When Victor Espinoza rides Gormley in the post parade of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, he will sneak a glance at the jammed grandstand at Churchill Downs.
“The thing you see are the colors,” Espinoza recalled last weekend. “It never gets old. This is what we work for.”
There will be little time for sightseeing. Gormley will need a warm-up.
“Everybody is having fun, and I have to work,” Espinoza said with a laugh.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Girls against boys – the trainer Mark Casse sees nothing wrong with it.
The recently retired Tepin made her mark beating males in major turf races, and the Casse-trained turf filly Catch a Glimpse has done the same. Now, it’s La Coronel’s turn.
It’s a very lucky racetracker who can hold dear the memory of winning a Kentucky Derby. Then there is Yvonne Azeff, who is lucky to have any memory at all.
As chief assistant to trainer John Ward, Azeff was deeply involved in the development of 2001 Derby winner Monarchos. The son of Maria’s Mon carried the colors of Oklahoma oilman John Oxley, who owns this year’s likely Derby favorite, Classic Empire.
The partnership formed to buy Grade 2 winner and Kentucky Derby contender Tapwrit for $1.2 million was at the same time relatively spur of the moment and years in the making.
The catalyst for the joint venture between Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners, Bridlewood Farm, and Robert LaPenta was a passing conversation between barns prior to the 2015 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling sale, where Eclipse president Aron Wellman asked Bridlewood general manager George Isaacs if he’d seen the buzzed-about Tapit colt in the Denali Stud consignment.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Hence won the Grade 3 Sunland Derby in his last race and has started to feel like a live horse in the Kentucky Derby here on Saturday, but if for some reason things don’t work out on the racetrack, Hence can always turn to a career as a cutting horse.
Making his 3-year-old debut over a sloppy track in a Jan. 16 maiden race at Oaklawn Park, Hence rallied from midpack, was going best with a quarter-mile to run, made the lead a furlong out, and was on his way to an easy victory. Then, suddenly, he was not.
CHURCHILL DOWNS Weather: Cloudy
Track: Sloppy/good
Temp.: 57
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Steve Asmussen was a busy man Monday morning at Churchill Downs, where all his hard work was rewarded by spot-on breezes from his three Kentucky Derby contenders, highlighted by a razor-sharp half-mile drill by Hence during the Oaks-Derby training session.
The average cost at public auction for a Kentucky Derby contender in this year’s field was $274,043.
Of the 24 horses still publicly in Derby contention through Monday, 16 of them changed hands at public auction a combined 22 times. Six of the hopefuls are campaigned as homebreds, and one horse, Santa Anita Derby winner Gormley, was acquired through a private purchase.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Steve Asmussen checked off a couple more boxes last year when he won the Belmont Stakes with Creator and was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame.
They were the latest among the major feats and honors accumulated by Asmussen in 30-plus years as a Thoroughbred trainer. Now 51, he has pretty much done it all – except for one little something.
“Oh, I’m well aware of what’s missing,” Asmussen said with a big laugh in a recent interview. “I’ve got one major vacancy on my résumé.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer John Shirreffs arrived at Churchill Downs on Monday knowing he had one horse in this year’s Kentucky Derby and hoping he’d end up with two. The window was closing but not quite shut just yet.
Shirreffs trains Gormley, the Santa Anita Derby winner, and Royal Mo, who finished third in the race. Gormley is safely in the field for the 143rd Derby on Saturday, but the number of points earned by Royal Mo has him sitting 21st in a race that has a maximum of 20 runners.
He is the four-time reigning champion jockey, is closing in on 100 Grade 1 stakes victories, and just two weeks ago was elected into Thoroughbred racing’s Hall of Fame.
When it comes to the sport’s Triple Crown races, however, Javier Castellano has not been nearly as successful. Castellano has just one win from 25 mounts in the Triple Crown series comprised of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes. The win came in the 2006 Preakness on Bernardini, a victory largely overshadowed by the breakdown of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro early in the race.
