Of the four graded stakes offered at Aqueduct on Saturday, the Grade 2, $250,000 Remsen for juveniles appears the most challenging from a handicapping standpoint.
As the hair-splitting critiques of horses on the Kentucky Derby trail start coming to light next spring, surely one of the days being subjected to stringent evaluation will be Nov. 24.
After a wild journey down the Triple Crown trail in 2012, the connections of dual classic winner I’ll Have Another could be back for more in 2013 with He’s Had Enough.
Leader board for qualifying points to the 2013 Kentucky Derby, which will be run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Saturday, May 4, 2013.
Steeler gamely won the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Newmarket on Saturday by one length over Artigiano. Steeler gained a fees-paid berth into the BC Juvenile Turf and earned points toward qualifying for the 2013 Kentucky Derby.
Doug O’Neill has been the face of horse racing for the better part of two months. But on this day, he was just a regular horseplayer all excited about cashing a Kentucky Derby future-book ticket.
There is an old proverb that “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” So is the new “Road to the Kentucky Derby” system of qualifying horses for America’s most famous race. A lot of it works, but there are new glaring problems with serious ramifications.
If the new system of eligibility for the Kentucky Derby, awarding points for the top four finishes in certain prep races, had been in place this year, what would the 2012 Kentucky Derby field have looked like?
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The newly revised parameters that will guide eligibility into the Kentucky Derby were met with mixed reaction and some doses of skepticism Thursday by trainers who have been perennial major players on the Derby scene in recent years.
Churchill Downs has abandoned the system that awarded spots in the Kentucky Derby to horses with the most graded stakes earnings in favor of a system that will award points to the top four finishers in 36 stakes races leading up to the Derby.
