Super Ninety Nine will have to overcome post 11 on Saturday, when he starts as a strong favorite in the Grade 2, $600,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park. He is one of two starters in the 50-point Kentucky Derby qualifying race for trainer Bob Baffert, who also sends out Den’s Legacy.
Mr Palmer, the authoritative winner of last Saturday’s Private Terms Stakes at Laurel, will try to jump on the Triple Crown trail in the Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial on April 6.
Oxbow fired a bullet Tuesday morning at Oaklawn in his final prep for Saturday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Rebel, which has a potential field of 14 starters.
Trainer Keith Desormeaux reported Tuesday that he was informed that the ankle surgery performed the previous day on Ive Struck a Nerve “went about as well as can be expected. The colt came out of it just great and is standing and doing just fine.”
Titletown Five will make his next start in the Grade 3, $800,000 Sunland Derby and is to be ridden by Gary Stevens, trainer D. Wayne Lukas said Tuesday. The 1 1/8-mile prep is March 24.
Lost in the shadow of leading Kentucky Derby contender Verrazano’s popular triumph in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby was the breakout performance from runner-up Java’s War, an early-May foal who could prove a late-bloomer on the Kentucky Derby trail.
Last Saturday brought two more qualifying stakes events in the Kentucky Derby Championship Series as the Triple Crown prep season continued to unfold. The Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby and Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes each awarded 50 valuable points to the respective winners, vaulting them to a tie at the top of the Road to Kentucky Derby points standings after former points leader Ive Struck a Nerve was declared out of the Derby earlier in the week.
While Verrazano on Saturday was reconfirming his position as the ante-post favorite for the May 4 Kentucky Derby with his easy victory in the Tampa Bay Derby, the depth chart on the West Coast took on a new look as Hear the Ghost upset the previously unbeaten Flashback and highly regarded Goldencents in the San Felipe Stakes here at Santa Anita.
Verrazano, who ran his unbeaten record to three in the Tampa Bay Derby and remains the favorite for the May 4 Kentucky Derby, is being pointed to the Wood Memorial on April 6 at Aqueduct for his final Derby prep.
Ive Struck a Nerve, the 135-1 winner of the Risen Star Stakes last month at Fair Grounds, was scheduled to undergo surgery Monday at the Rood and Riddle equine hospital in Lexington, Ky., after suffering a fractured sesamoid in his left front ankle during a Saturday morning workout at the New Orleans track. The colt is expected to be sidelined for perhaps six months and will miss the Triple Crown series.
