Walsh has put plenty of work into Maxfield for his Matt Winn return

Trainers keep early hours, but Brendan Walsh awoke in a start the other morning at 3 a.m., earlier than usual. “My mind started to running,” he said.

That’s not the only thing he has running. After more than 7 1/2 months, Walsh on Saturday will finally get his prized colt Maxfield back to the races when he makes his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 3, $150,000 Matt Winn Stakes at Churchill Downs. The anticipation has left Walsh both excited and anxious.

“From what he’s shown me in his works, I can’t wait to see what he’ll do on the track,” Walsh said in a telephone interview earlier this week from Kentucky. “We’ve done all we can with him.”

It has been an extended process. Maxfield has not raced since Oct. 5, when he won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland in only his second start, stamping him as one of the top contenders for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita four weeks later. A lot has transpired since.

Maxfield, along with Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf contender Vitalogy, both shipped to California for their respective races for Walsh, but neither ran. Vitalogy was withdrawn by a committee of veterinarians, who disagreed with Walsh’s assessment of the colt’s condition. Maxfield, however, had developed an issue that Walsh said prevented him from running.

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“He wasn’t quite right out there. It wasn’t a difficult decision. He had a chip in an ankle,” Walsh said. “Very minor, good prognosis. He’s been very good on it since, touch wood. Maybe it was a good thing. We always thought what he did at 2 was an added bonus, that he’d be better at 3 and older. I wasn’t nearly as disappointed with him as I was with Vitalogy.”

Walsh took his time getting Maxfield ready for this year following surgery to remove the chip. As the original date of the Kentucky Derby, May 2, crept closer, it appeared Walsh would at best be able to get one prep race into Maxfield. But the postponement of the Derby to Sept. 5 owing to the coronavirus pandemic allowed Walsh to temporarily back off his training, then come forward when the path to the Derby started to become clearer.

Maxfield had been training in Florida at Palm Meadows, where he breezed five times between Feb. 17 and March 14. Once the Derby was postponed, Walsh sent Maxfield to Keeneland, where he returned to the work tab April 10, the first of six works he recorded there through last Saturday in preparation for a return in the Winn.

“He had a couple of five-eighths in Florida, then we took our foot off the gas,” Walsh said. On May 10, jockey Jose Ortiz – who rode Maxfield in both his starts last year and will be back aboard Saturday – flew in for a five-furlong gate drill at Keeneland that Maxfield polished off in 59.20 seconds, the fastest work of 34 at the distance that morning.

“He broke good that day, too,” Walsh said. “He’s a stronger horse. That should help him get out and get rolling. He’s as ready as you can get off of a layoff. He’s done plenty of work. He’s a big horse, but he’s naturally fit. He takes his work well.”

The Winn, at 1 1/16 miles, offers 85 points overall, with 50 to the winner, based on the system Churchill Downs uses to determine the Derby field. Maxfield – a son of 2007 Derby winner Street Sense – has 10 points from his Breeders’ Futurity win. Now, he’ll have multiple opportunities to add to that total.

The Derby delay “definitely worked to our advantage,” Walsh said.

“We were looking to make it off of one prep, but we weren’t in a particular rush,” Walsh said. “Once the race was postponed, we moved him up to Kentucky, gave him three weeks of galloping while everyone was unsure what was going to happen, then we started back working him hoping for a date around the middle of May.

“Physically, for him, the more time the better. He’s a shade off of 17 hands. He has high withers. He’s filled out. Last year, he was a frame of a horse. He’s put on plenty of weight and muscle. He’s an outstanding individual.”

Walsh hasn’t thought past Saturday as to what path he’ll take toward the Derby. One thing he believes true though is that whatever Maxfield does Saturday – at the track where he won his debut going one mile last September – he’ll be better going forward.

“He’ll improve for having had that race,” Walsh said.

Don’t sleep on Maxfield.