Drum Roll Please proven at mile distance of Jerome

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Last month’s Grade 2 Remsen Stakes appears to have produced two Kentucky Derby contenders in Dornoch and Sierra Leone, who were separated by a nose in the nine-furlong race at Aqueduct.

Drum Roll Please, the third-place finisher in the Remsen, will try to jump on the Triple Crown trail Saturday when he heads a five-horse field entered in the $150,000 Jerome Stakes, a one-turn mile race at Aqueduct.

The Jerome is the first of four races for 3-year-olds at Aqueduct that offer qualifying points toward the May 4 Kentucky Derby, capped by the Wood Memorial in early April. However, the Jerome, which offers points on a 10-5-3-2-1 basis, has not been a starting point for many Derby horses. Since the race was moved to this spot on the calendar in 2013, only two horses – Vyjack (2013) and Firenze Fire (2018) – have started in the Run for the Roses.

Drum Roll Please, a Pennsylvania-bred son of Hard Spun trained by Brad Cox, won a one-mile maiden race by two lengths here Oct. 6, in his third career start. Two months later in the Remsen, he was simply third best in a 10-horse field.

“He stayed on well, nothing about the race that made us think he would not like the two turns,” Cox said. “We know he can handle the mile, this race was coming up at the right time. With a short field, it looks like a good race to get his 3-year-old campaign started.”

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Javier Castellano, aboard Drum Roll Please for his last two starts, is coming in from Florida to ride him Saturday.

Regalo, a son of Maximus Mischief, has won his last two starts in Maryland for trainer Brittany Russell, who believes what he’s done thus far has come on raw talent.

“He has a lot of natural ability, but I don’t think mentally it’s all clicked completely upstairs,” Russell said. “With racing he should get better. It’s coming easy right now for him. As the waters get a little deeper, we’ll see how he handles it.”

Sheldon Russell, Brittany’s husband, has the call from the outside in this five-horse field.

El Grande O started eight times as a 2-year-old and won two New York-bred stakes for Barry Schwartz and Linda Rice, including the Sleepy Hollow going a one-turn mile Oct. 29. After spending a month at Schwartz’s farm, El Grande O came back to get three works at Belmont Park leading to this.

Rice expects El Grande O to be part of the early pace under Kendrick Carmouche.

Sweet Soddy J wheels back one week after winning the Heft Stakes at Laurel Park on the front end. Though cross-entered in the Prevue Stakes at Turfway Park, owner Lynn Cash confirmed Thursday that Sweet Soddy J would run in the Jerome.

Cash said he was happy to see Sweet Soddy J switch leads appropriately in the Heft, something he had trouble doing in his seven previous starts.

Khanate, trained by Todd Pletcher, finished sixth in a Nov. 9 allowance at Churchill Downs last out. That race, however, did produce Catching Freedom, who won Monday’s Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park, and First World War, narrowly beaten in Monday’s Mucho Macho Man at Gulfstream Park.

With only five horses, the Jerome is carded as race 3 on Saturday’s nine-race card that includes the $150,000 Ladies Stakes for older females.

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