Essential Quality wins Blue Grass Stakes, looks to be Kentucky Derby favorite
The Kentucky Derby lineup took its near final shape Saturday with three major prep races scattered in New York, Kentucky and California. And the top of the board stayed the same as Essential Quality continued to establish himself as the Derby favorite with a hard-fought victory in the $800,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.
The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner had run only once this year, winning the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn, before Saturday’s race in Kentucky. If he were to complete the Juvenile-Derby double, he would only be the third horse to do it, joining Street Sense and Nyquist.
Essential Quality paid $3.00 to win. The margin was a neck.
Highly Motivated was second and earned 40 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, while California-based Rombauer finished third and got 20, bringing him to 34. Currently the cut point for the starting gate at Churchill Downs is 40 points, but that is before horses withdraw because of injuries or other issues. It puts Rombauer on the bottom of the bubble.
Rock Your World, after two wins on turf, made his debut on dirt and won the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby by 4¼ lengths to clinch a Kentucky Derby spot.
There is one more major prep race, the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn next Saturday. It has 100-40-20-10 Derby points on the line. Concert Tour, considered the top horse in Bob Baffert’s barn, is scheduled to run in the race.
The $750,000 Wood Memorial winner at Aqueduct in New York could not have been more of a surprise, as Bourbonic pulled a major upset winning by a head. He paid $146.50 for a $2 win bet. But the Wood hasn’t had great success recently sending horses to Louisville to win the Kentucky Derby. The last horse to do that double was Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000.
If trainer Todd Pletcher leaves Kendrick Carmouche in the saddle, he will only be the third Black jockey to run in the Derby in 100 years. Carmouche has made almost 21,000 starts in his career, but this would be his first Derby start.
“I was just going to sit, sit, sit, sit and hopefully get out the last quarter of a mile,” Carmouche said. “I knew he would go on from there. My horse was in a good stride. Each pole, I was picking them up one by one without even asking.”
Bourbonic joins Known Agenda, winner of the Florida Derby, as Kentucky Derby starters for Pletcher.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred supported his players, managers and owners by moving the 2021 All-Star game out of Atlanta over Georgia voting rights law.
The top race on Santa Anita’s Saturday’s undercard was the Grade 2, $400,000 Santa Anita Oaks for 3-year-old fillies going 1 1/8 miles. It was a field of five, which dropped to four when Brilliant Cut, partly owned by UCLA coach Mick Cronin, scratched. It was a competitive race at the top of the stretch and until the final sixteenth when Soothsay pulled ahead to win by half a length. Soothsay paid $10.40 and $3.60. There was no show betting.
However, trainer Richard Mandella, seemed to hint Soothsay would not be going on to the Kentucky Oaks, the biggest race for 3-year-old fillies.
“We expected a lot of her from the first start and from that start until now she just grew up,” Mandella said. “You kind of see it happening, otherwise we wouldn’t do something like this. … We’ll see [about the Oaks]. We asked a lot of her to do this, so we’ll make sure we pare back whatever we need. It’s a nice dream.”
Other graded stakes winners at Santa Anita were Charmaine’s Mia ($3.20 to win) in the Grade 2, $200,000 Royal Heroine Stakes for older horses going a mile on the turf and Going Global ($3.40) in the Grade 3, $100,000 Providencia Stakes for 3-year-old fillies going 1 1/8 miles on the turf.
There were two stakes restricted to 3-year-old Cal-breds going 6½ furlongs. Beccas Taylor ($5.00) won the race for females, and The Chosen Vron ($3.20) won for males.
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