LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If you don't like the favorite for the Kentucky Derby, wait a minute, it's likely to change.

With morning-line favorite Omaha Beach scratched on Thursday, the wide-open nature of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby is reflected in the early wagering. As of 6:15 p.m. Eastern, and with $749,690 in the win pool, Wood Memorial winner Tacitus ($101,102) was favored by $4 over Arkansas Derby runner-up Improbable ($101,098). Florida Derby winner Maximum Security ($99,983) is the "third" choice. All three horses are 5-1.

Los Alamitos will add $100,000 to overnight purses for its summer meeting, which runs from June 27 to July 14, with most going to claiming and starter-allowance races, according to racing secretary Bob Moreno.

The additional funds will add $1,000 to $2,000 per race for several categories of races during the 12-day season,.

The Santa Anita meeting runs through June 23, followed by Los Alamitos and the Del Mar summer meeting, which begins July 17.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Santa Anita will invest $500,000 in the acquisition of a PET scan machine that provides greater detection of vulnerabilities to a horse’s lower limbs, the track announced this week.

The Longmile Positron Emission Tomography machine will be based at the track’s backstretch equine hospital. The device allows a horse to undergo an examination that can “flag pre-existing conditions that can contribute to breakdowns,” Dionne Benson said in a statement released by the track.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Stu Simon got his Woodbine meet off to a strong start, recording a win with his first starter when Sister Peacock captured the Star Shoot Stakes on April 21.

Simon said he is pointing Sister Peacock toward the $100,000 William D. Graham Memorial, an overnight stakes over 6 1/2 furlongs on the turf that is scheduled for June 8 here. The 3-year-old Kentucky-bred daughter of Real Solution now has a career record of three wins from five starts, and has finished no worse than second.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Chad Brown was disappointed that he didn’t get the chance to run his lightly raced filly Dunbar Road in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks and called the system Churchill Downs utilizes to determine the field “flawed.”

Though Dunbar Road had just a maiden win and a runner-up finish to Champagne Anyone in the Gulfstream Park Oaks on her résumé, Brown was really high on the filly’s chances in the Oaks. So, apparently, was the morning-line maker, who installed Dunbar Road as the 5-1 second choice behind Bellafina (2-1).

CHURCHILL DOWNS
Thursday, May 2
Weather: Cloudy
Temperature: 63
Track: Fast

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The complexion of this year’s Kentucky Derby may have changed immensely overnight with the news that likely favorite Omaha Beach was out of the race, but it was still business as usual for the rest of the field during training hours Thursday morning at Churchill Downs.

The multiple graded stakes-winning sprinter Limousine Liberal fractured a sesamoid in his left front ankle, an injury that will end his career, according to trainer Ben Colebrook.

Limousine Liberal, a 7-year-old gelding, was entered to run in Saturday’s Grade 1 Churchill Downs Stakes, a race he won the last two years when it was a Grade 2.

Colebrook said the injury happened when the horse was galloping Wednesday at Keeneland. Colebrook said Limousine Liberal is at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. He will not need surgery.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Unless Gray Magician, Master Fencer, or Bodexpress achieve such a dubious distinction, this will be the 18th straight year that a Derby starter fails to reach as high as 99-1 on the toteboard – and there’s no way any of them will approach the Derby record for the highest odds.

Gray Magician and Master Fencer are the only two horses as high as 50-1 on the morning line. Bodexpress, a maiden who drew in as the lone also-eligible, is one of seven horses listed at 30-1 on the revised line.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – As always, there are overlays and underlays for bettors who took a shot in any of the four pools in the 2019 Kentucky Derby Future Wager.

The most obvious bargain came in Pool 2, where Tacitus – still nothing more than a maiden winner at that point – was 96-1. The eventual winner of the Tampa Bay Derby and Wood Memorial, he is 10-1 on the Churchill Downs morning line Saturday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Omaha Beach, scratched Wednesday from the 145th Kentucky Derby on Saturday because of an entrapped epiglottis, will have surgery Thursday afternoon but should be back in action by the summer, trainer Richard Mandella said at Churchill Downs on Thursday morning.

“We’ll wait a few days until after the surgery to make sure he’s good, then we’ll get him home,” Mandella said.

Mandella is currently based at Santa Anita. He spends the summer at Del Mar.