Credit Matejka for Accredit's win – and price – in Dueling Grounds Derby
FRANKLIN, Ky. – Pavel Matejka has won 60 races in a training career dating to 2005, with his two greatest wins coming in remarkably similar fashion.
Before Matejka saddled Accredit for a 36-1 upset of the $732,325 Dueling Grounds Derby on the opening-day card Sunday at Kentucky Downs, his biggest win had come nearly six years ago, when One Go All Go was a 35-1 winner of the $400,000, Grade 2 Commonwealth Derby at Laurel Park on Sept. 19, 2015.
One Go All Go and Accredit both held sway to prevail by exactly one length as wire-to-wire winners in turf routes restricted to 3-year-olds. The only other previous stakes winner for Matejka, a 44-year-old native of the Czech Republic, was Forewarned, who captured a $75,000 race at Thistledown in June 2018.
Matejka lives on a farm adjacent to the Thoroughbred training center in Lexington, Ky. He has maintained a decidedly low profile through the years, and there can be little doubt that if a trainer of greater repute had sent out Accredit on Sunday, the tote price would have been considerably lower. After all, from his six prior starts, all this year, Accredit had been good enough to win a maiden-special on the Keeneland turf and a first-level allowance on the Churchill Downs turf. In July, the colt finished second as the favorite in the American Derby on the Arlington Park turf.
“When he gets his trip, I think he can run with anyone,” Matejka said after Martin Garcia craftily rated the Flatter colt on an open lead throughout the 1 5/16-mile Dueling Grounds Derby contested over the undulating turf course rated yielding.
“When he was turning for home in the lead, we were very confident. We have a private gallop, a half-mile grass gallop, that is uphill and downhill. That’s where he was training the last couple of weeks, and we knew that he liked it.”
Matejka owns a minor share in Accredit, with Bob Grayson Jr. of California owning the majority. The colt was bred in Kentucky by Beau Lane.
In contrast to the Accredit stunner, the results of the previous race on the 11-race Sunday opener, the $480,400 Dueling Grounds Oaks, were far more predictable. Adventuring, trained by Brad Cox for the Godolphin powerhouse of Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum, was a dominant winner as the 11-10 favorite, leading almost every step of the 1 5/16-mile race for 3-year-old fillies.
Jimmy Bell, who manages American operations for Godolphin, expressed skepticism afterward as to whether Adventuring would try top-class older fillies and mares in her next start. The homebred daughter of the late Pioneerof the Nile is now 1 for 3 on grass, with this being her second career stakes win following the Bourbonette over the Turfway Park synthetic in March.
“We really just wanted to see how she performed in this race,” said Bell. “Boy, there are some bears out there right now” in the filly-mare turf division.
The Dueling Grounds companion races were the first two of 16 stakes to be run at this six-day meet.