Met Mile in mind for McCraken, who returned a winner at age 4
Don't call it a comeback.
If LL Cool J could twist those mystical rhymes just a little, he'd say that McCracken was rocking his peers, puttin' suckers in fear Saturday at Churchill Downs, when he rallied back to win on the Kentucky Derby undercard.
Like his vintage ways, McCraken sat back off the pace in Race 5, waiting for the stretch in the 1-mile race to push through a wall of eight other horses. He and Behavioral Bias battled for the wire, with the Churchill Downs native keeping a resilient pace and clipping the finish at a final time of 1:35.20.
“It felt great to get McCraken back on after the long year he had last year,” said a relieved jockey, Brian Hernandez Jr., after the race. “To get the break that he did, and to come back and beat up on a bunch of pretty solid horses today was great.”
As he did in the Matt Winn Stakes in June — his last win before Saturday — McCracken broke slowest, staying over eight lengths off of the leader, before finding his next gear on the turn and surging to the lead down the stretch.
“He ran like McCraken,” the jockey said.
With his second consecutive win on home dirt notched, the fiery son of Ghostzapper may have finally buried the ghosts of an eighth-place showing in last year's Kentucky Derby, with unsuccessful trips in the Haskell Invitational, Travers and the Fayette coupled in.
“He bounced back (Saturday),” said jockey Brian Hernandez Jr, who has ridden McCraken in all 10 starts. “You can't keep a horse like this down for long.”
Race 5 on the Kentucky Derby undercardwas merely a $100,000 allowance optional claimer for 3-year-olds and upwards which have never won four career races. But as Hernandez Jr. put it: “A win is a win, and we'll take it.”
This was McCraken's first race as a 4-year-old, which broke a streak of eight consecutive graded stakes starts for the product of Whitham Thoroughbreds, LLC. The waters deepen next out with McCraken pointed to the Grade 1 Met Mile on the June 9 Belmont Stakes undercard.
“This is a really good race horse. He's a winner,” said trainer Ian Wilkes, who was “very happy to win this, and see McCraken back on top."
The namesake of a small town in Kansas, McCracken has seen the ebbs and flows in a racing career that would have a sympathizing farmer's daughter declaring, there's no place like home; after all, home has been kind to McCracken, with 5 of 6 career wins coming at Churchill Downs.
“This place has always been kind to us, and he likes racing here, that's obvious,” Hernandez Jr. said.
That one loss at Kentucky's most famous racetrack, however was one that wrote a sour narrative on McCraken, which still hasn't changed much present day. The 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby was an arduous task before the race ever even started for the $722,228 lifetime earner, forced to make his way out of the 15 stall — the first to line up in the auxiliary gate.
Irish War Cry, who, from the 17 stall, cut off McCracken — and a slew of other horses — all but slashed his hopes and sealed his fate in making a true run for the roses, as the horse finished 13 lengths off of winner Always Dreaming.
McCraken, who went off at 6-1 odds that day, found it tough sledding to bounce back in a pair of Grade 1 races and a Grade 2 start at Keeneland to close his 3-year-old campaign.
“You know, you never want to live in the past, but we did have some tough losses,” Hernandez Jr. said.
Exacting payback on Irish War Cry down the stretch in Monmouth Park's biggest race, McCraken looked to have the Grade 1 Haskell under his saddle cloth, until Girvin rallied on the outside and clipped the horse by a nose at the wire, handing yet another disappointment to a strong, capable horse that just needed to catch one break.
Let's take McCraken's jockey's word for it after Saturday's win: “There's no doubt a future for this horse."