Willis Horton has raced a champion 3-year-old colt and won a classic the first weekend in May at Churchill Downs – but he’s never won the Kentucky Derby. The 78-year-old from Marshall, Ark., will get a second crack at the Derby on Saturday with Combatant, whom he owns with Winchell Thoroughbreds.
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DRF Past Performances
Mick Ruis, owner and trainer of Bolt d’Oro, will be running a horse in the Kentucky Derby for the first time Saturday. For many owners, it’s not only a dream to have a horse in the Derby, but a point of pride to see their silks carried in the race.
But for Ruis, he has used this occasion instead to provide a gift to B. Wayne Hughes of Spendthrift Farm, having told Hughes at Christmas that if Bolt d’Oro made the Derby, he’d carry Spendthrift’s colors.
Jockey Javier Castellano chose to ride Audible over Bolt d’Oro in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs, in large part because he has a long association with Audible’s trainer, Todd Pletcher, but he said he greatly admires Mick Ruis, the trainer and owner of Bolt d’Oro, for putting up his own money and seeing his dream through.
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.