Stone set to call first Kentucky Derby
Travis Stone has been acclimating himself to the announcer’s booth at Churchill, where he became the regular caller when the spring meet opened Saturday night.
Marty McGeeApr 30, 2015
Travis Stone has been acclimating himself to the announcer’s booth at Churchill, where he became the regular caller when the spring meet opened Saturday night.
Bettors who took 3-5 on the mutuel field in Pool 1 of the 2015 Kentucky Derby Future Wager last fall will have 13 horses on their side Saturday, but the top three morning-line choices – American Pharoah, Dortmund, and Carpe Diem – were separately listed interests in that opening pool, jeopardizing that play.
Racing fans annually lament the low quality of the horses in the Kentucky Derby, and often their assessment proves to be correct. But few such opinions are being voiced before Saturday’s running of America’s greatest race. This is the strongest, deepest, and fastest Derby field since at least 2007 (the year of Street Sense and Curlin), and it could conceivably be the best since the great years of the 1980s.
Stanford has been scratched from the Kentucky Derby, allowing Frammento to get in, according to trainer Todd Pletcher, who said he just called in the scratch to the stewards.
The Grade 3, $150,000 Fort Marcy at 1 1/8 miles Saturday at Belmont Park will mark the 4-year-old debut of Travers winner V.E. Day.
The Ohio State Racing Commission has approved funding to conduct studies on the effects of cobalt on a horse, a decision that likely will delay significantly any rule in the state regulating the administration of the substance.
Parx Racing has put together a nice Derby Day card of its own, which will feature four $75,000 stakes and a no-conditions allowance race with a $54,000 purse. The Parx Derby and Oaks, both at a mile and 70 yards, are new to the calendar this season under first-year Director of Racing Sam Elliott. They will be joined Saturday by two seven-furlong Pennsylvania-bred stakes, the Lyman Handicap and the Foxy J. G.
Forget becoming a Hall of Famer or a legend. All these folks want to do Saturday is emulate the likes of jockeys Ronnie Franklin and Stewart Elliott or trainers Barclay Tagg and Chip Woolley.
Derby Angles features DRF handicappers looking at individual handicapping factors and how they may play out in this year’s Kentucky Derby.
Five years removed from what appeared on the outside to be one of the most ignominious and rapid falls from grace in modern American racing history, Ahmed Zayat is back on top.