ARCADIA, Calif. – Until 5:15 p.m. last Saturday, jockey Victor Espinoza was without a confirmed mount for the Kentucky Derby.
“I didn’t have one,” he said. “I was just hoping.”
Midnight Interlude changed that with his upset win in the $1 million Santa Anita Derby. Making his stakes debut, Midnight Interlude earned a place in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 7 with a head victory over Comma to the Top.
“I was lucky for sure,” Espinoza said.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Arkansas Derby favorite The Factor was one of seven horses from Southern California who arrived in Hot Springs, Ark., on a Tex Sutton charter flight around 9:45 a.m. Tuesday morning, most expected for stakes engagements this weekend at Oaklawn Park.
The Arkansas Derby closes out the meet on Saturday. The Factor is returning to Oaklawn after winning last month’s Grade 2, $300,000 Rebel Stakes by more than six lengths. Martin Garcia has the mount for trainer Bob Baffert.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Alternation on Monday was committed to the Grade 1, $1 million Arkansas Derby – making for a prospective field of 13 – while a little later the same morning probables Brethren, Dance City and Truman’s Commander arrived in town from Florida.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Todd Pletcher won the Blue Grass Stakes in 2005 with Bandini and in 2008 with Momba, but it’s only coincidence that he will try to sustain that every-three-years pattern and shoot for his third Blue Grass victory by running three horses Saturday in the Keeneland showcase.
For months, Uncle Mo was the acknowledged favorite for the Kentucky Derby on May 7, but his stunning loss Saturday in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, part of an unpredictable day of Derby preps, has left the Derby picture quite unsettled less than four weeks out.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Dianne Cotter and her husband Julian were watching a recording of Saturday’s Wood Memorial early Monday afternoon at their home near Gainesville, Fla. Over and over again.
“The only thing they’re talking about is Uncle Mo and how inferior everybody else is,” said Diane Cotter, who interrupted her repeated viewing of the race to take a phone call. “Which makes it all the better.”
By finishing second in the Grade 1, $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct last Saturday, Arthur’s Tale didn’t exactly pull Excalibur from the stone, but he leapt from Kentucky Derby non-entity to one of the intriguing “bubble” possibilities for this year’s Run for the Roses.
Jaycito, scratched from the Santa Anita Derby on Saturday because of a sore foot, returned to the track to train at Santa Anita on Monday morning and is on course to make the Coolmore Lexington Stakes at Keeneland on April 23, trainer Bob Baffert said Monday.
Baffert is at Keeneland for the 2-year-olds in training sale, but said reports from assistant Jim Barnes at Santa Anita were that Jaycito "looked good."
"We got the soreness out of the foot," Baffert said.
