Firenze Fire to make another Kentucky Derby 2018 prep start

Trainer Jason Servis and Firenze Fire’s owner, Ron Lombardi, had a difficult decision to make following Saturday's Grade 3 Gotham Stakes when it comes to Lombardi’s dream of getting a horse to the 2018 Kentucky Derby.

Multiple stakes winner Firenze Fire’s 29 qualifying points leaving a fourth-place finish are traditionally enough to make the field. But it would be close, likely depending on the number of defections higher on the leaderboard between now and May 5.

So Firenze Fire will go in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct as a final prep, looking to cement himself as a Kentucky Derby contender.

“It’s not easy, because if the horse is pressed a little bit, or if the horse runs bad, do you go to the Derby?” Servis said. “We’ll do everything we can to have the horse healthy and 100 percent. We’ve been leaning on him.”

On Monday night named the Florida-bred champion 2-year-old, Firenze Fire, a homebred son of Poseidon’s Warrior, is a multiple stakes winner of the Grade 1 Champagne and Grade 3 Jerome. He's made three starts this year, with a second in the Grade 3 Withers and the Gotham to follow the Jerome win.

“Ron wants to go to the Derby,” Servis said. “I don’t blame him. That’s why he’s in it.”

Servis said a break is likely for Firenze Fire after his next two planned starts.

As for World of Trouble, who was third in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby, Servis said he and co-owner Michael Dubb will consider the Grade 2, $400,000 Woody Stephens the “main goal.” The Bemont Stakes undercard feature runs at seven furlongs. Additionally, connections may nominate to the Grade 3, $250,000 Pat Day Mile on the Derby undercard.

Servis had one other horse, Dial Operator, in action in a Derby prep last weekend. The previously unbeaten son of Dialed In ran ninth in the Gotham and is headed to Ocala Stud to freshen up. The trainer called the race “a throw out. For sure, he’s better than that. At one point he was 8-1. He was a live horse.”