Free Drop Billy has golf's attention on 2018 Derby trail

While Free Drop Billy is off to trainer Dale Romans’ farm for a freshening, he’ll have the attention of more than horseplayers when the colt makes his return next year on the 2018 Kentucky Derby trail.

Owned by Dennis Albaugh’s Albaugh Family Stables, the son of Union Rags is named after a golfing buddy, Bill Collins.

“The colt’s name reflects golf terminology of allowing a player to move the ball from a specific area without penalty before swinging,” the Breeders’ Cup website reads. “Stable chairman Dennis Albaugh’s golf buddy Bill Collins has a penchant for free drops, hence the name.”

While Free Drop Billy ran off the board in the recent Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, he did win Keeneland’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity.

Golf Digest picked up on the colt’s story last week, noting that both Albaugh and Collins are members of Naples National Country Club in Naples, Fla. Perhaps Free Drop Billy will make his return — as Romans’ budding 3-year-olds often do — not far from there, at Gulfstream Park.

“Free Drop Billy sounds like one of the bandits from Dan Jenkins’ misspent youth at Goat Hills,” wrote Golf Digest’s John Strege. “Or one any one of the golf partners to whom you usually lose. He is neither, though gambling is a part of his existence.”

Once as low as 35-1 in Derby odds listed by the Wynn Las Vegas, Free Drop Billy is now offered at 100-1.