ARCADIA, Calif. – Ocho Ocho Ocho, third in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 4, will have his next start at Churchill Downs on May 2.

A decision on whether Ocho Ocho Ocho starts in the $2 million Kentucky Derby or the $200,000 Pat Day Mile on the undercard will be made at the beginning of that week. The decision depends on how the colt trains and whether he can gain a berth in the Derby, trainer Jim Cassidy said Friday.

“I want to see how he’s doing coming up to it,” Cassidy said.

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Few people are going to be watching the results of the Arkansas Derby more closely than Nick Zito.

The Hall of Fame trainer is dead set on getting Frammento into the lineup for the 141st Kentucky Derby on May 2 but will need a little help in the points standings for that to happen.

“The bottom line is he’s a mile-and-a-quarter horse,” Zito said. “That’s what he’s going to be best at.”

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – D. Wayne Lukas made an impression on a teenage Bob Baffert decades ago when Lukas shipped several horses into a Sonoita, Ariz., track about 30 miles from Baffert’s home. Lukas was an established Quarter Horse trainer and was invading for trials for a futurity.

“It was big time,” recalled Baffert. “He rolled in with all these good 2-year-olds, a first-class operation. He was the guy. Wayne’s always been bigger than life. He’s always been the bar of racing.”

A little more than three weeks removed from the Kentucky Derby, shortly before the last major prep for the race, the Arkansas Derby, the list of contenders is long, as are the number of horses who have a front-running or pace-pressing style.

In doing a little bit of pre-Derby research, the similarity of running styles among the probable starters was the immediate thing that jumped out when looking at the contenders listed in Daily Racing Form’s Derby Watch.

Prospect Park, who finished a dull fourth in the Santa Anita Derby last Saturday, is off the Kentucky Derby trail after being found to have a high white blood cell count, trainer Cliff Sise Jr. said on Thursday.

Sise on Sunday had said he was concerned about Prospect Park’s demeanor in the hours leading up to the race on Saturday, noting that he was unusually quiet. A check of the colt’s temperature that afternoon was normal, so he ran, but subsequent diagnostic work revealed the elevated white cell count.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – American Pharoah swept into Oaklawn Park last month and seized the Rebel Stakes on the front end despite stumbling at the start. This time around, there could be an uprising.

American Pharoah has returned from his Southern California digs for the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby and will meet notable new competition in Far Right and Bridget’s Big Luvy, as well as sharper old foes in Bold Conquest and The Truth Or Else.

Last Saturday, Dortmund’s form was confirmed with a 106 Beyer Speed Figure in the Santa Anita Derby after a pair of 104s to start his 3-year-old season. If you are concerned that he has been winning with easy leads, consider that he is fast enough to get those leads and fast enough to stay out of trouble if he doesn’t. Also, check out his 2-year-old form and see how he won those races. This colt is absolutely the horse to beat in the Kentucky Derby.

Attendees of the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby cards at Churchill Downs in Louisville this year will no longer be able to get back into the track if they leave, a measure Churchill is putting in place to prevent counterfeit sales of tickets and wrist bracelets, the company said on Thursday.

In a release, Churchill said some patrons on Oaks and Derby days were leaving the track to use their tickets and bracelets to quickly produce counterfeits of the items. The release stated that re-entry bans are a “common security policy for major sporting and entertainment events.”

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Three of the main contenders are fresh off maiden victories, which seems to say plenty about the 34th running of the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes on Saturday.

Ten eligibility points to the May 2 Kentucky Derby will be awarded to the winner of the $250,000 Lexington, a 1 1/16-mile race that anchors an 11-race card at Keeneland. Those points, however, are likely to go unused, given that the cutoff mark to make the 20-horse Derby field appears destined to be beyond what can be accumulated by any of the seven 3-year-olds in a collectively unaccomplished field.

Far Right
Notional – Zindi, by Vindication
(Bred in Kentucky by Nossab LLC and Patrick J. Crowley; $2,500 purchase by Jon Jazdzewski at 2013 Keeneland January horses of all ages sale)