LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Don’t count trainer Shug McGaughey among those excited to see defending Horse of the Year Wise Dan take on Point of Entry in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Woodford Reserve at Churchill Downs.
“I could care less about Wise Dan,” McGaughey, the trainer of Point of Entry, said Wednesday morning.
[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – All those 1’s might look great on paper, but how can they possibly add up? Indeed, the extraordinary amount of speed signed on in the Kentucky Oaks makes the filly classic a fascinating exercise in handicapping Friday at Churchill Downs.
Beholder, the defending champion in what is now the 3-year-old filly division, is one of a handful in the 139th Oaks with speed aplenty, and her role seems particularly critical in determining how the 1 1/8-mile race plays out.
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.
