Kentucky Derby: Un Ojo puts in sharp final half-mile drill
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – After firing off a brisk work last weekend, Un Ojo did so again Saturday morning at Churchill Downs in his final half-mile work in advance of the Kentucky Derby.
Un Ojo, working on his own during the training period reserved for Derby and Oaks horses following the first harrow break on the fast main track, went a half-mile in 47.60 seconds under Colby Hernandez, according to Churchill Downs clockers. It was the 13th-fastest of 121 works at the distance on a busy morning.
"He did it really easy," Clay Courville, the son and assistant of trainer Ricky Courville, said as his father walked the gelding in the shed row after the breeze. "Colby said he galloped out really strong. He said every pole, he kept getting faster and faster."
Last Saturday, Un Ojo breezed five furlongs in 59.40, the second-fastest of 70 moves that morning. Clay Courville said that the one-eyed New York-bred gelding wasn't always this sharp in the mornings.
"Growing up, not really – he wasn't really the best work horse," he said. "But now that he's developed into the horse he is now, every time we've worked him lately, he's been working excellent."
Un Ojo galloped this week in a hood designed to protect his empty left socket, where he lost an eye due to an accident as a yearling. Ultimately, the Courvilles elected not to breeze him in it, and he will not wear it on race day.
"He's never had it before, so why change it?" Clay Courville said.
Un Ojo finished second in the Grade 3 Withers Stakes in February, then put himself squarely in the Derby picture with a $152.80 upset victory in the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn three weeks later. He finished eighth in the Arkansas Derby four weeks ago with a legitimate excuse, as, in tight traffic, he was bounced off the rail, emerging with a wound below his left shoulder that required two staples. Those were removed less than a week later, and Un Ojo returned to the work tab with a five-furlong move April 16 at the Training Center at Copper Crowne in Louisiana before vanning to Churchill Downs.
Ramon Vazquez has the mount for the Derby.