LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Amy’s Challenge had enough points to qualify for a start in Friday’s Grade 1, $1 million Kentucky Oaks, but she was entered in the Grade 2, $200,000 Eight Belles Stakes instead. The Eight Belles is run at seven furlongs, a quarter-mile shorter than the Oaks.
“I was just making sure all the [Oaks] favorites were still headed that way,” trainer Mac Robertson said by phone Monday from Oaklawn.
LOUISVILLE, Ky – Trainer Todd Pletcher was in his junior year at the University of Arizona when Winning Colors captured the Kentucky Derby 30 years ago. A little more than a year later, Pletcher began working full time for Winning Colors’s trainer, D. Wayne Lukas. Between the two of them, they have won the Derby six times, and they will have five of the 20 runners in this year’s Derby on Saturday.
Few have logged more miles this year in pursuit of the Kentucky Derby than My Boy Jack.
With two or three Kentucky Derby preps now the norm for top contenders, My Boy Jack had a busy spring in pursuit of enough points to make the field, with four preps in four states. He finished third in the Sham Stakes on Jan. 6 at Santa Anita, then won the Southwest Stakes on Feb. 19 at Oaklawn. He finished third, beaten less than a length, in the Louisiana Derby on March 24, necessitating a trip to Keeneland for the Lexington Stakes on April 14, which he rallied to win.
Last year at this time, trainer Mark Casse was in the eye of the storm with enigmatic 2-year-old champion Classic Empire, who attracted intense attention Kentucky Derby week before ultimately finishing fourth with a troubled trip.
This year, Casse has a consistent Derby entrant in Flameaway, a multiple graded stakes winner and the Blue Grass runner-up. But in a deep field, he’ll be dismissed at double-digit odds.
That’s just fine with Casse.
ELMONT, N.Y. – Conquest Big E has been a work in progress for years. He’s a horse with a lot of potential who has never quite lived up to expectations.
Until now.
The 5-year-old is coming off a front-running victory over Always Dreaming and Tommy Macho in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile. The win prompted owner Daniel Hurtak and his wife, trainer Donna Green Hurtak, to ship Conquest Big E from their Gulfstream Park base to Belmont Park late last week.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Few would compare Kentucky Derby longshot Combatant to any of the leading contenders for Saturday’s race, although the colt reminds his trainer, Steve Asmussen, of another prominent horse – 2017 Derby runner-up Lookin At Lee. Like him, Combatant is an Asmussen-trained closer that heads into the Kentucky Derby after competitive but losing efforts in preps in Arkansas.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Monomoy Girl was assigned post 14 and Midnight Bisou got post 10 as the morning-line favorites for the 144th running of the Grade 1, $1 million Kentucky Oaks, to be run on Friday at Churchill Downs.
A full field of 14 3-year-old fillies was entered Monday morning at the post-position draw in the track’s Aristides Lounge for the 1 1/8-mile Oaks, which will be broadcast live on NBC Sports Network (post time, 6:12 p.m. Eastern).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Steve Asmussen is on the verge of becoming just the second trainer in North American racing history to hit the 8,000-win mark, although obviously the monumental feat would be obscured by all the Derby goings-on if he happens to reach the milestone this weekend.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 36 hours prior to the Monday morning post-position draw of the Oaks led to quite a bit of reshuffling of the field, although Churchill still got a full gate of 14 for the filly classic.
Blamed was withdrawn after emerging from a half-mile Saturday breeze at Churchill with what trainer Joel Marr described as a small hairline fracture of her right hind pastern. The injury is not believed to be career-ending.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Corey Lanerie has been the leading jockey at 15 of the last 17 meets conducted at Churchill Downs, but it will be his wife of 21 years, Shantel, who will have the brightest spotlight here on Kentucky Oaks Day.
Shantel Lanerie has been diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer, and her recovery efforts will be recognized in a big way during the track’s annual Oaks Day push to raise research funds for and increase awareness of breast cancer.
