in the 2015 Longines Breeders Cup Distaff, but horse racing, and sports in general, are about victories ? and this was a heck of a Grade 1 victory over a future Hall of Famer. Stellar Wind earned a career-best 108 Equibase Speed Figure and improved upon a runner-up finish to Beholder in her 2016 debut, which marked her first start in more than seven months. Not every racehorse gets better with age, but Stellar Wind looks even better at 4 than she did as champion 3-year-old filly in 2015.2. Exaggerator Exaggerator is who we thought he was: an incredibly consistent racehorse who really competes (almost) every time he steps on the racetrack and absolutely relishes a muddy track. But by defeating Nyquist in the betfair.com Haskell Invitational Stakes for the second time in four starts this year, Exaggerator positioned himself as arguably the leader in the race for the Eclipse Award as champion 3-year-old male. Theres no doubt an equally compelling case can be made for Nyquist, but right now theyre locked in a duel that figures to go right down to the wire. Equally important, in my opinion, was that Exaggerator rebounded from the first real dud he had run since his career debut in June 2015: when he finished 11th of 13 in the Belmont Stakes. For a runner who had finished in the top three in nine of 10 races entering the Belmont and had not been beaten by more than three lengths, the Belmont (beaten by 14 lengths) was a true head-scratcher. Its probably safe to draw a line through that race now as the result of a taxing Triple Crown trail. If you do that, you find a racehorse who recorded an Equibase Speed Figure between 103 and 108 in seven races (not counting the Belmont) since November 2015. Thats consistency.Tie 3. Lord Nelson and A. P. Indian I STRONGLY considered Laoban for the third spot, but he had everything his way in a breakthrough win in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy Stakes and I want to see him do it again before I climb on board his bandwagon. Instead, I landed on a pair of sprinters that I had a difficult time separating: Lord Nelson and A. P. Indian. It looks Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert has found the comfort zone for Lord Nelson in sprints after trying to stretch him out on multiple occasions in 2014 and 2015 to find out if he was a contender for the U.S. Triple Crown races. He closed his 3-year-old season with a third behind eventual champion sprinter Runhappy in the seven-eighths of a mile Malibu Stakes that was better than it looked on paper. Hes won all three of his starts in 2016 while exclusively sprinting, including a powerhouse four-length runaway in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes on July 31 at Del Mar that gave him back-to-back Grade 1 wins and a new career-best 119 Equibase Speed Figure. Likewise, A. P. Indian has yet to taste defeat this year. After winning his season debut via disqualification, A. P. Indian scored a repeat win in the Donald Levine Memorial Stakes at Monmouth Park and earned his first graded stakes win in the Grade 3 Belmont Sprint Championship Stakes. He then dusted the competition in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap at Saratoga Race Course on July 30. Hes earned Equibase Speed Figures of 112, 113, 119 and 117 in four starts this year, so hes not only fast, hes consistent. With 2015 champion sprinter Runhappy yet to start a race this year,