Drum Roll Please overcomes slow pace to take Jerome

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Javier Castellano won his first Kentucky Derby in 2023 and it’s a feeling the 46-year-old jockey would certainly like to experience again.

Castellano rode Drum Roll Please to a third-place finish in last month’s Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct and thought enough of him to want to ride him back in the colt’s 3-year-old debut Saturday back in New York.

It remains to be seen if Drum Roll Please is the one Castellano will be aboard in the 150th Kentucky Derby on May 4, but the colt did take the next step in his quest to get there, when he ran by the pace-setting El Grande O inside the eighth pole and drew clear to win the $145,000 Jerome Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths. El Grande O, the New York-bred making his 3-year-old debut, finished second by 7 1/2 lengths over Khanate, who stumbled at the break. It was far back to Regalo and Sweet Soddy J.

The win earned Drum Roll Please 10 qualifying points towards the Derby and gives him 13 points overall in the system Churchill Downs uses to determine the field if more than 20 enter the race.

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Breaking from the rail in a compact five-horse field, Castellano let the front-runners go and had his horse last, but only two lengths back of El Grande O, who, under Kendrick Carmouche, set fractions of 24.50 seconds for the quarter and 49.06 for the half, over what appeared to be a deep track. Regalo prompted first then Khanate picked up the chase and was a half-length back after six furlongs in 1:14.92.

Castellano took Drum Roll Please to the outside approaching the quarter pole and, though late to change leads, he accelerated some when he did, going by El Grande O inside the eighth pole and drew clear.

Neither the final quarter of 26.99 seconds nor the final time of 1:41.91 for the mile will excite – maidens went .23 seconds faster in the only other mile race on the card – but this was a starting point for Drum Roll Please, a son of Hard Spun owned by Al Gold and trained by Brad Cox.

“I like the way he did it because it was a slow pace, [he came] off the pace, deep track, he did it the right way,” Castellano said. “Behind horses, he got dirt in the face, education, step up outside and finish. This is the type of preparation I like to do for the horses.”

Carmouche noted the deep track as a hurdle his horse, El Grande O, couldn’t overcome in his first start since Oct. 29.

“They went [24,50, 49.06] on this track and that’s the slowest they went in two months over here,” Carmouche said. “That tells you they might have put more salt in it to get ready [for the forecasted winter storm.] I went slow enough, no excuse.”

The win for Castellano took some of the sting out of not being named an Eclipse Award finalist for Outstanding jockey in 2023 despite his victories in the Kentucky Derby on Mage and Belmont Stakes on Arcangelo.

“It is what it is,” Castellano, a four-time Eclipse Award winner, said. “Thank God, I have a great year, win two Triple Crown races in the same year, the Travers, the United Nations, Jockey Club. Thank God, I was able to come back to the big picture and the high level, I’m just grateful.”

Plans for Drum Roll Please will be decided later on. Since he has two wins and a third in the Remsen at Aqueduct, a start in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes going 1 1/8 miles here on Feb. 3 could be the logical next step, according to Joe Hardoon, racing manager for Gold.

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