Rafael Bejarano will ride Line of David in the Kentucky Derby, trainer John Sadler said Tuesday.
Bejarano had ridden Line of David to two victories in California before the Arkansas Derby, in which Jon Court rode Line of David.
Sadler was the leading trainer at Santa Anita this past meet, and Bejarano was the leading rider. They team up often.
"We felt for this race we would go with our home-team player," Sadler. "He's one of my primary riders in California."
The 136th Kentucky Derby is now less than two weeks away, but the final 20-horse field for the race won't be solidified until at least Saturday, when two horses trying to make Hail Mary attempts to get into the Derby field run in the Grade 3, $200,000 Derby Trial on opening day at Churchill Downs.
That, combined with the unsettled nature of a couple of horses currently among the top 20 in terms of graded stakes earnings, has left several jockeys and trainers in a holding pattern, waiting to see how the dominoes fall before proceeding.
Jockey Ramon Dominguez has picked up the mount on Rule for the Kentucky Derby on May 1, according to Elliott Walden, the racing manager for WinStar Farm, which owns Rule and several other Derby runners.
Rule most recently finished third in the Florida Derby under John Velazquez, who rides favored Eskendereya in the Derby.
WinStar will also have Endorsement (Robby Albarado the rider), American Lion (David Flores), and Super Saver (Calvin Borel) in the Derby.
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - As if trainer Todd Pletcher won't have enough on his mind in the final two weeks leading up to the Kentucky Derby, with as many as six potential starters in his barn including the current favorite, Eskendereya, now he has to stress about the weather too.
Wesley Ward has never run a horse in the Kentucky Derby, but that prospect seemed ever closer after Pleasant Prince finished second four weeks ago in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. In addition to running well in one of the elite prep races for the May 1 Kentucky Derby, Pleasant Prince had $162,500 in graded stakes earnings, usually enough to make the 20-horse field.
Uh Oh Bango, the fourth-place finisher in the Arkansas Derby on Saturday and the 21st horse on the list of graded earnings among prospects for the May 1 Kentucky Derby, emerged from the Arkansas Derby with a fractured left front cannon bone and will be sidelined from four to six months, his trainer, Kory Owens, said Tuesday morning.
The field for this year's Kentucky Derby picked up two new shooters Saturday when the previously unheralded pair of Line of David and Stately Victor pulled off upsets in the Arkansas Derby and Blue Grass, respectively. But the prospective field for the Derby on May 1 will be in flux right up to entry time on April 28, both because there are currently more than the maximum number of 20 horses who are being pointed for the race and there is uncertainty over the prospects of some horses currently in the top 20.
Aikenite, who beat only one horse in the Blue Grass Stakes on Saturday at Keeneland, will not press forward and run in the Kentucky Derby, Cot Campbell, who runs the Dogwood Farms partnership which owns Aikenite, said Monday.
"He's out. We're not thinking about the Derby," Campbell said from his office in Aiken, S.C. "We wanted to see him run a good race. He did not run well enough to entertain thoughts of the Derby."
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - The trend has been unmistakable. Time and again in recent months, across all divisions, horses have been leaving Southern California, having raced or trained on the synthetic surfaces at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, and won when moving to dirt.
