Verrazano may be No. 1 on many Kentucky Derby contenders lists, but history shows that Saturday’s Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby is a race that puts the “yips” in trainer Pletcher’s putter. Out West, the San Felipe features an early season showdown between Flashback and Goldencents.
No one said there would be this much arithmetic in horse racing beyond odds, fractions, Beyer Figures and beer prices. But here we are, on the brink of the final push to the Kentucky Derby, obsessively consulting point charts and point totals.
Like a couple of hawks, Flashback and Goldencents have circled their prey for months at Santa Anita. Goldencents won the Sham in January, Flashback the Robert B. Lewis in February. They are considered California’s two leading prospects, at present, for the May 4 Kentucky Derby, and on Saturday, they will meet for the first time in the Grade 2, $300,000 San Felipe Stakes.
You can hear the excitement in trainer Todd Pletcher’s voice just talking about Verrazano, his undefeated and still untested Kentucky Derby prospect, who’ll take center stage when making his stakes debut Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs in the $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby.
There is something Flashback lacks going into Saturday’s much-anticipated matchup against Goldencents in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes: a blemish on his résumé. And with horseplayers seeing nothing but “blue sky,” he seems assured of getting hammered at the betting windows and starting as an odds-on favorite.
Richard “Dickie” Small, a lifelong horseman who was a Green Beret in his younger days, has been stricken in the last couple of years by an aggressive form of cancer. But that hasn’t stopped the 67-year-old from making his presence felt on his home Maryland circuit.
Trainer Eddie Kenneally reported that he has sent two of his promising 3-year-old prospects, Majestic Hussar and Bradester, to the farm.
After breezing five furlongs in 1:02 here Monday, Proud Strike will get another chance to prove he belongs on the Triple Crown trail, trainer Steve Asmussen said.
A minority ownership interest has been sold in Ive Struck a Nerve by Matt Bryant, the principal in Big Chief Racing, with Paul Braverman as his new partner.
Mark Casse has been training since he was 18, and he has one of the top stables in North America. On Saturday, Casse will send out Dynamic Sky against Verrazano in the Grade 2, $350,000 Tampa Bay Derby at Tampa Bay Downs. Casse also trains Uncaptured, who is scheduled to make his first start of the year in the Spiral at Turfway on March 23.
