AUBURN, Wash. -- Kentucky Derby Day begins bright and early at Emerald Downs – doors open Saturday at 7 a.m. to accommodate simulcast wagering on the 13-race Derby Day card at Churchill Downs.
Live racing at Emerald begins at 1 p.m., an hour earlier than usual, and the Derby is scheduled to go at about 3:24 p.m. Pacific.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – While everyone knows it’s the first Saturday in May, one glance at the field assembled for the Grade 2, $400,000 Churchill Downs Stakes would suggest it’s the first Saturday in November.
Bridgetown gave hints of being the premier turf sprinter in North America last year at 4, but some minor physical issues forced Todd Pletcher to pull the plug on a fall campaign. Nearly nine months after flaunting his wares at Saratoga, Bridgetown will return as the favorite Saturday in the Grade 3, $125,000 Twin Spires Turf Sprint.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A couple of hours before trainer Graham Motion attempts to capture his second consecutive Kentucky Derby with Went the Day Well, he’ll look to get his Grade 1 winner Aruna back to the winner’s circle against a very competitive and talent-laden field in the Grade 2, $200,000 Distaff Turf Mile at Churchill Downs.
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Those upstart 3-year-olds in the Kentucky Derby have nothing on a veteran gelding who just might just steal the show at Betfair Hollywood Park on Saturday.
Awesome Gem, 9 years old and still in graded-stakes form, enters the Grade 2 Mervyn LeRoy Handicap with little to prove except that for some horses, age does not matter.
“Look how good he looks,” trainer Craig Dollase said early this week as Awesome Gem came off the track following a crisp five-furlong workout. “He doesn’t know he’s 9.”
Daddy Long Legs, the Aidan O’Brien-trained Irish invader for the Kentucky Derby, arrived at Churchill Downs about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. He was heartily welcomed later in the day by being awarded dreaded post 1 at the Derby post position draw.
This is Daddy Long Legs’s second trip from Ireland to Louisville in six months. On Nov. 5, he finished 12th of 13 in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile after breaking from post 11, an unfavorable outside draw.
Ruby’s Big Band should rule a strong favorite in the $25,000 Al Swihart Memorial Stakes for older fillies and mares going 6 1/2 furlongs in the closing-day feature at Fonner Park on Saturday.
Ruby’s Big Band comes off a 1 3/4-length win in the JEH Stallion Station Stakes at Lone Star Park. That win on April 14 came at the same distance as the Swihart and should set her up for a top effort in front of an anticipated large Kentucky Derby Day crowd to close out the local season.
That’s a Heckofacat has a perfect running style for the six-furlong, $50,000 Babst/Palacios and will try to win his first start of the season on Saturday at Beulah Park.
Trained by Doug Cowans, the lightly raced 5-year-old That’s a Heckofacat has won 7 of his 14 starts, including the Best Of Ohio Endurance in his last out Oct. 15.
There is an abundance of speed in the eight-horse field of Ohio-bred older horses and That’s a Heckofacat’s come-from-behind style should suit him well. John McKee will ship in to ride.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Bradley family, principally father Fred and son Buff, have a farm near Frankfort. They have a handful of mares they breed each year to blue-collar stallions. And work on the farm gets done by someone whose last name is Bradley.
“We’ve got a few mares still left to foal,” trainer Buff Bradley said the other day. “We don’t have a night watchman. Dad watches the first half of the night, me the second.”
