Hidden Scroll's connections plan to practice patience

While exact plans are undetermined for Hidden Scroll following his failed bid to qualify for the 2019 Kentucky Derby, Garrett O’Rourke, general manager for Juddmonte Farms, said Friday in an interview with TVG’s Scott Hazelton that the colt will “now be given all the time.”

“We’ll regroup,” O’Rourke added days after Hidden Scroll finished sixth as the Florida Derby (G1) favorite.

The recipient of a 104 Beyer Speed Figure on debut Jan. 26, the son of Hard Spun, a Juddmonte homebred, also ran fourth in Gulfstream Park’s March 2 Fountain of Youth (G2).

“We moved too quickly. We all got impressed,” O’Rourke said. “The Derby is always on the first Saturday in May. We got Derby dreams. We threw him in there — tried to get there — and the horse wasn’t ready.”

Bill Mott-trained Hidden Scroll went to the front and remained there first out, winning by 14 lengths in the slop. Sent out to set the pace in the Fountain of Youth, he faded after some particularly hot fractions. Then in the Florida Derby, breaking from the rail he took back under jockey Javier Castellano and never factored.

“The horse is perfectly sound,” O’Rourke told TVG, “but I think mentally he just has to learn how to pace himself.”

Juddmonte is still expected to be represented in the Kentucky Derby with Tacitus, Saturday’s Wood Memorial (G2) favorite who won the Tampa Bay Derby (G2) in his 3-year-old bow.