Kentucky Derby 2019 Radar: Hustle Up brings 'a ton of speed'

“If fate would have been advantageous,” trainer Todd Fincher says, he’d be looking forward to a second straight victory in the Sunland Derby (G3) with the half-brother of Runaway Ghost, last year’s winner.

But Sheriff Brown, a Curlin colt out of the common mare Rose’s Desert, came down with a “minor shin problem” exiting his last race.

It’s still likely, however, that Fincher will be represented in the $800,000 feature on March 24, when 2019 Kentucky Derby qualifying points will be offered on a 50-20-10-5 scale to the Top 4 finishers.

Fincher-trained Hustle Up set the fractions and held off late-running Wicked Indeed to win Sunday’s final local prep, the $100,000 Mine That Bird Derby at Sunland Park. Next for a runner who’s 4-for-4 over the surface?

“Runaway Ghost really didn’t have any other options but to go in the Sunland Derby,” said Fincher, who saddled Hustle Up for his 1,000th career training victory. “With Hustle Up being a New Mexico-bred, you have many options. But my inclination is they will want to run in the Sunland Derby, yes.”

Since 1966, according to Churchill Downs’ records, only one New Mexico-bred, Bold Ego, has started in the Kentucky Derby. That one finished 10th in 1981. But the Sunland Derby is a relatively new offering first run in 2003 and most often won by Southern California shippers.

Hustle Up, by Abstraction, went 23.64 and 47.34 on the front end of the Mine That Bird Derby. He stretched the lead to three lengths at the top of the stretch before Wicked Indeed, a Steve Asmussen trainee who shipped from Louisiana’s Fair Grounds, trimmed the margin to a length at the wire.

Hustle Up stopped the clock in 1:42.31 for 1 1/16 miles.

“His performance was probably one of his best ever,” Fincher said. “He finally relaxed a little bit on the front end instead of being so headstrong, and that allowed him to have a better finish — have more of a kick at the end. His previous route races, he just sort of plodded around there. He didn’t have a turn of foot.”

Hustle Up has won eight of his 10 career starts dating back to an early debut, at least by by Derby trail standards. He made it to the races on March 24, 2018, winning a trial at Sunland Park.

“He was never pushed as a young horse,” said Fincher, who bred the gelding and campaigns him for Dale Taylor, Bobby McQueen and Suzanne Kirby. “He was just naturally fast, and we always thought he’d run longer. But he has so much speed that we put him in the early races.

"We had no inclination at that time he’d be running against open horses, possibly on the Derby trail. That wasn’t even in our thought process whatsoever.

“We were just doing the New Mexico-bred program, following the races that come up, and he does have a huge stride and a ton of speed. If he can harness that speed to the end, I do think he would fit with some Derby-type horses.”