Irap getting good at just the right time

For a Kentucky Derby starter, Irap has had a fluctuating status in the last five months.

Last December, Irap was a game second to the highly regarded Mastery in the Grade 1 Los Alamitos Futurity, triggering Triple Crown hopes for owners Paul and Zillah Reddam and trainer Doug O’Neill.

“I thought he had that kind of ability,” O’Neill said this week.

Within a few months, those hopes were fading, dimmed by a second in the Mine That Bird Derby and a fourth in the Sunland Park Derby in New Mexico in March.

“We were all floored at how poorly he ran at Sunland Park,” O’Neill said. “He couldn’t blow out a match after the race.”

Reddam insisted on one more try in a Triple Crown prep in the Grade 2 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 8. A 31-1 outsider, Irap became the first maiden to win the Blue Grass and gained a berth in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs next Saturday.

If Irap wins, the colt would give the Reddams and O’Neill their second consecutive win in the Kentucky Derby and their third win in the last six runnings. They won with the longshot I’ll Have Another in 2012 and last year with Nyquist, the champion 2-year-old male of 2015.

The only other owner to have that much success in as short a period of time is Calumet Farm, which won the Kentucky Derby with Citation in 1948, Ponder in 1949, and Hill Gail in 1952. Calumet has won the Kentucky Derby a record eight times.

A win by Irap would leave the Reddams tied for third on the all-time list of Derby wins for owners with Belair Stud, which won the race with Triple Crown winners Gallant Fox (1930) and Omaha (1935) and added a third Derby win with Johnstown in 1939.

O’Neill, 48, could move into a tie for fifth among trainers with three wins. Irap will be ridden by 30-year-old Mario Gutierrez, who rode I’ll Have Another and Nyquist. Eddie Arcaro and Bill Hartack each won the Derby a record five times. Gutierrez could join seven other jockeys with three wins and tie for fourth on the all-time list.

In terms of expectations, this year feels more like 2012 with I’ll Have Another than last year with Nyquist, O’Neill said.

“We’re going in under the radar, which is fine,” he said. “None of that matters as long as he’s doing good. Just to have another opportunity is incredible.”

In an e-mail Thursday, Paul Reddam agreed with O’Neill and displayed his dry humor.

“There’s not too much pressure as all the experts have dismissed him,” Reddam wrote. “Hopefully, he won’t embarrass us too badly as he seems to be blossoming now. Just by chance, with a 20-horse field, there is a 95 percent chance of losing, so if we keep that perspective, we won’t be sweating come race time.”

There was little hope for a start at Churchill Downs after the Sunland Park Derby on March 26. A 6-1 shot in a field of 11, Irap could only finish 8 1/2 lengths behind Hence, fading from third in early stretch. A shot at the Triple Crown seemed unlikely.

Irap, a Tiznow colt bought for $300,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. auction of 2-year-olds in training in March 2016, had lost seven starts. He was winless in three maiden races in Southern California but also was second to Royal Mo in the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita on Feb. 4 before the two starts at Sunland Park.

Reddam, 61, said the Blue Grass crossed his mind as an opportunity to start Irap in a seven-figure race as opposed to a routine maiden race at Santa Anita.

“We approach things a little differently than some others,” he said of his stable. “I would liken it to someone who tries to hit home runs in baseball vs. batting for average. The home-run hitter is going to strike out a lot more, but every once in a while, the ball goes over the fence.

“The conventional thing would have been to send him back to Santa Anita for a maiden. My view was that there will always be another maiden, but the million-dollar Derby preps happen only once.”

Sent off at 31-1 in the Blue Grass, Irap stalked the pace to the turn before taking the lead. The colt held off Practical Joke to win by three-quarters of a length, earning sufficient qualifying points to start in the Kentucky Derby, finally winning for the first time, and earning $600,000.

“He’s a very talented horse that needs things to go his way,” O’Neill said. “In the Blue Grass, he got a dream trip. In the Blue Grass, he was the same colt who had shown us stamina and ability in the morning.”

Dream trips are hard to find in the Kentucky Derby, but so is gaining a berth in the race. The Reddams and O’Neill will be at Churchill Downs next Saturday with a colt who has made a startling rise in the division in the last month.