Tim Yakteen advised against doing it. Gary Young advised against doing it. Amr Zedan heard it all, brushed it aside. Amr Zedan pays the bills. He who pays the bills gets final say. Zedan got his way. And then on a warm Saturday afternoon, with the heat turned up on an audacious bid, the colt Taiba rewarded Zedan’s faith and won the Grade 1, $750,500 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby in only his second start.
Mo Donegal rallied resolutely along the rail and wore down the pacesetting Early Voting to capture the Grade 2 Wood Memorial on Saturday at Aqueduct, giving trainer Todd Pletcher his seventh victory in the historic Kentucky Derby prep.
Epicenter closed as a lukewarm favorite late Saturday afternoon in the fifth and final pool in the 2022 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which Churchill Downs offered with a new wrinkle.
Over the last two decades, they've rarely run a Wood Memorial that didn't have a Todd Pletcher horse in it. This year, Pletcher will send out three of the eight runners in the Wood, New York's fourth and final points-scoring race for 3-year-olds trying to make the Kentucky Derby on May 7 at Churchill Downs.
Smile Happy and Zandon, the two favorites in a field of 12 Blue Grass runners at Keeneland on Saturday, have been regarded for months as major contenders for the 148th Kentucky Derby. Now would be a good time to prove it.
On Saturday, Forbidden Kingdom will try to stretch that speed another 110 yards in the Grade 1, $750,000 Runhappy Santa Anita Derby. And if he can do that, he'll have to go yet another furlong four weeks later, at Churchill Downs in the Kentucky Derby.
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Early Voting will use Saturday's Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct to cast his ballot on whether to push forward to the Kentucky Derby in four weeks.
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