For the second consecutive morning, trainer Jose Garoffalo was forced to postpone a scheduled work at Gulfstream Park for his Kentucky Derby hopeful Wildcat Red on Saturday due to heavy rains in south Florida.
Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin fretted for two weeks whether Cairo Prince would have enough points to make it into the Kentucky Derby field. One week after learning that Cairo Prince would indeed make it, McLaughlin had to withdraw the horse from consideration for the 140th Derby due to an injury to his left front ankle.
Vicar’s in Trouble was out for serious work Saturday when he breezed five furlongs in 1:00.40 over a fast track at the Trackside training center in Louisville, Ky.
California Chrome worked a half-mile in 47.80 seconds on Saturday morning at Los Alamitos, his penultimate work before heading to Churchill Downs, where he is the current favorite for the Kentucky Derby on May 3.
Candy Boy, third in the $1 million Santa Anita Derby on April 5, worked five furlongs in 59.80 seconds at Santa Anita on Saturday, his final local workout in advance of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 3.
On May 17, 1922, an 11-year-old gelding lined up against low-level claimers at New York’s Jamaica racecourse to compete for a thimble-sized purse. Perhaps he behaved badly; his manners, once kindly, had soured by this, his 80th career start. Did he even want to be there? Who knew?
Dance With Fate will run for the roses. After being noncommittal regarding a start in the Kentucky Derby following Dance With Fate’s victory in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes over Keeneland’s Polytrack on April 12, the colt’s connections announced Friday that the horse will run in North America’s most famous race May 3 at Churchill Downs.
Samraat, the multiple graded stakes winner who finished second in the Grade 1 Wood Memorial on April 5, picked up his preparations for the Kentucky Derby by working a half-mile in 48.77 seconds Friday morning over the Belmont Park main track.
The “Hawk” in Midnight Hawk refers to the Chicago Blackhawks, whose coach, Joel Quenneville, owns a piece of the colt, and many handicappers will view Midnight Hawk’s presence at Hawthorne in the Illinois Derby as something akin to the Blackhawks meeting a squad of 13-year-olds.
General a Rod, one of the main Kentucky Derby threats out of Florida this winter, had his first breeze since shipping to Kentucky when going five furlongs Thursday in 59.80 seconds at the Trackside training center.
