HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The Factor put up his third triple-digit Beyer Figure in a row Saturday with a 6 1/4-length win the Grade 2, $300,000 Rebel at Oaklawn, and in the process stamped himself as a leading candidate for the Kentucky Derby.
The Rebel was his first test at two turns, and he earned a Beyer of 103.
KENTUCKY DERBY NEWS: Track all the 3-year-olds on the Triple Crown trail
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Soldat pretty much had everything his own way on the front end in each of his two victories here this winter, including the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth. But trainer Kiaran McLaughlin knows things are going to be different as Soldat moves further along the Kentucky Derby trail, and especially if he’s fortunate to make it into the Derby itself.
In Robert Burns’s poem, To a Mouse, the author notes “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley [often go awry].”
We shall hope, for Elite Alex’s sake, that trainer Tim Ritchey’s decision to bypass last week’s Grade 2, $300,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park in favor for this Saturday’s Grade 2, $1,000,000 Louisiana Derby does not prove the old saying correct.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Two days after the March 5 Gotham Stakes, the connections of the runner-up, Norman Asbjornson, and third-place finisher, Toby’s Corner, indicated they would look more at the Illinois Derby than the Wood Memorial for their horses’ next starts.
Two weeks later, there appears to be a change of heart.
In 2007, trainer Al Stall Jr. sent out the lightly raced Ketchikan to a second-place finish in the Louisiana Derby. Same time, next year, Stall again finished second in the Louisiana Derby with another lightly raced colt, My Pal Charlie. Stall will be at it again this Saturday, sending out the unbeaten Left in only his third start in the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby, highlight of a sensational card at Fair Grounds.
Blame it on Paddy O’Prado.
Three-year-olds lacking any semblance of dirt form can still run in the Kentucky Derby, provided they amass the sufficient amount of graded stakes earnings to make the 20-horse cutoff. Last year, Donegal Racing and trainer Dale Romans used a combination of grass and Polytrack to get Paddy O’Prado into the Derby field, and the colt responded with a huge effort, finishing third while barely missing second.
The entrants came out of the woodwork Sunday when the field was drawn and post positions assigned for the $1 million Louisiana Derby. A field of 13 – most wholly unproven in open stakes competition – was entered in the Grade 2, 1 1/8-mile race, the centerpiece of what ought to be a blockbuster, multi-graded-stakes racing program Saturday in New Orleans.
