Trainer John Shirreffs’ steady approach has him back at Kentucky Derby with Skinner
John Shirreffs has been training horses for more than four decades. He doesn’t have a big stable and averages fewer than 100 starts a year. He’s the personification of slow and steady.
So it was no surprise that he wasn’t going to bring his 3-year-old colt Skinner to the Kentucky Derby without being assured he would make the starting gate. He was at the top of the list if a spot in the 20-horse field opened up but that wasn’t good enough. Too risky.
“I felt that we better be in the field rather than ship here and just hope to get in,” Shirreffs said, standing outside the single stall he had been assigned at Churchill Downs. “At that late a time I didn’t think it would be a very good opportunity.”
Obviously, Skinner did make the field but Shirreffs acknowledged he didn’t like the way he got in. A spot opened when Wild on Ice was injured during training April 27 and was subsequently euthanized.
Four horses have died during the past week at Churchill Downs, casting an unwanted spotlight ahead of the 149th Kentucky Derby scheduled for Saturday.
This will be Shirreffs’ sixth appearance at the Kentucky Derby, which is Saturday. He set a high bar the first time in 2005 when Giacomo, at 50-1, stunned the racing world as he rallied from far behind to win the race.
“Giacomo was such a special moment in my life,” said the 77-year-old trainer. “With Giacomo it was my first time at the Kentucky Derby, maybe my second time at Churchill. I had that wonderful feeling of coming to Churchill Downs to run in the Kentucky Derby.
“It’s a special feeling when it first happens. We had a wonderful crew with me. We were all pumped up. When [Giacomo] first came here he galloped around the race track and the rider said, ‘He really likes this track.’ Things just started click, click, clicking into place.”
Shirreffs seems the perfect trainer for Skinner. He was not a cheap purchase with Lee and Susan Searing putting up $510,000 to buy the horse. The Searings use several trainers but their best horses tend to end up with Shirreffs. Skinner’s sire is Curlin, whose progeny tend to be slow developing. And Shirreffs does not rush into anything.
‘I’ve never taken the time to understand the [handicapping] sheets but a lot of people do and they say his numbers are really competitive with the field.’
— Trainer John Shirreffs on Kentucky Derby entry Skinner
Did Shirreffs think Skinner was a Derby horse?
“Oh no, I didn’t think that,” Shirreffs said. “But obviously you go to the sale and spend a lot of money on horses and hope that something like that can happen.”
Skinner didn’t win until his fourth race. He followed that with third-place finishes in the San Felipe Stakes and Santa Anita Derby.
“In his first few races he was a little immature and didn’t understand the concept of horses kicking dirt in his face and getting squeezed and things like that,” Shirreffs said. “Since then he’s had a lot of good racing experience.”
Skinner, at 20-1 on the morning line, is holding firm as the top horse by the “wiseguys,” the euphemism used for professional gamblers. There is one or two every year and they go off at odds much lower than expected.
Santa Anita-based Practical Move will break from the 10 and is listed at 10-1 on the morning line. Skinner is just inside him in the 9 at 20-1.
“I’ve never taken the time to understand the [handicapping] sheets but a lot of people do and they say his numbers are really competitive with the field,” Shirreffs said.
Skinner will have a new jockey for the Derby. Shirreffs made the difficult decision to not use three-time Derby winner and Hall of Fame jockey Victor Espinoza, who had ridden the colt the last five times. Instead, he went with Juan Hernandez, the leading jockey at Santa Anita who has never been in a Derby.
“Victor is a good friend of mine,” Shirreffs said, acknowledging the hurt feelings it can cause when a jockey is taken off a horse late in the Derby season. “I didn’t need the change but I thought maybe Skinner needed a change. I was hoping a different rider would get to Skinner in a different way and that might help him in that last little bit.”
After Giacomo, Shirreffs ran A.P. Warrior (18th) in 2006, Tiago (seventh) in 2007, Gormley (ninth) in 2017 and Honor A.P. (fourth) in 2020. The trainer has noticed one change at the Kentucky Derby through the years.
“Obviously everyone wants to run in the Derby,” Shirreffs said, “but now you have to earn points to get your horse in and I think that’s very important. But once that horse has qualified for the Derby, people don’t want to take any chances. Getting that spot is the most important thing.
Even after 50 years, Secretariat is the standard against which all horses are measured. His Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont records still stand.
“It’s still the Derby and to every generation the Derby is the Derby. Things change generationally. Or maybe I’ve changed but it seems like running in the Derby is something that everybody wants to do.”
It’s extremely unlikely any horse Shirreffs trains now or in the future will top his 20-race run with Zenyatta, arguably the greatest female horse. She won 19 of those races.
She made her first start in late November of her 3-year-old campaign. Shirreffs does not rush things. It’s a formula that seems to be working.
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