Kentucky Derby 2020 Radar: Maxfield's back in training

“Everything’s going according to plan” with Grade 1 winner Maxfield, a top 2020 Kentucky Derby hopeful on the comeback from offseason surgery.

Offering the update this week on Steve Byk’s At the Races radio show, trainer Brendan Walsh also cautioned that his camp won’t rush the son of Street Sense back to the races this spring in order to make the Triple Crown series.

“It’s just going to be by what he tells us,” said Walsh after Maxfield, who was forced to scratch from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, underwent an operation in November to remove a bone chip from his ankle.

“It would be nice if he could make it back for a Derby prep or two. Like I said, there’s going to be no force. If we don’t make the Derby, we don’t make the Derby.”

The Godolphin homebred Maxfield opened his career 2-for-2, debuting a winner on Sept. 14 at Churchill Downs before circling the field for a dominant, 5 1/2-length victory the next month in Keeneland’s Breeders’ Futurity (G1).

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The stakes score not only qualified Maxfield for the Breeders’ Cup but moved him near the top of the 2020 Derby heap along with his expected Juvenile co-headliners, Dennis’ Moment and Eight Rings.

Plans didn’t pan out on the first Friday in November after Walsh found Maxfield off in his training the week of the race. Dennis’ Moment, the race favorite, stumbled at the break, and Eight Rings faded despite an ideal trip.

There are hopes beginning the new year that those Big 3 horses could get their meeting on May 2 at Churchill Downs along with other emerging sophomore talents.

“He’s back jogging,” Walsh told Byk of Maxfield, who’s at a farm in Florida, “so we’re going to have a look at his X-rays again. His last examination was very good, and everybody was happy with the way he was progressing, so we’re going to have another look at him kind of toward the second half of January.

“If he’s OK, then he can start back galloping, I believe. So we’re not doing too bad.”

In the meantime, Walsh said “we’re obviously kicking around different races and things” for a horse that’s a 12-1 co-third choice to win the Derby in William Hill U.S.’ futures book. In Pool 1 of the pari-mutuel Kentucky Derby Future Wager, Maxfield closed at 13-1 on Dec. 1 even on the heels of news that he’d had surgery.

Since Maxfield was sidelined, his camp welcomed news last weekend that he, Breeders’ Cup Juvenile upsetter Storm the Court and Juvenile Turf winner Structor are finalists for the Eclipse Award for Champion Two-Year-Old Male.

“Of course, you’re reading on Twitter and people are talking about their votes for this horse and that horse, and he didn’t get a mention, which surprised me because he did absolutely nothing wrong,” Walsh said. “I’d kind of written it off, but then I got a call the other day to say that he was a finalist, and we were obviously very pleased about it all.”

Winners of the Eclipse Awards will be announced Jan. 23.