Kentucky Derby 2018 Daily: Did the winner run Saturday?
Welcome to Horse Racing Nation’s Kentucky Derby Daily, which will each day leading up to the May 5 race at Churchill Downs detail all the news and notes related to contenders in one convenient space. We've got 119 days to go!
By Jonathan Lintner
OK, so that’s a bit of a clickbait headline. But stick with me here.
With two 2018 Kentucky Derby preps running Saturday and three more within the next 10 days, Mike Shutty, author of Horse Racing Nation’s Super Screener handicapping tool, has outlined eight key traits traditionally shared by eventual winners — and exhibited as early as January.
We’ll sprinkle them in the Derby Daily report over the next few days, and you can get the full guide right away in a nicely packaged PDF via the download link below. If you need the Super Screener to prove its worth, consider that Shutty had longshots Golden Soul and Commanding Curve on his tickets the years they lit up the tote board as runner-ups.
So, consider these tips to start...
1. Note that for every one of the past five Derby winners, they each produced a BRIS Late Pace figure of 100-plus in their January prep regardless of running style…no exception. This is providing us early clues as to those horses that have the stamina to handle the demanding 1 1/4 miles in the Derby.
2. Each of these horses had significant racing experience in the prior year, starting at least three times. Always Dreaming is the exception, racing only twice at 2. The important takeaway here is the eventual Derby winner isn’t a completely unknown entity coming into the January preps.
On the Sham and Mucho Macho Man
Mask got it done easily on the front end in the Mucho Macho Man Stakes, with the only knock on his 6 1/4-length romp that perhaps he got to do it too easily. This is the type of prospect who we'll actually hope encounters some adversity in his next start. For now, he's the best Chad Brown-trained prospect not named Good Magic.
"Now we can get him in a two-turn race and see how he handles it," Brown said. "The way he finished his race today, I expect him to be OK with it.”
• Full Mucho Macho Man Stakes recap
In the Grade 3 Sham Stakes, "the ultra-talented McKinzie" -- race caller Michael Wrona's words -- relaxed with blinkers off and delivered a powerful middle move to go to 3-for-3 in his young career. Good call by Bob Baffert on the equipment change, and a good future ahead for this one.
The effort more than made up for what happened the last time we saw the colt run in the Los Alamitos Futurity, a race in which he was beaten to the wire but awarded the win after a stewards inquiry.
Most of the Jerome Stakes field to re-enter
Andrew Byrnes, the New York Racing Association’s stakes coordinator, said “we’re probably not going to get everybody back” from the $150,000 Jerome Stakes’ original draw. But almost all runners drawn into the original race, which was scheduled for last Monday but postponed due to colt weather, should re-enter.
The draw is Wednesday with the race Saturday, Jan. 13, offering Derby qualifying points to the top four runners on a 10-4-2-1 scale.
Multiple stakes winner Firenze Fire is probable to go along with Smooth B, Honor Up, Old Time Revival, Regalian and Seven Trumpets, a Dale Romans trainee who shipped to New York and has remained there through the delay.
Diamond King ran in and won last weekend’s Heft Stakes at Laurel Park, so he won’t be back. Longshot Millionaire Runner is also doubtful, though Byrnes said Factor This, from the barn of Ed Barker, could be supplemented and run.
So far, it’s a prospective field of seven.
Update on Baffert runners
After an impressive debut Monday in which he registered a 96 Beyer Speed Figure, Ax Man, a homebred son of Misremembered, will point toward the Feb. 10 San Vicente Stakes at seven furlongs next out.
“He ran a lot faster than I thought he would,” Baffert told HRN. “He handled it really well and came out of it.”
The Grade 2, $200,000 San Vicente is notably the spot early Derby favorite Bolt d’Oro will skip due to a recent muscle pull. Baffert said lack of allowance races offered for 3-year-olds on the West Coast makes this race the target.
Baffert added that Ax Man had been working with Sham Stakes favorite McKinzie “and was holding his own with him.”
So far, he’s the only known contender for the San Vicente, which doesn’t offer Derby qualifying points but was used in 2015 as a jump-start to 3-year-old campaigns by eventual Derby winner Nyquist and Preakness winner Exaggerator.
As for Mourinho, his scratch from the Sham Stakes changed the pace significantly for that one and has reportedly added a headliner to Oaklawn Park’s Jan. 15 Smarty Jones Stakes. The Blood-Horse’s Jeremy Balan reports the graded stakes placed son of Super Saver will ship to Arkansas — a route to the Derby often used by Baffert — for his next start.
The Works
Ebben — The Lecomte longshot completed his work for the race by going a half mile in 48.80 (12/128) as Fair Grounds warmed a bit Saturday. The Steve Margolis trainee won an allowance race last out but hasn’t faired as well in stakes company.
Free Drop Billy / Hollywood Star — Last seen in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, these Romans trainees got back on the work tab for the first time Saturday with their 3-year-old target races still, well, a moving target. Grade 1 winner Free Drop Billy drilled a half mile in 49.33 seconds (21/97) with Hollywood Star going in 50.22 (58/97).
Nero — A $950,000 purchase who hasn’t run since second in his Aug. 27 debut, he has worked consistently for nearly two months now. No word on a start, but stepping straight into a stakes seems unlikely. Still, he has out-worked the aforementioned Ax Man. Saturday’s breeze from the gate went in 1:15.20 for six furlongs.
Untamed Domain — Not a Derby prospect, technically, he has appeared on many lists of top 3-year-olds after running second to the highly regarded Mendelssohn in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. For trainer Graham Motion, he’s at Palm Meadows in Florida and has breezed twice, most recently going five furlongs in 1:02.30 on the dirt.
Wonder Gadot — Likely a Lecomte worker — but also cross-entered in the Jan. 13 prep for fillies, the Silverbulletday, she put in four furlongs in 49.80 seconds. We detailed in Friday’s report trainer Mark Casse’s thinking on racing the Grade 2 Demoiselle winner against the boys.
Derby links
The San Diego Union-Tribune, in its series of stories following up on victims of the San Luis Rey Downs fires, visited with trainer Adam Kitchingman, trainer of Greyvitos, the horse we earlier this week reported needed surgery to remove bone chips in his knees. To make the Derby now, “Literally, I need everything to go perfect,” Kitchingman said.
The Blood-Horse’s Steve Haskin hasn’t yet delivered his first “Derby Dozen,” but heading into the weekend he did pen a column with some random thoughts on this year’s crop, including that “maybe the Derby trail hasn't changed as much as we think, and we are starting to go back to its roots.”
In case you missed it…
With the draw already out for next weekend’s Lecomte Stakes, get the lowdown on Wonder Gadot, the filly who could face the boys, plus a link to full-field odds and analysis, in Friday’s Derby Daily report.