Went the Day Well, one of three Kentucky Derby candidates trainer Graham Motion has for Team Valor International along with Howe Great and Lucky Chappy, could make his next start in the Grade 3 Vinery Racing Spiral at Turfway Park.
Unbridled’s Note, Kid Sidney, and Ring It Up - all nominated to the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes - will instead run in a first-level allowance Friday at Oaklawn Park.
Whether trainer John Servis will have his first Kentucky Derby starter since winning the race in 2004 with Smarty Jones could be determined over the next nine days.
Here is some advice for you all you future-book fanciers. Stop being so infatuated with “all others” and start looking at all those horses that ran in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
Even though he’s a three-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, and has seen what works and what doesn’t work in terms of preparation for that race, trainer Bob Baffert has become even more reliant on his instincts this year. It obviously helps that he has a large pool of horses from which to draw, but, by and large, which Baffert 3-year-olds have run in which stakes races this spring have been determined largely by Baffert’s intuition.
Gemologist and Currency Swap, two of the more highly regarded members of the 2-year-old class of 2011, will make their belated 3-year-old debuts against one another in Friday’s $80,000 allowance feature at Gulfstream Park.
Howe Great, the filly On Fire Baby, and Prospective – all of whom won stakes races last weekend – are the three newcomers to this week’s top 20 of Derby Watch.
Sabercat earned something of a “full-ride scholarship” to the Kentucky Derby in his 2-year-old finale Nov. 19, when he won the Grade 3, $1 million Delta Downs Jackpot. The race was worth $600,000 to the winner, placing Sabercat fourth on the graded earnings preference list for the Kentucky Derby. If he advances to Churchill Downs, Sabercat will attempt to be the first Kentucky Derby winner for both the family of the late Verne Winchell and Steve Asmussen.
Three-year-old Cigar Street, a troubled fifth as the favorite in his Feb. 3 debut, stretched from a sprint to a route, made a clear early lead under Shaun Bridgmohan, and drew clear from 10 rivals in the stretch for a 13 3/4-length win. His 1 1/16-mile time of 1:43.75 produced a Beyer Speed Figure of 99.
It appears the field size of the March 31 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park will not only be respectable, but that Union Rags, the likely favorite, may not have any walk in the park in his final Kentucky Derby prep.
