Kentucky Derby 2019 Daily: Anothertwistafate blazes new trail
Welcome to Horse Racing Nation’s Kentucky Derby Daily, which will each day leading up to the May 4 race at Churchill Downs detail all the news and notes related to contenders in one convenient space.
Trainer Blaine Wright considers it “a blessing in disguise now” that a quarantine at his base, California’s Golden Gate Fields, prevented 2019 Kentucky Derby hopeful Anothertwistafate from returning home between his final preps.
Instead, the son of Scat Daddy remained at New Mexico’s Sunland Park, where “the weather was good” and Anothertwistafate breezed a speedy half mile in 46.80 seconds before leaving for Keeneland, where he leads Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Lexington Stakes.
Should Anothertwistafate win and punch his ticket to Churchill Downs, it would represent a unique route to the Derby: from Golden Gate’s El Camino Real Derby to the Sunland Derby (G3) and finally the Lexington.
• In 1999, Charismatic ran in both the El Camino Real Derby and Lexington.
• In 2012, Daddy Nose Best competed in the El Camino and Sunland Derby.
• As recently as 2017, Irap ran at both Sunland Park and Keeneland’s Blue Grass.
That’s as close as it gets to the new Derby trail blazed by Anothertwistafate.
Campaigned by Peter Redekop, the colt lost on debut sprinting at Santa Anita, then won three straight starts over the synthetic at Golden Gate. Connections turned to the March 24 Sunland Derby as a test over the dirt. He passed with a narrow, rallying runner-up finish to Cutting Humor.
But the performance also left Anothertwistafate short of qualifying on points for the Kentucky Derby and in need of an extra prep.
“I don’t know if I would work him,” Wright said of the three weeks between the Lexington and Derby, if the colt qualifies. “It depends on how he comes out of this. His races have been spaced out and he is carrying good flesh.”
And if not, connections own a “Win and You’re In” trip to the Preakness Stakes, an added incentive for this year’s El Camino Real Derby.
Sunland Park did, by the way, film Anothertwistafate’s only career workout over dirt from April 4:
Derby links
• Anothertwistafate’s squarely the one to beat, says Mike Shutty, author of HRN’s Super Screener handicapping system. Here’s why.
• Leading into Saturday’s top prep, HRN’s Laurie Ross and Ashley Tamulonis provide their Head to Head Arkansas Derby handicapping.
• Churchill Downs has extended an invitation to the European Derby trail’s points leader — and should connections accept, the task to qualify gets that much more difficult stateside.
• By My Standards put in a second local work Thursday morning toward the Kentucky Derby, with jockey Gabriel Saez saying “keeps progressing really well.”
In case you missed it…
Wednesday’s Derby Daily report highlighted various scenarios for those on the bubble and outside the current Top 20 in points to make the field.