Delgado tamps down Ferocious hype before Breeders’ Futurity

Lexington, Ky.

Ferocious had all the hype going into his last race. A 7 3/4-length debut win has a way of doing that. The Saratoga summer generates it, especially for 2-year-olds who might offer that glint of hope for a certain horse race on the first Saturday the following May.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Saturday’s Grade 1, $600,000 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland. Ferocious lost the Hopeful (G1) to Chancer McPatrick. Trainer Gustavo Delgado suddenly had a little less buzz around his barn.

“The important thing is he’s right,” Delgado said this week. “The baby is young. The future in one month is better than last year. This year is better, I hope.”

A not so funny thing this year. Between Delgado’s celebrated victory with Mage in the 2023 Kentucky Derby and the coming-out party for Ferocious this summer came Victory Avenue. Remember him? The son of Arrogate went into his January debut at Gulfstream Park a 3-2 favorite and finished second to Speak Easy. He was supposed to go in the Fountain of Youth (G2), but then he got sick and has not raced since.

“Remember? He was similar to Fierceness,” Delgado said. “A 95 Beyer.”

Actually, it was a 97 Beyer Speed Figure that Victory Avenue got from Daily Racing Form. Ferocious got a 95 for his debut and then an 87 for his runner-up result in the Hopeful. For Delgado, it served as a reminder that nothing may be taken for granted with young racehorses.

“We continued to train Victory Avenue, and we had the little problem,” Delgado said without divulging specifics. “Right now we get back to training him. The experience with Ferocious and Mage and Victory Avenue, that’s why I say to you it’s normal. Race, race and race. (Ferocious) is growing. He is young. He is a baby. He has to learn to continue to race, but it’s very important for him to be normal.”

Sitting in a fold-out chair against the outside wall of barn 41 at Keeneland, Delgado, 67, used the word “normal” over and over to tamp down expectations. Call it a different way of taking ’em one race at a time. The lure of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Del Mar is little more than an item on the calendar where it says Nov. 1. Then again, Delgado got pretty specific about those dates.

“This Saturday is possible,” he told Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “The Breeders’ Cup is possible. If there’s no Breeders’ Cup, there’s no Breeders’ Cup. Go to the Florida Derby (G1)? OK, it’s possible. It’s important for our team to take the ponies for the Kentucky Derby and take it easy.”

Delgado, a native of Maracaibo, Venezuela, clearly tries to take his anticipation in small doses. Planning, however, is another matter. Rather than stay in New York and race again vs. Chancer McPatrick on Saturday in the one-turn, one-mile Champagne (G1) at Aqueduct, Ferocious will be asked to go two turns and extend to 1 1/16 miles in the Breeders’ Futurity.

“I think Ferocious likes more distance,” Delgado said. “The logistics for our team is that we preferred to go to the Futurity because it’s two turns, and it’s in our plan to continue to the Breeders’ Cup.”

Ferocious, a son of Flatter, goes into Saturday as the 8-5 morning-line favorite. He has many of the same owners who led Mage’s successful Kentucky Derby campaign 1 1/2 years ago. Ramiro Restrepo has been joined by new lead partner José Aguirre, the main ingredients of the group that spent $1.3 million to buy Ferocious in March.

The owners are pretty familiar. Delgado certainly is. The one connection in flux has been the jockey. Javier Castellano rode that muddy debut Aug. 3, but then he got hurt. Irad Ortiz Jr. was an 11th-hour substitute for the Hopeful. Now it is Luis Sáez’s turn to take the reins Saturday.

“Luis Sáez is my friend,” Delgado said. “You remember he had Mage in the Florida Derby. I called (agent) Kiaran (McLaughlin) and asked if he was free, and he said, ‘Yes. Yeah. No problem.”

It figures that Sáez will follow the lead of Castellano and Ortiz. Based on past performances, Ferocious will stalk the early pace set by debut winner East Avenue and then pounce late, right?

Delgado was not biting.

“After the race,” he said, “we’ll talk again.”