Trainers unable to make Kentucky Derby plans until options become clearer

Wednesday was supposed to be entry day for the Santa Anita Derby. And the Blue Grass Stakes. And the Wood Memorial. All would have been run Saturday, all as final major preps for the Kentucky Derby four weeks later on May 2 at Churchill Downs.

Now, all three are at best postponed – for weeks or months – or at worst canceled. The uncertainty over those races is but a microcosm of what the sport is going through owing to the coronavirus pandemic, which as of Wednesday has shuttered all but a handful of tracks, including Santa Anita, Keeneland, and Aqueduct.

“Tough times right now,” said John Shirreffs, the trainer of Honor A. P., who was scheduled to run Saturday in the Santa Anita. Derby. “Since we’re not running Saturday, you have to back off a little, not do as much as if you were running. You don’t want to overtrain. The last few days before a race are important. You take them to the gate, make sure they’re in the bridle during their gallop.

“If the race is postponed by a week, it’s just a little blip on the radar.”

But Shirreffs, like everyone else right now, is flying blind. What he knows is that the Kentucky Derby has been postponed four months, until Sept. 5. That’s it. If the Santa Anita Derby is significantly postponed, Shirreffs said he would consider taking Honor A. P. to the Arkansas Derby, which has been postponed until May 2. Or he could just back off. It’s a day-to-day proposition.

“There’s no rush now with Churchill Downs having moved the Derby to Sept. 5,” Shirreffs said. “You just have to pick out races that suit the horse’s conditions. But he is nominated to the Arkansas Derby.”

The coronavirus situation, and the recent shutdown at Santa Anita, “affects everything,” Shirreffs said.

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“It’s unfortunate. We could be up and running,” he said. “Once we eliminated the fans from being here, the same people you need to run need to be here in the morning anyway. This impacts so many people.”

Like Shirreffs, trainer Bob Baffert was planning on running in the Santa Anita Derby on Saturday, represented by Authentic and Thousand Words. It’s a race he has won a record nine times, including the last two years. In addition to Authentic and Thousand Words, Baffert trains highly regarded 3-year-olds like Charlatan and Nadal, both, like Authentic, unbeaten. All four are in position to run soon, with Nadal still ticketed to the Arkansas Derby. Yet their main goal is now five months away. What to do?

“I’ve got a Plan B and a Plan C. I just have to talk to my clients,” Baffert said about how he’ll proceed. “I’ve barely had a chance to digest everything.”

Trainer Peter Eurton had decided previously not to run Eclipse Award winner Storm the Court in the Santa Anita Derby, preferring more time for that colt since his last start. Eurton has the Arkansas Derby down as a possibility, but the uncertainty of the situation weighs on him.

“It’s just that nobody knows,” Eurton said. “You train a little lighter. You can’t train specifically for a race. You’re trying to maintain their fitness, not pushing them, but you have to be ready to jump into the next gear. Right now, I’m thinking the Arkansas Derby. We’ll see how things pan out.

“My owners worry. My help worries. We all have our own concerns. It’s a tough situation.”

In Kentucky, trainer Brendan Walsh had looked at the Blue Grass as a possible comeback race for the highly regarded Maxfield, who won the Breeders’ Futurity there last fall. Maxfield, who had spent the winter at the Palm Meadows training center in Florida, is now at Keeneland, but with the meet canceled, the Blue Grass at best postponed, and the Derby months, not weeks, away, Walsh is in a holding pattern.

“I’m holding out hope I can run the horse two, maybe three times before the Derby, but coming right up to it,” Walsh said. “Like everybody else, I’m waiting to see what’s going to happen. Like everybody else, I wish I had the answers.”

Walsh said uncertainty over when racing will resume in Kentucky has implications regarding how he trains all his runners there.

“You don’t know whether to crack on or back off,” he said. “If there was racing in Kentucky the first of May, you’ve got to be ready for that as well. It’s a tricky situation for sure.”

Walsh said he “might do a little bit” with Maxfield “toward the end of the week, just to keep him ticking over.”

There’s no need for anything more than a mild work. He’s in no rush at the moment.

Churchill Downs has announced it will add additional points-scoring races towards the Derby. That could provide the road map for Maxfield this summer.

“Just trying to come up with some kind of a plan,” Walsh said. “There’s going to be new points races, but we don’t know what. It’s a bit of a quandary.”