Kentucky Derby watch: Golden Tempo joins the fray

This is the seventh installment of a weekly feature on Horse Racing Nation that tracks Kentucky Derby horses all the way through the first Saturday of May at Churchill Downs.

Typically, when several horses are relatively close at the finish line and the race is not particularly fast, as was the case in Saturday’s $250,000 Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes, I tend to believe that the overall quality of the field might not stand up to future tests. Golden Tempo has a chance to be an exception to that rule.

A son of Curlin out of the Bernardini mare Carrumba, he was bet down to 5-2 favoritism in a field of 10 for the 1 1/16-mile Kentucky Derby prep at Fair Grounds despite having only a six-furlong maiden race as experience. Bettors knew what they were doing with the Cherie DeVaux-trained youngster. 

Kentucky Derby leaderboard: Lecomte puts 2 in top 20

A homebred of the Phipps Stable and St. Elias Stable, his debut was only four weeks before the Lecomte but was visually impressive. After a slow beginning, Golden Tempo was last after four furlongs before zooming home in the sprint to win going away. He was stretched out to 8 1/2 furlongs for his stakes debut. 

Ridden by Jose Ortiz for the second time, Golden Tempo once again lagged at the back of the pack early in Saturday's race. A contested pace up front with Crown the Buckeye, Carson Street and Chip Honcho did not hurt his chances, but once again he had a lot to do in a 10-horse field. 

Looking the part of a more seasoned colt than his past performances showed, he moved up nicely on the turn and found room on the rail to continue his rally as no one up front could spurt away.

Golden Tempo kept going and finished his stretch run strongly to take the win by three-quarters of a length over his stablemate Mesquite, with Carson Street and Chip Honcho not far behind. He completed the 1 1/16 miles in a final time of 1:44.98 over the Fair Grounds track labeled as fast. 

In victory, Golden Tempo earned 20 qualifying points toward the Kentucky Derby, which put him in the second spot on the leaderboard behind divisional leader Ted Noffey and just ahead of Litmus Test.

It’s very rare to see a horse begin his career by dropping back to last in good-sized fields and then coming on to win both times. The competition will only get tougher from here, but Golden Tempo gives every indication of one who will get better with more experience and more distance.

Because of his inexperience before the Lecomte, Golden Tempo was not one of the 39 colts listed as individual betting options in the latest Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which ran Friday through Sunday.

If you liked the Curlin colt in pool 3, your only option to get money down on him was as part of the “all other 3-year-olds,” grouping which closed as the 7-2 favorite Sunday evening. 

Among individual betting interests, the soon to be champion Ted Noffey continued to receive major support from futures players. The Into Mischief colt, who has yet to make a start as a 3-year-old for two-time Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Todd Pletcher, went off at 6-1 and well clear of the rest.

Unbeaten in four starts, including decisive victories in a trio of Grade 1 races, the gray colt returned to the worktab on Friday for the first time since his popular victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar. The winner of the Hopeful at Saratoga and the Breeders Futurity at Keeneland, he breezed three furlongs in 37.01 seconds at Palm Beach Downs in South Florida to begin his preparation for the Kentucky Derby trail. 

Well behind Ted Noffey, but the second and third choices, respectively, in the latest future wager, were Paladin at 14-1 and Chief Wallabee at 17-1. The former hails from the barn of Chad Brown, who has yet to win the Kentucky Derby after coming agonizingly close two seasons ago with his champion Sierra Leone. 

An adjudged winner of his debut for late interference, Paladin has made only one other start but made it count with a strong win in the 1 1/8-mile Remsen Stakes (G2) at Aqueduct. The $1.9 million yearling has turned in a trio of four-furlong workouts at Payson Park since heading south for the winter.

Chief Wallabee, meanwhile, has yet to face stakes company, but he clearly made an impression in his career debut. His first start came on Jan. 10 at Gulfstream Park, and the Constitution colt looked the part of a potential star in easily running past the highly regarded The Puma in the seven-furlong maiden affair. The Kentucky homebred is trained by Bill Mott, who won last year’s Kentucky Derby with Sovereignty. 

The next Kentucky Derby qualifying race will take place overseas on Friday in Dubai. Like the Lecomte, the UAE Guineas (G3) at Meydan offers 20 points to the winner. The 1,600-meter, about one mile, event has drawn a large field of 18.

Kentucky Derby Future Wager pool 3