In the midst of a year filled with career-defining accomplishments, University of Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino is prepared to extend his remarkable spring in Kentucky Derby 139, in which he has a live contender in Santa Anita Derby winner Goldencents.
Pitino, who first became enamored with racing during the 1990s when he was the head coach of Kentucky, owns 5 percent of Goldencents, who looked sharp in his morning gallop over Churchill Downs’s main track Wednesday morning.
[bc_video_id:291080:]The following are my impressions of the 10 Kentucky Oaks starters, based on what I’ve observed here over the past 12 days.
Silsita was completely overmatched by her workmate, Unlimited Budget, when the pair teamed up Saturday, going five furlongs in a respectable 1:00.05 but while under considerable pressure attempting to keep pace with her undefeated mate through the final furlong.
[bc_video_id:291023:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – All 18 of the 20 prospective Kentucky Derby starters on the grounds at Churchill Downs on Wednesday went to the track almost simultaneously after the renovation break, many taking the opportunity to visit the starting gate at the top of the stretch for brief schooling sessions.
Wednesday at Churchill
60 degrees, sunny, fast
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A large crowd of owners, their entourages, and scores of fans who are granted access to the backstretch Derby Week gathered outside trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn on Wednesday morning just before his five Derby runners were to head to the track for their routine training sessions.
Several Jefferson County Sheriff's officers, assigned to watch the Derby horses, were trying to police the area, when one of them jokingly said, “I need to taze someone.”
Pletcher pointed at Mike Repole, who owns Overanalyze, and said, “Taze him.”
Acting Naughty, under a heady ride by Tyler Pizarro, gave trainer Don MacRae the most satisfying victory of his career here in last Sunday’s Grade 3, $152,200 Whimsical Stakes.
“I’m still smiling,” the 36-year-old MacRae said Wednesday, having watched the 4-year-old filly, whom he claimed for $40,000 last September, become a stakes winner in the six-furlong Whimsical. “The track was playing to speed all day, but they went fast enough up front, the big guns didn’t show, and she got a dream trip. Tyler rode her like she was the best horse.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Orb, the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby, became spooked in the paddock while schooling before Wednesday’s first race at Churchill Downs, and though he repeatedly kicked the back of his stall, he did not dislodge any of his shoes and was walking fine minutes later.
[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]
The Grade 2, $500,000 Super Derby will again serve as the centerpiece of the Louisiana Downs season that opens Friday with a handful of new stables, rolling daily doubles, six recently constructed suites, and a push to raise awareness of a rewards program horseplayers can tap into alongside visitors to the track’s 1,100-machine slots casino. The 84-date meet will run through Sept. 22.
The long and the short of it on Friday’s 10-race card are a pair of optional claimers with first-level allowance conditions. Race 9 is a $77,000 route scheduled for the Widener turf at 1 1/16 miles; race 4 is a $72,000 dirt sprint at 6 1/2 furlongs.
Startin Something will start her season by heading a field of nine Ohio-accredited fillies and mares in the $50,000 Dr. T.F. Classen Memorial at Thistledown on Friday.
The 5-year-old Startin Something was named Ohio’s top handicap mare and Ohio-accredited female recently at the Ohio Breeders and Owners annual awards dinner. Trained by Tim Hamm, Startin Something won 5 of 11 last season, including four statebred stakes.
Her first win of 2012 came in the Classen, followed by a win May 28 in the Angenora. Both victories were at t six furlongs.
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Aunt Els rose from the claiming ranks to conclude her first campaign with a victory in the 1 1/16-mile Ontario Lassie Stakes in December. On Saturday, Aunt Els will look to pick up where she left off in the $150,000 Fury, a seven-furlong stakes that serves as a major stepping-stone to the 1 1/8-mile Woodbine Oaks on June 9.
“If she stays on course and shows enough ability, she’ll go on to the Oaks,” said Norm McKnight, who trains the homebred Aunt Els for Syd Cooper’s RMC Stable.
