Well, that’s one way to make history.
Richard Mandella already had his name in the books as the only trainer to win four Breeders’ Cup races in a single day, to finish in a dead heat with two of his horses in a Grade 1 event, and to train the only female in the history of the sport to win championships in four separate campaigns.
If allowed only one word to describe the 2019 Kentucky Derby, that word could be “parity.” Bob Baffert, who trains the three favorites for this Derby – Game Winner, Roadster, and Improbable – used that descriptor in a recent media teleconference. And by many measures, the term fits.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Omaha Beach, the morning-line favorite for the 145th Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs, will be scratched owing to an entrapped epiglottis, trainer Richard Mandella said Wednesday.
“He was coughing, which made us suspicious, and we scoped him,” Mandella said.
“It's not anything we can fix to have him run on Saturday, so we’re going to have to scratch him.”
Mandella said the issue is “fixable,” but the timing is terrible.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There is a winner’s circle in the Churchill Downs infield that is used on one weekend a year. It is ringed by rose bushes in a horseshoe shape, calling to mind the garland of roses placed around the Kentucky Derby winner’s neck when he steps into that circle.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jason Servis is bringing more than an undefeated Grade 1 winner to Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. He’s bringing the scrutiny that goes with a high rate of success and an unconventional training method.
Servis trains Maximum Security, who began his career last Dec. 20 winning a maiden $16,000 claiming race at Gulfstream Park and 100 days later became a Grade 1 winner, taking the $1 million Florida Derby in authoritative fashion.
Editor's Note: Omaha Beach was scratched on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, shortly after this story was originally published.
During 2018, the Fox Hill Farms stable of owner Rick Porter won three races from 53 starts. Porter had one graded stakes starter, who lost.
CHURCHILL DOWNS
Weather: Sunny
Temp.: 71
Track: Fast
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Wednesday literally may have been the calm before the storm at Churchill Downs, with another picture-perfect morning likely to be followed by several days of rain, according to local forecasts, with the worst of that weather expected on Derby Day.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s a quirky statistic to be sure, being as there is no rhyme or reason for it, but the Wood Memorial is 0 for 15 years producing a top-three finisher in the Kentucky Derby.
Overall, the Wood Memorial has produced 20 Kentucky Derby winners, with 11 of those horses winning both races. The last to win both was Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000.
In 2003, Wood runner-up Funny Cide flipped the script on Wood winner Empire Maker in the Kentucky Derby.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – For the past decade, the most prominent and most controversial intramural debate within the North American racing community has involved the raceday use of the diuretic furosemide to mitigate bleeding in the lungs. Prior to 2019, nearly every major racing organization had weighed in on the topic in some way, shape, or form, but that list had a notable, powerful exception – Churchill Downs Inc.
In the weeks prior to this year’s Kentucky Derby, that abruptly changed.
