[bc_video_id:322796:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In racing, the big fish often eat the small fish. That explains why Billy Gowan’s cellphone started blowing up just a few minutes after Ride On Curlin made his career debut last summer at Churchill Downs.
“We had a lot of tire-kickers but only two serious offers,” Gowan said. “They wanted to tell me everything that was wrong with the horse, and I wanted to tell them everything that was right with him.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainers tend to follow the same routine with their horses, morning after morning, at most any racetrack, whether a half-mile bush track or Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby Week. But there was nothing routine about training hours under the Twin Spires on Monday morning, with torrential downpours and severe lightning interfering with the plans of a couple of top Derby contenders. Ultimately, however, it did not deter either Tapiture or Hoppertunity from getting in key workouts over the sloppy Churchill strip.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – By the end of the week, at the end of the long prep season toward the Kentucky Derby, handicappers and horsemen alike often simply look to the heavens for some sort of inspiration or intervention, but this year they needed to look earlier, for on Monday, the heavens opened, the rains came, and then, after a dramatic morning, this year’s chosen one dropped from the sky.
In a sport amply populated by rogues and cheaters, trainer Steve Asmussen has become Public Enemy No. 1. He has shamed Thoroughbred racing so badly that the chairman of The Jockey Club, Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps, declared that there is “a dark cloud hovering over our sport” and that Asmussen ought to stay away from the Kentucky Derby and the Kentucky Oaks.
Twenty-three horses ran in a rough-and-tumble edition of the Kentucky Derby in 1974, and that was too many, track officials decided before the 1975 Derby, capping the maximum number of starters at 20, though a court injunction permitted a 21st runner in 1981.
It wasn’t until 1999 that the Derby drew more than 20 entrants again and the 20-horse maximum, determined by graded-stakes earnings, had to be invoked, but since 2004, a full Derby entry box of 20 horses has become the rule.
Trainer Todd Pletcher was candid following We Miss Artie’s workout Sunday, describing it as poor for a horse who usually works well on dirt, even though his best races have been on turf and synthetic.
On Monday, upon more reflection, Pletcher said he still wasn’t happy with the way he worked but did offer a few reasons why We Miss Artie wasn’t as sharp as he had hoped.
[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]
Four-time Kentucky Derby-winning trainer D. Wayne Lukas won’t have a starter this year, but there are a few story lines he will be watching with interest. Among them is Medal Count, set to make his third start in 30 days after winning the Transylvania Stakes on April 4 and finishing second in the Blue Grass Stakes on April 12.
[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chitu, who lost his special right front shoe Sunday during his final workout for the Kentucky Derby, was re-shod in a conventional shoe and will wear that for training the rest of the week as well as for the Derby itself Saturday at Churchill Downs.
Chitu had the morning off Monday, which is standard procedure the day after a drill for trainer Bob Baffert.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Skychai Racing and Starlight Stables have purchased Kentucky Derby contender General a Rod from his previous owner, J. Armando Rodriguez, the new ownership group announced on Monday.
General a Rod, runner-up in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and the third-place finisher in the Grade 1 Florida Derby, will remain with trainer Mike Maker and be ridden by Joel Rosario in the Kentucky Derby, according to the new owners. He will wear the silks of James Shircliff, who is a partner in both Skychai and Starlight, in the Derby.
