California Chrome is a Kentucky Derby standout. He’s the fastest horse and also the classiest.
Want speed figures? He has them. He owns the top last-race Beyer Speed Figure, a 107, earned in winning the Santa Anita Derby, and his career-best Beyer, a 108, again tops Saturday’s field for the Kentucky Derby. None of his opponents have ever run higher than a 104.
Perhaps the most remarkable running line from the prep races was Dance With Fate vaulting from 11th at the pace call to the lead in midstretch of the Blue Grass Stakes. While it’s become fashionable to knock Polytrack preps such as the Blue Grass and Spiral Stakes, recent Derby winners Street Sense and Animal Kingdom took that route, along with on-the-board finishers such as Hard Spun, Dullahan, and Paddy O’Prado.
When it comes to the Kentucky Derby, every handicapper aspires to be the smartest guy in the room, and wants to pick the double-digit pari-mutuel winner no one else lands on. But for me, this Derby is a little different. My instincts tell me it’s best to not make handicapping this Derby any more difficult than it needs to be, and I’m going with California Chrome .
This looks like a Derby in which you have to take a stand, either for or against the favorite, California Chrome, and after watching him train here Wednesday, I’m going to stand against a short-priced favorite in a seemingly wide-open 20-horse field.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Expectations for Todd Pletcher are high – higher than that new video board that dominates the backstretch at Churchill Downs. Pletcher is a six-time Eclipse Award winner, trains more horses than anyone in North America and, this year, set a record for Triple Crown nominations with 41, nearly 10 percent of the 413 nominated at the early deadline in January.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Jimmy Jerkens was enjoying his first Kentucky Derby experience until Wednesday’s post-position draw, where his Wood Memorial winner, Wicked Strong, was assigned post 20 for Saturday’s 140th Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs.
“I didn’t like it,” Jerkens said afterward. “At least you got a long run to the first turn.”
Since 1930, there have been 14 horses to break from post 20 in the Derby, with Big Brown in 2008 the only one to win from there. Caveat, in 1983, was the only other horse to finish in the top three.
Wicked Strong has much in his favor, including sharp form, proven class, and a big Beyer Speed Figure (104) earned last month scoring a visually impressive victory in the Grade 1 Wood. His closing style should play well in a field with sufficient speed to run at.
Most years, projecting the race flow for the Kentucky Derby is pretty straightforward, at least on paper: A quick, contested pace will develop, setting up those horses who can take back and make one run. Unearthing the winner has meant finding the horse with the best late kick, or the horse who figures to benefit most from the race flow.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It is a little surprising but perhaps appropriate that Centennial Farms and trainer Jimmy Jerkens will be making their Kentucky Derby debuts together when they send out Wood Memorial winner Wicked Strong in Saturday’s 140th Run for the Roses.
The relationship between Centennial – a Massachusetts-based racing partnership founded by Don Little Sr. in 1982 and now run by his son Don Little Jr. – and the Jerkens family goes back three decades. It went dormant for a period, but has been revived over the last decade.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – California Chrome has won four straight races, and when he goes for five on Saturday in the 140th Kentucky Derby, he’ll be wearing number 5, the post he drew when a full field was entered on Wednesday at Churchill Downs.
Victor Espinoza, the rider of California Chrome, was satisfied with the post, believing it to be a good omen, since he scored his only Derby victory in 2002 on War Emblem, who was number 5 in that race.
