ARCADIA, Calif. – On a crucial Friday morning of Kentucky Derby training, jockey Martin Garcia was a key member of trainer Bob Baffert’s team at Santa Anita.

In a little more than an hour, Garcia served as exercise rider for two of Baffert’s leading hopes for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 4. At 6:30, Roadster, the winner of the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 6, worked six furlongs in 1:13.80. At 7:45, Game Winner, the champion 2-year-old male of 2018 who was second in the Santa Anita Derby, worked seven furlongs in 1:27.

Six months ago, it seemed highly likely California owners Gary and Mary West would be back at Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby.

In November, they won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill with the undefeated Game Winner, who in January was named the champion 2-year-old male of 2018. Game Winner has done his part to qualify for next Saturday’s Kentucky Derby with two second-place finishes in major stakes in the last six weeks.

Jockey Jon Court is going to have to reward his mother a pretty penny if Long Range Toddy wins the $3 million Kentucky Derby next Saturday.

Court, 58, is the oldest rider ever to have a mount in the 145-year-old classic, eclipsing the record of 57 set by jockey Bobby Baird in 1978, according to Churchill Downs.

Churchill Downs 
Weather: Cloudy 
Temperature: 61 
Tracks: Muddy

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The weather was the story, both locally and around the country, when it came to training hours on Thursday for horses preparing to compete here next week in the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With final pre-race workouts and new arrivals for the 145th Kentucky Derby still to come, things were inordinately quiet Thursday morning in the Churchill Downs stable area.

“It’ll pick up soon, right?” Jimmy Barnes, the longtime Bob Baffert assistant, asked rhetorically.

ELMONT, N.Y. – When it comes to the Kentucky Derby, no news is bad news as far as trainer Mark Hennig is concerned.

Hennig is the trainer of Bourbon War, who would need four defections to make it into the body of the Kentucky Derby field.

If the Derby isn’t the next race, the Peter Pan at Belmont Park on May 11 or the Preakness at Pimlico on May 18 most likely will be, and on Thursday, Hennig sent out Bourbon War for a half-mile workout in 48.52 seconds over the Belmont main track.

Justify may have won the Kentucky Derby last year, but it was Instilled Regard who won the hearts of bettors fortunate enough to cash on the Derby superfecta. His rally to grab fourth at odds of 85-1 behind popular choices Justify, Good Magic, and Audible led to a $19,618.20 payoff for a $1 wager, exponentially higher than the $141.40 trifecta mutuel for a $1 bet.

Six years after starting in the Kentucky Derby, Goldencents will have a first-crop Kentucky Derby starter in Louisiana Derby winner By My Standards.

Despite being a European champion in his own right, Noble Mission has always lived in the shadow of his brother, the unbeaten two-time European Horse of the Year Frankel.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Jockey Ricardo Santana Jr. has a Kentucky Derby mount to look forward to in Plus Que Parfait, but before the May 4 classic he has some business to attend to at Oaklawn Park.

Santana, who at 25 has established himself as the track’s most dominant rider since Pat Day, is chasing his seventh straight title in Arkansas. Day won 12 from 1983 through 1994.