Maximum Security and Bodexpress, the one-two finishers in the Florida Derby, and Plus Que Parfait, the winner of the United Arab Emirates Derby, are the three newcomers to this week's Derby Watch top 20, which as the Derby draws closer will significantly adhere to the current points list.
Ten new names are in the lineup for the fourth and final pool in the 2019 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which opens Friday at noon Eastern for the customary three-day run.
When Maybry's Boy won the Spectacular Bid Stakes at Gulfstream Park in the winter of 2002 his neophyte owner Randy Hill thought “This game's not that hard.”
Road to the Derby: Florida Derby analysis
Al Ain won his first Grade 1 race in nearly two years with a 21-1 upset in Sunday’s $2.09 million Osaka Hai at 1 1/4 miles on turf at Hanshin Racecourse in Japan.
There was little time for trainer Bill Mott to wallow in the disappointment that was Hidden Scroll’s sixth-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 1 Florida Derby. Twelve hours after one of his horses stepped off the Kentucky Derby trail, Mott watched another, Tacitus, put in his final workout for next Saturday’s Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.
Extra Hope, Roadster, and Synthesis – half the probable starters for Saturday’s Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby – had their final prerace workouts on Sunday.
Trainer Jason Servis said all was well Sunday morning with his undefeated Florida Derby winner, Maximum Security, who earned a 101 Beyer Speed Figure for his relatively easy, wire-to-wire victory in the Grade 1 fixture here Saturday.
Like cherry blossoms annually blooming in the spring, it has become a rite rather than an exception that the number of horses with designs on the Kentucky Derby exceeds the 20 who are allowed to start. Because of that, the system used to cap the starting Derby field – a points system first employed in 2013 – itself becomes critical and open to scrutiny.
