Kentucky Derby: Beckman eyes rider options for Honor Marie

Louisville, Ky.

Since the field is still in pencil for Kentucky Derby 2024, jockey assignments are not set in stone yet. That certainly is the case with Honor Marie.

“There’s just some other little things that we’re going to kind of consider in the next week and let things kind of shake out,” trainer Whit Beckman said Thursday morning at his Churchill Downs barn. “This is one of those races you want to believe that you’ve left nothing on the table and you’ve taken your best shot.”

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Ben Curtis rode the Honor Code colt to a second-place finish March 23 in the Grade 2 Louisiana Derby. That result gave Honor Marie the points he needed to get into the Kentucky Derby on May 4. But Curtis, 34, a native of Ireland, never has ridden a race at Churchill Downs let alone America’s biggest.

“He rode a great race at Fair Grounds,” said Beckman, 42, a former assistant to Todd Pletcher and Chad Brown who is preparing for his first Derby as a head trainer. “Ben is absolutely at the top of the list. He sat on the horse. He’s breezed the horse. He’s done everything. I don’t want to think like he doesn’t have the mount.”

Yet Beckman conceded that experience matters in a race like the Derby, where he assisted in Super Saver’s victory for Pletcher in 2010 and Good Magic’s runner-up result for Brown in 2018.

“When you’re looking at certain aspects from riding at Churchill and the experiential base here, if that even matters, if you’re going to be decided by just a couple inches or whatever it is, obviously you need to have the horse,” Beckman said. “But you also need to have really good decisions behind the horse. Having experience on that day, I think it matters.”

Rafael Bejarano rode Honor Marie’s first four races with wins on debut Sept. 29 and in the Kentucky Jockey Club (G2) Nov. 25, both at Churchill Downs. But he is 0-for-13 in the Derby, never finishing better than fourth.

Beckman did not mention specific alternatives to Curtis and added he did not have to make a decision right away, what with the draw being nine days off and the race another week after that. He was reminded five-time Eclipse Award winner Irad Ortiz Jr. became available the morning of last year’s Derby when Forte was scratched. Ortiz got the call from trainer Dale Romans to ride Cyclone Mischief, who finished last.

“You’ve got obviously our American top five guys,” Beckman said. “I do feel sometimes with all humans, and not just applying to horses, we get kind of grass-is-greener, shiny-object syndrome where we think because of all these things, we grasp for it. At the end of the day I just want to do what’s right for my horse.”

In the end, Beckman said he might lean toward someone familiar with Honor Marie, even if he was not putting Curtis’s name in ink.

“It does make a huge difference so far as just keeping everything on an even keel from my standpoint and for the horse as well,” he said. “There’s a couple other guys who have been there for us as well. We’re waiting for a few things to shake out, but as of right now, Ben is definitely right at the top of our list.”

Honor Marie, whose name is a paean to the granddaughter of owners Alan and Kerry Ribble, has had two breezes on consecutive Sundays since the Louisiana Derby. Beckman said he may have to schedule one or two more workouts around conditions at Churchill Downs.

“We’ve got a lot of weather, it looks like, coming in next week from kind of Thursday (and) Friday on up to maybe the day or two before Derby,” he said. “That might kind of change things around for me insofar as how I’m going to approach these last couple works or maybe just one work.”

Most important, Honor Marie is looking and feeling well. As Beckman put it, “I’ve got a dead-fit horse right now.”