Maximum Security keeps it slow and steady in final Derby move

Maximum Security, the undefeated winner of the Grade 1 Florida Derby, on Monday had his final serious training session prior to Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.

Maximum Security will be credited with a half-mile workout in 53.80 seconds over the main track at the Palm Meadows training center in South Florida. Trainer Jason Servis clocked him a mile in 1:58.96 and Palm Meadows clocker Bryan Walls had the last half-mile of that move in 53.80 seconds.

Servis said he was actually looking for Maximum Security to go a mile in 1:57, but he thought exercise rider Eddie Rivas was being conservative.

Servis was communicating with Rivas by two-way radio. Video of the work from XBTV of shows Rivas – who did not carry a whip – taking his left-hand off the reins to rub on Maximum Security’s neck to get him to pick it up.

“If he gets beat a nose, do I second-guess myself?” Servis said by phone. “Who knows? Maybe it’s a good thing. He said he had plenty of horse.”

:: DERBY WATCH: Top 20 Kentucky Derby contenders with comments from Jay Privman and Mike Watchmaker

Maximum Security is the wildcard to this year’s Kentucky Derby field. He is undefeated in four starts by a combined margin of 38 lengths. His first race came in a maiden $16,000 claiming race and then he won two starter allowance races before galloping along on a slow pace in winning the Florida Derby by 3 1/2 lengths.

Servis’s unorthodox training method has observers perplexed, but Servis believes in giving horses long, steady gallops rather than faster, more conventional-style workouts.

“In my opinion, if I had breezed him halves and five-eighths would he have run the same? Probably, no matter who had him,” Servis said. “But I’m just maintaining him. I think he’s had plenty . . . I don’t think fitness will be an issue, I really don’t.”

Maximum Security was scheduled to be flown from Florida to Kentucky on Tuesday along with fellow Derby hopefuls Vekoma, Cutting Humor, and Spinoff, as well as a plethora of horses for other stakes.

Vekoma, the Blue Grass winner, galloped 1 1/2 miles at Palm Beach Downs, according to trainer George Weaver.