HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Disappointment was etched on Bill Mott’s face, but not too deep. He knows the racing game all too well.
“That’s history,” the Hall of Fame trainer calmly surmised late Saturday afternoon following the defeat of Hidden Scroll, the 6-5 favorite in the 72nd Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
Gulfstream Park | Race 13 | Post Time 5:32 p.m. (ET) | Go to the TimeformUS PPs
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A little more than a week after Hidden Scroll announced his presence to the world with a romping 14-length debut victory at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 26, his Hall of Fame trainer, Bill Mott, was musing that he was “going to ruin my reputation.”
“Can’t win first time. Can’t win the Derby,” he said, laughing.
Hidden Scroll completed the first half of that parlay. He’ll try to continue toward the second half on Saturday at Gulfstream in the $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes, for which he is the morning-line favorite.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – They have names like Boomerang and Big Loop, Comet and Corkscrew, Tornado and Velocity. The road to the Kentucky Derby has so many twists and turns, it’s like a roller-coaster ride. So, perhaps the most-appropriate horse for this time of the year is one named for the manufacturer of roller coasters bearing those monikers.
Vekoma
Candy Ride-Mona de Momma, by Speightstown
Bred in Kentucky by Alpha Delta Stables ($135,000 Keeneland September yearling purchase by R.A. Hill Stable)
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Hidden Scroll isn’t the only 3-year-old in the Fountain of Youth looking to make a huge leap Saturday in his stakes debut.
Global Campaign also is one of those horses who “you don’t know what’s going to happen when you sit down and ride them,” said Stan Hough, who trains the colt for the partnership of Sagamore Farm and WinStar Farm. “It’s going to be very interesting, that’s for sure.”
WHO’S HOT
Global Campaign, who just missed making the cut last week, moves into the top 20 owing to the defection of Maximus Mischief. He is scheduled to make his stakes debut on Saturday at Gulfstream in the Fountain of Youth, a race that has lured six members of the Derby Watch top 20. He is 20-1 on the Kentucky Derby line set by Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form’s national handicapper.
WHO’S NOT
ARCADIA, Calif. – The desire to add a Kentucky Derby to a trophy case that already includes multiple Eclipse Awards and a Hall of Fame plaque brought jockey Javier Castellano all the way to Santa Anita on Monday morning to work the unbeaten Instagrand and two other 3-year-olds for owner Larry Best, who reached out to secure Castellano for Instagrand.
“You’re still always looking for a challenge, and the biggest challenge, the biggest prize, for me is the Derby,” Castellano said. “This is the time you have to search.”
Dream Maker did nothing to quash his connections’ dream of making the Kentucky Derby during a half-mile timed workout Saturday morning at Fair Grounds.
Breezing for the first time since his impressive 3-year-old debut Feb. 9, Dream Maker, working in the company of another horse, was timed in 47.80 seconds, fastest of 111 Fair Grounds drills at the distance that day.
“I loved the way he galloped out,” said David Carroll, Fair Grounds-based assistant to trainer Mark Casse. “He trains like a good horse – gets over the dirt really nice. He hasn’t taken one step backward.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After Bill Mott finally had an opportunity to spend an appreciable amount of time around Hidden Scroll this fall at Payson Park, he phoned his longtime assistant, Kenny McCarthy, about the colt.
“Bill half-jokingly said to me, ‘You said this horse was nice,’ ” recalled McCarthy, who oversaw the colt’s training last summer at Churchill Downs while his Hall of Fame boss was otherwise occupied in New York. “But you didn’t tell me he was this nice.”
