LOUISVILLE − For those A-listers, oligarchs, and monarchs who are sick and tired of slumming it on Millionaire’s Row, Churchill Downs finally has an answer: the Mansion, a posh new invitation-only amphitheater of excess six floors over the track’s finish line.
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Gary Stevens, who will be riding in his first Kentucky Derby since 2005, said he felt a bit of déjà vu this week when visiting the NBC compound at Churchill Downs, where he has spent the last several Derby Days working as an analyst.
[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]
“It’s a bit like when I was retired from riding, walking up to the jocks’ room . . . it kind of felt funny,” he said.
Unless you bleed Celtics green or lean toward tattoos in a pinstripe pattern, you’re probably like most sports fans who react badly to a dynasty. They’re like strikeouts in baseball. And strikeouts, as defined by Crash Davis in “Bull Durham,” are boring. “Besides that,” Crash added, “they’re fascist.”
Out of respect to the connections, if nothing else, the highest that Churchill linemaker Mike Battaglia will list a horse on his Derby line is 50-1. There are six such horses in this renewal: Black Onyx, Golden Soul, Giant Finish, Falling Sky, Frac Daddy, and the lone also-eligible, Fear the Kitten.
[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]
For most of the horses in this year’s Kentucky Derby field, the road to the starting gate went through the auction ring, and often at a fairly modest price.
Fourteen of the 21 horses entered in the 2013 Derby, including the also-eligible Fear the Kitten, were sold at least once at public auction, with prices ranging from $5,500 to $425,000, proving once again that a classic horse can come from anywhere in the sale book.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – As warm-up acts go, they don’t come any better than the race preceding the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs – the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodford Reserve, a race that drew reigning Horse of the Year Wise Dan and Point of Entry, a four-time Grade 1 winner on turf.
The Woodford Reserve could not be run at a fairer distance for this duo. The 1 1/8 miles of the Woodford on the Matt Winn turf course is the farthest Wise Dan has ever raced, and the minimum distance Point of Entry runs effectively.
The whole point of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager is to give bettors a chance to get some value out of being ahead of the proverbial curve. So now here it is, Derby Day, and some futures players are sitting in a better spot than others.
[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]
AUBURN, Wash. – Emerald Downs will celebrate Kentucky Derby Day with a special 1 p.m. Pacific post time on Saturday, a nine-race card, and a host of bells and whistles that make it one of the most festive days of the meeting.
As it turns out, an Emerald-based horse very nearly landed a starting berth at Churchill Downs. Mark Dedomenico’s 3-year-old Carving, purchased privately over the winter, was No. 22 on the Road to the Kentucky Derby leader board and needed at least two defections to get into the field of 20.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – What was scheduled to be an easy day for Normandy Invasion turned a little more eventful when the Kentucky Derby candidate ran off with his exercise rider Javier Herrera during his morning gallop at Churchill Downs.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Vyjack blew out three furlongs in 37.13 seconds under his trainer Rudy Rodriguez on Thursday in his final preparation for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.
[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]
“Just to sharpen him up a little bit. We don’t want to overdo it, but we want him to blow-out a little bit, open his lungs a little bit,” Rodriguez said.