The 3-year-old colt Dornoch was named for the seaside town and famed golf club on the northern east coast of Scotland. The name is pronounced “DOOR-knock,” yet everyone wants to emphasize the “knock” when it comes to this horse. Despite ending his 2-year-old season with a game victory in the Grade 2 Remsen and beginning his 3-year-old campaign with a solid win in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, Dornoch enters Keeneland’s Blue Grass Stakes under a cloud of skepticism. It’s almost like Dornoch didn’t beat Sierra Leone in the Remsen. Sierra Leone is the 2-1 Blue Grass morning-line favorite, Dornoch listed at 3-1, and on the line for Pool 6 of Churchill Downs’s Derby Future Wager, which closes Saturday afternoon, Sierra Leone is 6-1, half Dornoch’s price. Dornoch, the theory goes, rode an intense speed bias to Remsen glory, and Sierra Leone still would have won had he not gotten green and lugged in after coming from last to pass Dornoch in the final furlong. Dornoch gets little credit for shrugging off several pace challengers, all of whom faded into oblivion, and re-rallying to best Sierra Leone after hitting the inside rail at about the three-sixteenths pole. “If he doesn’t hit the rail, [jockey Luis Saez] says he wins by three or four,” said Danny Gargan, who trains Dornoch for a partnership, explaining that Dornoch “ducked from the whip” when he made his untimely swerve. Dornoch won the Fountain of Youth by 1 3/4 lengths and earned a 90 Beyer Speed Figure. Sierra Leone won the Risen Star a week earlier, earning a 90 Beyer while winning by a half-length. Sierra Leone was lauded for closing resolutely into a slow pace. Dornoch was widely panned for an uninspiring tally over inferior competition. :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2024: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more Gargan said the plan had been to sit Dornoch off a rival and pass late to win. Instead, Dornoch set the pace, and it was only after a belated lead change that he got any separation on Le Dom Bro and Frankie’s Empire. Those two came back to get pasted in the Florida Derby. “He was about 85 percent,” Gargan said. “We can’t help no one in the race was fast.” Dornoch, who began a three-race winning streak with a strong maiden victory last fall at Keeneland, has been favored in his last four starts and was 1-5 in the Fountain of Youth. Gargan thinks he comes to the Blue Grass out of the spotlight. Yet all the skepticism might be merited. Dornoch got a 90 Beyer in his maiden win and hasn’t improved upon it. He remains a work in progress and still can react negatively to a right-handed crop. He has yet to master lead changes. Those go fine during workouts when Dornoch has a target, but when Dornoch leads in an actual race, he’s liable to lose focus. And if Dornoch lacks standout qualities, it could send one down a Blue Grass rabbit hole. Sierra Leone, after all, lost to Dornoch after a debut win at a one-turn mile. His trainer, Chad Brown, added blinkers for the Risen Star, hoping to keep Sierra Leone from falling too far off the pace, which worked. Sierra Leone, racing over a wet track for the second time, did get his final furlong in 12.22 in the nine-furlong Risen Star, but four horses finished in 12 and change in a race that shaped slow-early, fast-late. Track Phantom, the pacesetter Sierra Leone ran down, was only fourth returning in the Louisiana Derby. Sierra Leone, a $2.3 million Gun Runner yearling with a flawed stride, overflows with stamina but lacks positional pace. He already has enough qualifying points to make the Derby and merely needs to hold serve in the Blue Grass, though his high-profile connections surely would love stamping the colt’s résumé with a Grade 1 Saturday. :: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!  Sierra Leone and Tyler Gaffalione break from post 10 in the 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass, a $1 million race with 200 Derby qualifying points (divvied up 100-50-25-10-5) at stake. Brown, interestingly, has two other entrants, rail-drawn second-time starter Top Conor and Good Money, part of a blanket finish when fourth March 9 in a modest renewal of the Tampa Bay Derby. The only horse drawn outside Sierra Leone is Encino, the lesser of two Brad Cox-trained entrants. Encino will be making his dirt debut after three winter starts, the last a March 2 win in the John Battaglia over Turfway Park’s Tapeta surface. Cox and owner-breeder Godolphin want to see if they might yet have a dirt horse. Encino, by Nyquist, has worked twice over Keeneland’s main track. “He’s handled it fine, but you never really know,” said Cox. The Cox-trained Just a Touch’s third career start marks his two-turn debut and first try over a fast track. Highly regarded Just a Touch debuted with a sharp sprint win at sloppy Fair Grounds, then was second after stalking the pace through a sea of Aqueduct mud in the Gotham, a one-turn mile. Just a Touch had position to win, but Deterministic packed a stronger finishing punch. “He was a little late to get to the races, kind of by design, covers a lot of ground, good-moving horse,” Cox said. “We kind of targeted the Blue Grass for a while. The race in New York made sense.” If Florent Geroux rides Just a Touch to press or stalk the pace, another Turfway denizen, overmatched Epic Ride, might make the lead. Good Money also has speed, and the enigmatic Top Conor stalked a quick one-turn mile pace winning his lone start. Top Conor had been aimed at the Wood Memorial, but Brown altered plans when it looked like the colt, a $1 million Twirling Candy yearling, wouldn’t make the field. Drawn on the rail under Jose Ortiz, Top Conor could be tapped for gate speed. Gargan would prefer a target for Dornoch, but if no one goes hard, Dornoch leads. Just a Touch doesn’t feel like value, even with Sierra Leone and Dornoch taking action. Seize the Grey raced March 23, turning in a tepid third in the Jeff Ruby. His top dirt Beyer falls flat at 82, which towers over deep longshot Mugatu’s peak. Lat Long hasn’t been fast enough but did check in a mildly creditable third behind Track Phantom and Nash when last seen Jan. 20 in the Lecomte Stakes, after which trainer Kenny McPeek backed off to point for the Blue Grass. “We felt if he was ever going be a top horse, he was going to need to fill out, get a little bigger and stronger,” said McPeek, who said Lat Long’s March 31 bullet half-mile in 46.40 March 31 at Churchill took him by surprise. That leaves Be You, very much under the radar and likely an overlay. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Be You showed signs of becoming a top horse at 2 without putting everything together, and it was only when trainer Todd Pletcher cut the Curlin colt back to seven furlongs March 2 that Be You, who tried two Grade 1s in 2023, cleared the maiden ranks. He did so with verve, traveling sweetly under Irad Ortiz Jr. before launching a stretch rally that carried him to a sharp win and a 96 Beyer, tops in the Blue Grass. Was it the shorter distance that boosted Be You? Or has the colt just found himself? “We’ll soon find out,” said Pletcher, who, with Repole Stable, Be You’s owner, already has the Derby favorite, Fierceness. “He’s always been a solid horse, but I do think his works have improved. He went in company with Fierceness and held his own.” The Blue Grass, post time 5:52 p.m. Eastern, is the last of five graded stakes at Keeneland and is part of a national Derby prep pick three with the Wood and the Santa Anita Derby. Start knocking the favorites, and who knows where you might land. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.