Now a professional, Hence leaves immaturity behind him

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hence won the Grade 3 Sunland Derby in his last race and has started to feel like a live horse in the Kentucky Derby here on Saturday, but if for some reason things don’t work out on the racetrack, Hence can always turn to a career as a cutting horse.

Making his 3-year-old debut over a sloppy track in a Jan. 16 maiden race at Oaklawn Park, Hence rallied from midpack, was going best with a quarter-mile to run, made the lead a furlong out, and was on his way to an easy victory. Then, suddenly, he was not.

It began with a relatively slow drift toward the rail from a position several paths from the fence. A few strides later, Hence juked radically left, jockey Ramon Vazquez twisting in the irons to correct a course that, if followed, would have carried him over the rail and onto Oaklawn’s infield.

“Ramon said the reflection from their big screen onto the water on the track made it look like you were running over a TV,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “He said, ‘I might have done it to him because it might have startled me first, and I might have made him notice it.’ ”

But like a good cutting horse or barrel racer, Hence dug his hooves sharply into the ground and bounced back to his right, straightening himself out, instantly accelerating, and somehow coming back on again to win by three-quarters of a length.

“I was there that day, and it was something,” Asmussen said. “He was almost at a standstill and picked it back up again. He went from three in front to another horse running right by him to back in front.”

A horse named Hence worked a very solid half-mile in 48.71 seconds, on the watch of DRF clocker Mike Welsch, on Monday at Churchill. He was a chestnut with a big off-center blaze bearing all the signs of the horse who considered jumping the Oaklawn rail, but this horse looked entirely professional.

“He’s a fast horse and physically impressive,” Asmussen said. “He’s going over the racetrack beautifully, and he’s focused – exactly where you’d want him to be. This is the horse that ducked at the fence and stuff like that, and it’s just finally coming together for him. I think a lot of it is just him spending a lot of time here last year; he knows where he’s at.”

Hence has worked four times here in April and May, but this is not his first go-round at Churchill. He breezed twice over the track last July and two more times last fall. Hence contested the pace and finished a close second in a maiden race at Churchill last November. His connections will be hoping – not without justification – that he can go one place better Saturday.