This was one of the strangest Kentucky Derby preps in years, with FROSTED looking like he couldn’t lose at the quarter pole only to finish fourth, UPSTART crossing the wire first, and then the stewards making a much-debated decision to disqualify Upstart in favor of the runner-up ITSAKNOCKOUT.
The day after a controversial running of the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, the only certainties were that Itsaknockout was going to return in the Florida Derby, the trainer of Upstart still was smarting over being disqualified, and the trainer of Frosted still was baffled as to how his horse wound up fourth after looking like a winner.
El Kabeir, who is attempting to take New York’s pot-hole-laden road to the Kentucky Derby, squeezed in a half-mile workout Sunday morning at Belmont Park and remains on course for a start March 7 in the Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct.
Ghost Is Clear won his third straight race on Saturday night, when he edged Daybreak Dreamer by a nose in the $50,000 Sam Houston Sprint Cup. It was another length and a half back in third to Rise Up.
Exhibiting versatility that few horses have, I'm a Chatterbox won the $175,000, Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra Stakes by 2 1/2 lengths Saturday at Fair Grounds.
Owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey and trainer Mike Maker got the Lecomte Stakes and the Louisiana Derby last year with Vicar’s In Trouble, and on Saturday at Fair Grounds, they took down the one major 3-year-old stakes here they missed in 2014 as International Star won the Risen Star by one length over War Story.
Bettys Bambino held off a threat from Ambitious Brew to win the Sensational Star Stakes for California-breds at Santa Anita.
Street Babe, a 4-year-old gelding who was making his third start, and jockey Kerwin Clark, who picked up the mount shortly before entries were taken Monday, combined for a 21-1 victory Saturday in the $125,000, Grade 3 Mineshaft Handicap at Fair Grounds.
Where’s The Moon put himself in the picture for next month’s Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Park Derby with his Saturday win in the track’s $100,000 Mine That Bird Derby.
Todd Pletcher called it “a jump ball.” And he won. Rick Violette Jr. was less hospitable. “That’s a terrible call,” he said. Both trainers were reacting on the track to a decision announced just seconds before by track announcer Larry Collmus, that stewards had disqualified the Violette-trained Upstart for interference, placing Pletcher’s Itsaknockout first, after an extremely odd running of the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
