Tacitus
Tapit – Close Hatches, by First Defence
Bred in Kentucky by Juddmonte Farms

A long and winding road toward the 2019 Kentucky Derby is making its way toward the finish line. Only a handful of horses in the diverse group of horses preparing to line up for the classic have won multiple graded stakes this season. Tacitus was one of those. He finished as the leader by points in this season’s series of Kentucky Derby qualifying races, and sports one of the most regal pedigrees in this class.

Anothertwistafate, currently 23rd on the points list for the Kentucky Derby on May 4, will bypass the race and point for the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, on May 18 at Pimlico, trainer Blaine Wright said Tuesday.

Anothertwistafate would have needed three defections from those above him on the list by Tuesday to make the 20-horse field for the Derby. Even if he hadn't made the top 20, he could have been entered as an also-eligible, as a maximum of four horses can be also-eligibles at entry time.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Bob Baffert can slip in and out of town as unnoticed as anybody else with white hair and five Kentucky Derby wins to his credit. Baffert flew into Louisville late Sunday from California on something of a stealth mission, intent on overseeing a key pre-Derby workout Monday morning at Churchill Downs for Improbable without alerting track officials or drawing an inordinate amount of attention.

They are all 3 years old and male and horses for the 145th Kentucky Derby, but about there, the similarities end. They are chestnut and bay and gray. They were born as close as Kentucky or as far away as Japan, and they come into the Derby off prep races around the globe. They are handled by first-time Derby trainers and by Hall of Fame veterans of the race; they run the gamut from homebreds by six-figure stallions to former claimers. Even their shared age is not a true commonality, as they were foaled anywhere from Feb. 11 to May 23.

Trainer Jason Servis’s decision to keep Florida Derby winner Maximum Security in South Florida to train up to the Kentucky Derby certainly paid dividends on Sunday. Whereas two of the three scheduled Derby works at Churchill Downs were postponed on Easter Sunday due to weather and/or track conditions, Maximum Security got in his regularly scheduled one-mile breeze under “ideal” conditions, according to Servis by phone from the Palm Meadows training center later that morning.

Gray Magician, the runner-up in the Group 2 United Arab Emirates Derby in Dubai on March 30, worked a half-mile in 48.40 seconds at the San Luis Rey Downs training center in California on Saturday in preparation for the Kentucky Derby on May 4.

Gray Magician worked “nice and easy” and galloped out five furlongs in 1:01, trainer Peter Miller said. This was Gray Magician’s first workout since he returned to California from the trip to the Middle East.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Shortly after Game Winner finished off a sharp drill on Saturday morning here at Santa Anita, his work coming a little more than an hour after Roadster also worked impressively, their trainer, Bob Baffert, turned to his wife, Jill, and said, "I'm having a good day, honey."

Then he did a jig. He's dancing his way to the Kentucky Derby.

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – On May 4, trainer Todd Pletcher will have to beat 18 other 3-year-olds with Cutting Humor and Spinoff to win the Kentucky Derby. On Friday morning, he only needed them to beat Mother Nature, a feat the two Derby contenders narrowly pulled off when getting in important five-furlong works just as moderate to heavy rain began to fall over the Palm Beach Downs training center shortly before dawn.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – With the countdown toward Kentucky Derby day relentlessly ticking on, and poor weather looming on the radar, War of Will was one of the first horses on the track Friday morning at Keeneland to work a sharp five furlongs in company in 1:00.20.

Blaine Wright could have been forgiven if his mind had been 2,000 miles away in Kentucky, where his headline horse, Anothertwistafate, was in peaceful repose at Churchill Downs.