Dynamic Impact, Midnight Hawk emerge strong from Illinois Derby

STICKNEY, Ill. – Dynamic Impact and Midnight Hawk, separated by a nose at the finish in Saturday’s Illinois Derby, both emerged from the race in good order, their trainers said Sunday morning. It’s extremely unlikely either horse would run in the Kentucky Derby, and while Dynamic Impact is a possible runner in the Preakness Stakes, Midnight Hawk will be switched to shorter one-turn races for a late spring and summer campaign.

The Grade 3, $500,000 Illinois Derby offers no Kentucky Derby qualifying points, but it produced one of the higher two-turn Beyer Speed Figures of the Triple Crown prep season, with the top two finishers both earning a 102. The nine-furlong race, contested over a glib but not radically fast racing surface, was timed in 1:49.07, the fastest Illinois Derby since 2008 and the second fastest since 1999.

Dynamic Impact, owned by John Oxley, traveled by van Saturday night to rejoin trainer Mark Casse’s string at Keeneland. Dynamic Impact lost his first four starts, and his only win before Saturday had come in an Oaklawn Park maiden race March 1, but the Tiznow colt began improving over the winter and continued his ascension in the Illinois Derby. Breaking from post 1 under Miguel Mena, he came through along the inside and challenged heavily favored Midnight Hawk for the lead from the middle of the clubhouse turn to the end of the far turn before swinging outside for the homestretch, where he gradually wore down Midnight Hawk.

“I thought he showed a lot of gameness,” Casse said. “He went at the horse from the very start. It was all legit. If you look at some of these races recently, like the Wood and the Arkansas Derby, you can see that some of these horses, it just takes them a little while to develop.”

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]

Casse said there was “no chance” he and Oxley would try to get Dynamic Impact into the Kentucky Derby, for which the colt has no qualifying points.

“We may look at the Preakness,” Casse said. “We’ll see how the next week or two play out. First, we’ll have to see how he trains.”

Midnight Hawk, who traveled by van Sunday to Churchill Downs, has sufficient qualifying points to run in the Kentucky Derby but will almost certainly not start in the race and also is very unlikely for the Preakness Stakes, according to Baffert, who plans to point Midnight Hawk to the seven-furlong Woody Stephens Stakes on the Belmont Stakes undercard.

“I think he wants the cutback [in distance],” Baffert said. “He’s got that brilliance.”

Midnight Hawk earned his fourth straight placing in a two-turn graded stakes after winning the Grade 3 Sham Stakes over one mile following a debut victory at seven furlongs. Midnight Hawk stumbled slightly at the start, then tried to lug in while turning his head toward the stands during the stretch run, though he galloped out more strongly than in any of his recent races, passing Dynamic Impact not long after the finish.

“He did everything but win,” said Baffert. “He’s a quirky kind of horse. When he makes a heavy lead like that, he gets to gawking around. It was like Real Quiet in the Belmont: ahead before the wire, ahead after the wire.”

With Midnight Hawk expected to pass the Derby, Harry’s Holiday becomes the 20th-ranked horse on Churchill’s qualifying points system that mainly determines the Derby field if the connections of more than 20 horses want to run, while Commanding Curve moves into the 21st slot.