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This has already been a record-breaking spring for Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith in the buildup to the Triple Crown. Smith is bound for the Kentucky Derby on May 2 with So Happy, winner of Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby. The victory made Smith, 59, the oldest rider to win the track’s marquee race for 3-year-olds.
Croix du Nord, winner of the 2025 Japanese Derby, overcame an outside draw in a field of 15 to win the third Grade 1 race of his career in Sunday’s $3.6 million Osaka Hai at 1 1/4 miles at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan.
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Riley Mott, the 34-year-old trainer of Albus, is aware Albus needs to improve to be a factor in the Kentucky Derby, but he sees reason to believe the horse can’t do just that.
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He hit the mark in the Blue Grass Stakes, winning his first Grade 1 for owner Spendthrift Farm, which, not coincidentally, is in the business of standing stallions. He posted the widest margin of victory in any major Kentucky Derby prep, and no Derby starter will bring to the race a speed figure higher than the 106 Beyer he earned here Saturday. All that, and, obviously, trainer Brad Cox hopes Further Ado is not done yet.
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There is a carryover of $97,983 in Sunday’s $2 pick six at Santa Anita, and the entire pool must be distributed.
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Jockey Mike Smith’s day of surprise results on Saturday was not limited to So Happy’s win at 7-1 in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby.
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One of the big complaints I hear from racing fans is that we lose so many great horses to the breeding barn after their 3-year-old seasons. Efforts have been made to keep stallions on the track: the addition of many more rich races for the veterans, the so-called Gural rule, which declared that offspring of a stallion who did not race at 4 (unless injured) could not race in older stakes at the Meadowlands, Tioga or Vernon Downs, and other initiatives.
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Less than two months after his wife Dena died from cardiac arrest at 57, trainer Mark Glatt's So Happy scored an emotional victory over even-money favorite Potente in Saturday's Santa Anita Derby. So Happy is going to the Kentucky Derby. And for the first time, so is Glatt. But he acknowledged heartache after the race.
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Seventies Music closed fast in the slop for a nose win over a seemingly home-free Instamania in the $150,000 Rainbow Miss on Saturday at Oaklawn Park.
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The lightly raced Always a Runner, a filly her trainer Chad Brown calls a spitting image of her Kentucky Derby-bound stablemate Emerging Market, punched her ticket into the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks field with a 1 1/4-length victory over the pacesetting Pashmina Saturday at Aqueduct in the $200,000 Gazelle.
