Shortly after Janis Whitham put horses into Carl Nafzger’s barn in 2004, the Hall of Fame trainer began to scale back his operation, eventually turning his stable over to his longtime assistant, Ian Wilkes. Whitham is a fixture in the Thoroughbred business. With her husband, Frank, she campaigned two-time Breeders’ Cup Distaff winner and female champion Bayakoa. And according to her son, Clay, she never thought about moving her horses out of Wilkes’s barn after Nafzger retired. “We were working with Ian from the get-go. We never had a second thought,” Clay Whitham said. “We’ve been very comfortable working with Ian through the years. We think he’s a great trainer and we really enjoy working with him.” The Whithams and Wilkes hit the pinnacle in 2012 when Fort Larned won the Breeders’ Cup Classic. There have been other stakes winners along the way, including siblings Four Graces and McCraken. The latter horse made it to the 2017 Kentucky Derby, where he finished eighth behind Always Dreaming. :: Play Gulfstream Park with confidence! DRF Past Performances, Picks, and Clocker Reports available now. The Whithams and Wilkes are back on the Derby trail this year with Burnham Square, who won the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes last month and who figures to be the first or second choice in Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park. The Fountain of Youth, which is expected to scratch down to a six-horse field, offers its top five finishers qualifying points (50-25-15-10-5) to the May 3 Kentucky Derby. Thirty-two years after the passing of her husband, Janis Whitham, now 93, is still the driving force behind her family’s breeding and racing operation. According to Clay Whitham, the family has seven broodmares to whom they breed – mostly to race, some to sell. Janis Whitham, who lives in Leoti, Kansas, doesn’t attend the races anymore but is still very much involved, according to her son. “She really likes her broodmares every bit as much as her horses at the track,” Clay Whitham said. “Seeing the mares and foals and planning the matings, that’s an activity that definitely keeps her busy and her mind working.” Whitham said the goal is to develop graded stakes winners. “Obviously, the Triple Crown and the Breeders’ Cup races are on a whole other level,” he said. That the family is on the trail with Burnham Square is “a pleasant surprise,” Whitham said. The horse is by Liam’s Map out of Linda, a mare with whom the Whithams and Wilkes won a graded turf stakes. In his early development, Burnham Square – named after a quilt pattern – was not “the best-looking foal out of the crop” and was difficult to work with, said Whitham. Thus, the recommendation was made to geld him before he ever made it to the races. “They have to be a racehorse before they can be a stallion,” Whitham said. “If you didn’t geld him, he was never going to show what he was as a racehorse.” When Burnham Square made it to Wilkes last year, the horse was still not showing a ton of ability. Debuting in a $150,000 maiden-claiming race last fall at Keeneland, he ran somewhat spotty but showed late interest when finishing second, beaten just a half-length. In his next start, a maiden special weight at Churchill Downs in November, Burnham Square was second-to-last in a field of 11 but made a wide, sustained rally from the middle of the backstretch to finish third, beaten three-quarters of a length. “He wouldn’t help the jockey,” Wilkes said. “I feel bad for Francisco Arrieta. He said, ‘I’m going nowhere. I can’t get him going.’ He’s running away from horses, not running into the dirt, then, all of a sudden, he runs down the lane and gets beat three-quarters, and 50 yards after the wire, he’s four in front. He wouldn’t focus.” After those two races, Wilkes put blinkers on Burnham Square when he brought him to Florida for the winter. Starting from the rail in a Dec. 28 maiden race at Gulfstream, Burnham Square broke sharper and raced an up-close fourth under Edgard Zayas before taking the lead five furlongs from home and ultimately winning by nine lengths. In the Holy Bull, Burnham Square was last early on. He was guided by Zayas from his outside post to the inside and made a strong move along the rail to get into contention. After steadying slightly, he went around a tiring rival and later around Tappan Street before drawing away for the victory. “I felt he overcame a lot of adversity. He handled a lot of different things thrown at him,” Wilkes said. “He had to ease his way out of a spot where, before, if he didn’t have the blinkers, he would not have done that in a heartbeat. But with the blinkers, [Zayas] was able to ease the horse out to go on and go forward. “In the short stretch, to beat the second horse by a length and three-quarters and then finish 11 lengths ahead of the third horse, that’s a testament to how strong he keeps getting throughout a race.” Wilkes believes Burnham Square will benefit from more racing. That’s why he elected to run in the Fountain of Youth and not train up to the Grade 1 Florida Derby, a race in four weeks that Wilkes hopes to start Burnham Square in on the way to the Kentucky Derby. “He’s got to get faster to win the Derby,” Wilkes said. “We have to get better, we got to stop making mistakes, we got to iron all these mistakes out. I could sit here and train him up to the Florida Derby, then I got to train him harder to do that. This way, I can train him as I see fit and stay in a rhythm. “I just enjoy the rhythm with him, where he’s taking me where all he has to do is get a little better, a little better, a little better. I’m looking for him to peak on the first Saturday in May. That’s when I want his best race.” ◗ There are two other Kentucky Derby points-scoring races to be run Saturday. In the Grade 2, $300,000 San Felipe at Santa Anita, the undefeated Barnes, winner of the Grade 2 San Vicente, makes his two-turn debut against Journalism, the Grade 2 Los Alamitos Derby winner, in a field of six. Bob Baffert, who trains Barnes, also entered Rodriguez, runner-up in the Grade 3 Bob Lewis, and Mellencamp, a maiden who was twice beaten by Journalism. At Aqueduct, undefeated New York-breds Sand Devil and Sacrosanct head a field of 10 entered in the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes going a one-turn mile. None of the horses in the Gotham have earned Derby qualifying points. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.