Kentucky Countdown
The late trainer Charlie Whittingham would be pleased. When the perennial naysayers came around, denigrating the quality of the 3-year-old crops, he would protest, “Never knock a horse until they’ve been dead for at least 10 years.” That could have been chiseled on his headstone.
But Whittingham, who won the Kentucky Derby twice--with Ferdinand at age 73 and with Sunday Silence at 76--wouldn’t be on the defensive this year. The naysayers have been unusually muffled, if not completely silent.
Even the most jaundiced of their ilk is conceding that this is a rousing group of Kentucky Derby candidates, several of whom will be running today in the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, a stake that’s accounted for 14 Kentucky Derby winners and three in the last four years.
Point Given heads virtually everybody’s early Kentucky Derby watch, and trainer Bob Baffert’s huge colt will be odds-on at Churchill Downs on May 5 if he disposes of six rivals today.
In the East, the now horse is Monarchos, the impressive winner of the Florida Derby who is expected to run a week from today in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. Wins by Point Given and Monarchos in their final preps would make for a juicy intersectional matchup at Churchill Downs.
This is how impressive Point Given and Monarchos have been: David Hofmans, who trains the $1.2-million yearling Millennium Wind from his base at Hollywood Park, will be going out of his way twice to avoid them before the Kentucky Derby.
A month ago, so he wouldn’t have to face Point Given at Santa Anita, Hofmans took Millennium Wind to the Fair Grounds in New Orleans for the Louisiana Derby (he ran second). And next Saturday, with the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Wood in New York, Hofmans chose the Blue Grass because Monarchos was headed for Aqueduct.
“Point Given and Monarchos are the two best horses right now,” he said Friday. “I don’t think my horse is ready to take them on just yet.”
Which is not to say that the 127th Kentucky Derby ought to be a match race and that all others need not apply. No one would be that foolish; favorites at Churchill had fallen 20 consecutive years before Fusaichi Pegasus’ win last year.
That statistic alone will ensure plenty of company for Point Given and Monarchos next month, particularly in an era when tracks all over the map are running prep races for the long green, and anteing up substantial bonus money as well. With every stakes winner, another viable Derby spoiler seems to surface.
True, most Derby winners of recent vintage have built their foundations at Santa Anita, Keeneland, Gulfstream Park and Aqueduct. But there are enough exceptions--Grindstone in 1996 and Lil E. Tee in 1992, for example--to make any venue a potential springboard to the roses.
Today alone there are three important stakes for 3-year-olds besides the Santa Anita Derby. They are an odd lot: The Lone Star Derby near Dallas, a comparatively new prep on the block; the Flamingo at Hialeah, which has fallen off the radar in the last 20 years after once being a pre-Derby fixture; and the Illinois Derby at Sportsman’s Park, which used to be run after the Kentucky Derby.
None of the so-called heavy hitters have been drawn to these races, unless you count Outofthebox, who’s running in the Flamingo. He was a distant second to Monarchos in the Florida Derby; he’s made a career of being the runner-up while still looking for his first stakes win.
After the Santa Anita Derby, the other short-priced future-book horses will scatter next Saturday to Kentucky, New York and Arkansas. Dollar Bill, Millennium Wind and the catch-up colt, A P Valentine, will be running in the Blue Grass; Monarchos and Congaree, a lightly raced but highly regarded second-stringer from the Baffert barn, are scheduled for the Wood; and the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park seems to fit Balto Star, the 12 3/4-length winner of the Turfway Spiral Stakes, although his trainer, Todd Pletcher, could also run at Keeneland or Aqueduct.
That leaves one precinct unaccounted for. For the third consecutive year, the Godolphin Racing outfit of Sheik Mohammed, the crown prince of Dubai, will be a presence at Churchill.
To say that the sheik, who’s won many of the big races in Europe, his own Dubai World Cup and Breeders’ Cup races, thirsts for a Derby win would be an understatement.
In 1998, Godolphin spent an estimated $5 million for Worldly Manner, spiriting him away from Baffert when the colt was a 2-year-old, and watched him finish seventh in the ’99 Derby after running second for the opening mile. Last year, Godolphin finished sixth and seventh, respectively, with China Visit and Curule.
Conventional thinking is that it’s not whether Sheik Mohammed will ever win the Derby, it’s when. His pockets are as deep as Croesus’ and it doesn’t matter to him whether he buys, breeds or borrows a horse to win America’s premier race.
This time he’s coming with a pair--Street Cry and Express Tour--that raced exclusively in the U.S. as 2-year-olds. Street Cry, bred by the sheik, was part of a large draft of Godolphin horses that spent last year in California under the care of Eoin Harty, a former Baffert assistant. Express Tour was bought privately by Godolphin after he won three of four starts in Florida.
Both horses wintered in Dubai and have run only three times combined as 3-year-olds. Two weeks ago, Express Tour beat his stablemate by a head in the United Arab Emirates Derby. Street Cry had six races as a 2-year-old and will go to Kentucky with the same number of career starts as Point Given. Express Tour may run one more time before May 5, in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland on April 21. The Lexington was the race that catapulted Charismatic into the Derby winner’s circle in 1999.
Some horsemen say that the sheik has it backward. They say that he should be grooming his horses at home when they’re 2-year-olds, then toughening them up with the traditional U.S. prep races that usually produce Derby winners.
With Express Tour, he may be doing a little of this and a little of that, but there are no bulletins from Dubai that the grand plan is being retooled. The sheik is convinced that his way will eventually take him to Kentucky’s version of Mecca.
Notes
Giving Chris McCarron his 6,993rd career win, Printemps won the Santa Lucia Handicap by one length. It was the U.S. debut and first start of the year for the 4-year-old filly, who won five of seven starts in Chile.
Early Flyer, who worked seven furlongs Friday in 1:30 3/5, won’t run in the Santa Anita Derby. His next race is expected to be the California Derby at Bay Meadows next Saturday.
With McCarron riding Bienamado next Saturday in the San Juan Capistrano Handicap, Laffit Pincay will have the mount on Millennium Wind in the Blue Grass. Trainer David Hofmans said that Pincay will retain the mount should the colt run in the Kentucky Derby.
Pincay, who is riding I Love Silver in the Santa Anita Derby, is No. 3 on the Kentucky Derby list for most mounts, but hasn’t ridden in the race since 1994. He’s been in the Derby 19 times, ranking behind Bill Shoemaker with 26 mounts and Eddie Arcaro with 21. Pincay’s only Derby win was with Swale in 1984.
Pincay’s seven Santa Anita Derby wins have come from 23 mounts. He last won with Skywalker in 1985.
Gary Stevens, who rides Point Given, also has seven Santa Anita Derby wins. In 15 tries, Stevens also has four seconds, one third and three fourths. He’s won with seven of his last 12 mounts in the stake. . . . Shoemaker, who rode in the Santa Anita Derby 33 times, holds the stakes record with eight wins.
Morning-line favorites in other races today are Hoovergetthekeys, 9-5 in the Lone Star Derby; Dream Run, 2-1 in the Illinois Derby; Outofthebox, 8-5 in the Flamingo, and Wooden Phone, 9-5 in the Oaklawn Handicap.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
What’s Ahead
KENTUCKY DERBY PREP RACES
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Date Race Track Distance Today Santa Anita Derby Santa Anita 1 1/8 miles Today Illinois Derby Sportsman’s Park 1 1/8 miles Today Flamingo Stakes Hialeah Park 1 1/8 miles Today Lone Star Derby Lone Star Park 1 1/8 miles April 14 Blue Grass Stakes Keeneland 1 1/8 miles April 14 Wood Memorial Aqueduct 1 1/8 miles April 14 Arkansas Derby Oaklawn Park 1 1/8 miles April 21 Lexington Stakes Keeneland 1 1/16 miles April 28 Derby Trial Churchill Downs One mile
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TRIPLE CROWN RACES
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Date Race Track Distance May 5 Kentucky Derby Churchill Downs 1 1/4 miles May 19 Preakness Pimlico 1 3/16 miles June 9 Belmont Belmont 1 1/2 miles
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KY. DERBY WINNERS FROM FINAL PREP RACES THE LAST 25 YEARS
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Race Winners Last Winner as Final Prep Blue Grass Stakes 7 Thunder Gulch, 1995 Wood Memorial 6 Fusaichi Pegasus, 2000 Santa Anita Derby 6 Real Quiet, 1998 Arkansas Derby 3 Grindstone, 1996 Lexington Stakes 2 Charismatic, 1999 *Garden State 1 Spend A Buck, 1995 Flamingo Stakes 0 **Cannonade, 1974
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* Race no longer run
**1979 Kentucky Derby winner Spectacular Bid ran in Blue Grass after winning Flamingo.