I Want Revenge, one of the early favorites for the 135th Kentucky Derby, was driven through the Churchill Downs stable gate early Tuesday morning following a van ride from New York.
Churchill officials reported that I Want Revenge arrived at 5:45 a.m. Eastern and was bedded down in Barn 24. The colt is one of the first prospects for the May 2 Derby to be shipped to Churchill. Musket Man, winner of the Illinois Derby last weekend, arrived Sunday at the Louisville, Ky., track.
ARCADIA, Calif. - The results of the three significant Kentucky Derby prep races run last Saturday all went as expected, with favorites I Want Revenge, Musket Man, and Pioneerof the Nile all keeping their winning streaks, and their Derby dreams, alive. But much surrounding the Kentucky Derby the past 48 hours wasn't quite as neat and efficient.
ELMONT, N.Y. - Quality Road, considered among the top three candidates for the May 2 Kentucky Derby, has a quarter crack in his right hind foot, making his status for the Run for the Roses a bit uncertain.
Trainer Jimmy Jerkens said Monday morning that he is "very concerned" about the situation but that it would be premature to say the horse can't make the Derby,
"You hope it was resolved by now, that's for sure, but he's not out of it yet,"said Jerkens, who trains Quality Road for owner/breeder Ed Evans. "The fact that he's not lame from it is a good thing."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The impressive victory by I Want Revenge in the Wood Memorial was enough to make him the favorite when the third and final pool in the 2009 Kentucky Derby Future Wager closed Sunday at 6 p.m. Eastern after the customary four-day run.
I Want Revenge closed as the 9-2 choice on the strength of his last-to-first score in the Wood on Saturday. He was followed by Quality Road (6-1), Friesan Fire (8-1), Pioneerof the Nile (9-1), Dunkirk (11-1), and Old Fashioned (12-1).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Florida Derby winner Quality Road was a 5-1 favorite in the opening hours of betting into Pool 3 of the 2009 Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which opened Thursday at noon Eastern.
At 4:30 p.m., and after a relatively light handle of $11,885 in the win pool, Quality Road was favored over the mutuel field, the 24th or "all others" entry, which stood at 9-1. Then came Friesan Fire (10-1), I Want Revenge (10-1), The Pamplemousse (11-1), and Old Fashioned (12-1).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The third and final pool in the 2009 Kentucky Derby Future Wager opens its customary four-day run Thursday at noon Eastern with nine new names from the previous pool and with Quality Road as a lukewarm morning-line favorite.
Quality Road, an impressive winner of the Florida Derby last Saturday, is pegged as a 6-1 choice by Churchill Downs linemaker Mike Battaglia. He is followed by a trio of horses at 8-1: Dunkirk, Friesan Fire, and I Want Revenge.
ARCADIA, Calif. - For a guy who had been halfway around the world and back in a little more than a week, trainer Eoin Harty looked remarkably fresh on Wednesday morning. But with a victory in the $6 million Dubai World Cup with Well Armed in his rearview mirror, and a chance to win the Santa Anita Derby for the second straight year on the immediate horizon, Harty had plenty of reason to have some spring in his step.
"It's a fantastic week to be in the middle of," Harty said at his Santa Anita barn on Wednesday morning.
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Trainer Larry Jones will be entering uncharted territory when he starts Friesan Fire in next month's Kentucky Derby. No horse has won the Kentucky Derby off a six-week layoff since Needles in 1956, and Jones will attempt to do Needles one better when he runs leading Derby hopeful Friesan Fire on the first Saturday in May off a seven-week break.
Money can't get everything, it's true, but it can get you a spot in the Kentucky Derby. For the connections of Dunkirk, that's all they want.
A berth in the Derby will be on the line for Dunkirk on Saturday, when the unbeaten colt competes in the Grade 1, $750,000 Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. Because he has yet to earn a penny in a graded stakes, and because the Florida Derby is scheduled to be his final race before the Kentucky Derby, the money Dunkirk makes Saturday will be paramount as to whether he is in the starting gate May 2 at Churchill Downs.
Kempton Park outside London won't make anyone's top 10 list of must-see European racetracks. Alan Shuback, in his excellent recent book, "Global Racing," said the sport at Kempton "has always been of a rather tasty meat-and-potatoes variety." But on Wednesday night, Kempton became a rather important, though out-of-the-way, detour on the road to the Kentucky Derby. It was the site of the inaugural Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes, a race that, for the first time this year, guaranteed a horse a spot in the May 2 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.
