Each day through the Kentucky Derby, trainer Ken McPeek will share his thoughts with Marty McGee of Daily Racing Form in his Derby Diary. McPeek, 39, is the trainer of Harlan's Holiday, the race favorite.
You could call the Oaks and Derby days controlled chaos. There are so many people that it's just impossible for Churchill Downs to accommodate everybody.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Trainer Ken McPeek may already have won a major stakes on Saturday when he walks into the paddock to saddle Harlan's Holiday for the Derby.
A race earlier, McPeek starts Pisces, in the $400,000 Woodford Reserve Turf Classic, the richest turf race at Churchill Downs this year.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - There is no questioning the fact that Edgar Prado has added his name to the list of the nation's premier riders over the past couple of seasons. But even Prado himself admits the only day a jockey can truly say he has made the top is after he wins the Kentucky Derby.
Prado has ridden in two previous Derbies, finishing 17th aboard Commendable in 2000 and fourth last year with Thunder Blitz. But his best chance to win a Derby comes Saturday, when he rides the likely favorite, Harlan's Holiday, for trainer Ken McPeek.
SAN MATEO, Calif. - Friday night's feature race at Bay Meadows is typical of many races run in northern California: Handicappers must consider the Jerry Hollendorfer factor.
Friday's feature, a six-furlong allowance sprint for older fillies and mares, drew five entrants, including two trained by Hollendorfer.
Both Hollendorfer horses - Cassie Anne, who drew the rail, and Manhattan Now, who drew outside - are making their first starts of the year.
He Doll puts his 4 for 4 record at 870 yards on the line when he heads the Grade 3, $80,000 Gold Rush Derby at Los Alamitos on Friday night.
He Doll, trained by Jorge Farias, is the rising star in the 870-yard ranks at Los Alamitos, with four straight wins since making his debut around the hook on Jan 17.
JAMAICA, N.Y. - Voodoo Dancer, a winner of four stakes last year, including the Grade 1 Garden City Breeders' Cup Handicap, has been assigned 119 as the highweight for Sunday's $100,000-added Beaugay Handicap at Aqueduct.
The Grade 3 Beaugay is the closing-day stakes at Aqueduct. Racing shifts to Belmont Park on Wednesday.
Trained by Christophe Clement, who won the Beaugay in 1994 with Cox Orange, Voodoo Dancer will make her 4-year-old debut in the 1 1/16-mile turf race.
Orchard Park will bring a four-race win streak into the $100,000 Crown Royal American Turf Stakes although trainer Elliott Walden thinks his Stage Call may be the horse to beat in the Grade 3 race for 3-year-old colts and geldings.
Stage Call finished a wide-running fourth as the 7-5 favorite making his 3-year-old debut in Keeneland's Transylvania Stakes on April 5, a race Walden believes is much better than it appears on paper.
The world of male turf sprinters has changed little in the last year.
The first three finishers of the 2001 Aegon Turf Sprint - Morluc, Testify, and Texas Glitter - return in Friday's $100,000 race over five furlongs. This year's field has the added attraction of Orientate, the winner of the Grade 2 Commonwealth Breeders' Cup Stakes in the mud at Keeneland on April 14.
The Grade 3 Aegon Turf Sprint drew 12, allowing little margin for error. If a runner misses the break, races wide or in traffic, victory will be nearly impossible.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Cellars Shiraz will seek her fourth consecutive victory in the $100,000 Edgewood Stakes, part of the Kentucky Oaks undercard Friday at Churchill Downs.
The Edgewood, at one mile on turf, is the first start for Cellars Shiraz outside the state of Florida, where she was born and has raced 14 times. In her last three starts, Cellars Shiraz has won on both dirt and turf. Churchill's grass course is far different from the one over which Cellars Shiraz raced at Gulfstream Park, but that does not concern trainer Bill Cesare, who says Cellars Shiraz is adaptable.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The field for Friday's Grade 2 Louisville Breeders' Cup Handicap is so deep that trainer Shug McGaughey has elected to scratch Trip from the race and has entered her in Saturday's Grade 1, $200,000 Humana Distaff instead.
"It came up a little tough," McGaughey said of the $300,000 Louisville, in a gross understatement.
The field for the 1 1/16-mile Louisville includes Grade 1 winners Forest Secrets and Spain as well as multiple graded stakes winners De Bertie and Mystic Lady.