Kentucky Derby 2020: Prat won't defend title

For the first time since 2013, the Kentucky Derby will not have the winning rider from the previous year coming back to try to make it two in a row.

Partly because he did not want to give up promising mounts at Del Mar, Flavien Prat decided he will skip the Sept. 5 running of the Derby at Churchill Downs.

“I’m going to stay in California,” he texted Monday morning, the day after he and his agent Derek Lawson decided they would take a pass — and after it became apparent that Prat was not certain to get a ride on either Dr Post or Max Player.

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Prat’s announcement came the same day as at least three more Derby jockey assignments were confirmed by trainers and agents. Samy Camacho will be on King Guillermo, Luca Panici on Sole Volante and Joe Talamo on Attachment Rate. Previously announced riders included Manny Franco (Tiz The Law), John Velázquez (Authentic), Brian Hernandez Jr. (Art Collector), Mike Smith (Honor A. P.), Florent Geroux (Thousand Words) and Javier Castellano (Caracaro).

When Maximum Security was disqualified from last year’s Derby win, Prat and Country House were promoted to an unlikely 65-1 triumph. But instead of defending, Prat will stay in Southern California. The last Derby-winning jockey who did not ride the following year was Mario Gutiérrez after his victory on I’ll Have Another.

“I was down to two horses that he could have possibly ridden,” Lawson said in a Monday morning telephone interview from southern California. “We really didn’t have a solid mount. Nobody just said, ‘Yeah, you’re going to ride the horse.’ They just said, ‘OK, we’ll get back to you.’ ”

“They” referred to trainers Todd Pletcher of Dr Post and Steve Asmussen of Max Player, both of whom had yet to confirm their Derby riders.

Lawson also said that an Aug. 31 deadline imposed by Churchill Downs for Derby Week riders to be in Kentucky also played a role, as did other new rules brought on by the pandemic. 

“They wanted us to get tested (in California) on the 24th with a ‘CDC gold standard’ test,” Lawson said. “Nobody explained to me what that was. That was confusing to begin with. Then they wanted Flavien to be in Kentucky on the 31st. That meant he would have had to fly all night on the 30th to be there for another test at 11 a.m. and then a third test on the third. It’s a little bit strict.”

Prat was one of 15 jockeys who tested positive in Southern California last month for COVID-19, prompting Del Mar to cancel three days of racing. It also contributed to the New York Racing Association and Churchill Downs rewriting their rules covering the comings and goings of riders in and out of their colonies.

“He tested positive, and he went through all the protocols that we had to do here in California,” Lawson said of Prat. “He’s ridden 117 races, he’s won 27, and he has 29 seconds. It’s not like the kid is sick. I mean, if he was sick, he has recovered from what he had.”

Partly because of last month’s surge in coronavirus positives among riders, Prat would not have been allowed to return from Kentucky and ride live mounts during the long Labor Day weekend at Del Mar.

As Prat put it in a text message last week, “This is going to be a personal choice between not riding Derby weekend or giving up a lot of racing days.”

“If Del Mar would have let us back in, then we would have pursued (the Derby),” Lawson said Monday. “But the fact that we were not going to be let back in for the last two days of the meet meant that we would have missed some Grade 1s. It just didn’t seem worth giving up potential Breeders’ Cup horses to go back and ride in the Derby.”

Lawson said that he was not suggesting the $250,000 Del Mar Debutante (G1) on Sept. 6 and the $250,000 Del Mar Futurity (G1) on Sept. 7 were bigger than the $3 million Kentucky Derby.

“It’s not that we’re showing any disrespect for the Kentucky Derby, which we’re not,” he said. “We hold that race in very high esteem after having the opportunity to win it last year. But it’s just too complicated to put everything together and be able to comfortably to go there.

“It’s the Derby, but it’s not the first Saturday in May. It’s the first Saturday in September. It’s not what you expect and what everyone expects of the Kentucky Derby.”