Kentucky Derby & Oaks: Brad Cox has 3 winners ready to roll

Louisville, Ky.

Whether it is superstition or just a case of not wanting to fix something that is working just fine, Brad Cox is not taking any chances with Tappan Street heading into Kentucky Derby 2025.

That would be Tappan, rhyming with Japan. Not Tappan, which rhymes with rappin’.

“It’s a street outside Boston,” Cox said Thursday morning at his Churchill Downs barn. “It was pronounced Tappan (accent on the second syllable), and that’s what we’re going with.”

Video: Kentucky Derby 2025 Saturday works.

That was how track announcer Pete Aiello said it last month when Tappan Street won the Grade 1, $1 million Florida Derby. But a quick check of YouTube videos from locals in that Brookline, Mass., neighborhood suggest a difference of opinion.

“I changed his name after he won a Grade 1,” Cox said. “I didn’t change it, but it was changed. Obviously that’s what they called him in the Florida Derby, and that’s what we’re going to go with.”

If California could be misspelled on a workout saddle cloth as Califorina Chrome, and if the word pharaoh could be registered with The Jockey Club as American Pharoah, then Tappan Street literally sounds like he is in good company.

The Into Mischief colt owned by WinStar Farm and Cold Press Racing is one of a trio of standout 3-year-olds who will line up for Cox in Churchill Downs’ two biggest races. He also has Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) winner Final Gambit qualified for the May 3 Derby, and 6-for-6 Good Cheer is destined to be a heavy favorite May 2 in the Kentucky Oaks (G1).

“Everything has gone really well up to this point, and hopefully things continue to go that way,” Cox said.

The Nevada futures market makes Tappan Street a 12-1 fifth choice to win the Derby. A $1 million yearling purchase, he wintered at Gulfstream Park, won his Dec. 28 debut and then finished second to Burnham Square in the Holy Bull (G3). With Luis Sáez riding, Tappan Street closed from mid-pack and held off a late rally from Sovereignty on March 28 to win by 1 1/4 lengths in the Florida Derby.

“I was expecting a big effort,” Cox said in his interview for Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “He trained like he was ready to roll, and he was.”

Two bullet breezes in early March preceded a maintenance work the week before Tappan Street had that graded-stakes breakthrough at odds of 2-1. Still training at Payson Park, he turned in drills of 48.4 seconds for a half-mile April 11 and 1:01.4 covering six furlongs Friday, the day before he was shipped to Kentucky.

“We’ve seen nothing but more of the same since the Florida Derby,” Cox said. “He’s very good. He’s a good colt. I thought his number came back very, very well. We obviously ran against Sovereignty, and he’s a very good horse, and we held our own, so we are excited about where we are with him right now.”

Rather than trying the traditional Holy Bull, Fountain of Youth (G2), Florida Derby path to Louisville, Cox skipped the Fountain of Youth to give Tappan Street eight weeks between races. It was a schedule that was validated in part by Sáez.

“Luis has a lot of confidence in this horse,” Cox said. “He had great feedback out of the Holy Bull. We gave him the time, the two months, and he responded really well to that.”

Cox joined the growing trend to prep with only two of the Florida points races rather than all three.

“People can say we don’t run these horses enough, but it’s tough to get to the Derby,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure you’ve got some horse when you lead them over there in the Kentucky Derby. It was one of those things where we thought let’s give him one big swing, let’s train him up for it. If you’d run him in the Fountain of Youth, you’d probably need another race time-wise. I thought for him and where he got started in late December, it just made a lot of sense to skip the Fountain of Youth and take him to the Florida Derby, and it worked out. And then we’ve got five weeks to the Kentucky Derby. It gives him an opportunity to breeze three times, and we’ll see what happens.”

By prepping on the Gulfstream dirt, Tappan Street is taking a more time-tested path to America’s biggest race. Final Gambit, who is a 35-1 Derby long shot in Las Vegas, will race on dirt for the first time after breaking his maiden and then winning the Ruby as a 15-1 long shot, both on the Tapeta synthetic surface at Turfway Park.

“I’m very happy with what we’ve seen from him,” Cox said of Final Gambit’s Churchill Downs breezes this month. “His gallop-outs are strong. I get positive feedback from my riders. That’s what we look for. That’s what trainers are looking for. He’s thriving right now physically and mentally. He’s galloping with a tremendous amount of energy. He’s floating over the track.”

A Juddmonte homebred gray-roan colt by Not This Time, Final Gambit has had back-to-back five-furlong works clocked at 1:00.8, the most recent coming Saturday at Churchill Downs. With his regular rider Luan Machado booked for the Derby, he is a closer who will face real-dirt kickback for the first time.

“He obviously doesn’t have a lot of early foot in a race,” Cox said. “He would need some things to happen up front, a pace collapse and circle the field or work out a trip somehow, some way. But it’s in the cards. He was very impressive going a mile-and-an-eighth at Turfway. It looked like there was plenty left in the tank. ... As long as he can handle the dirt and gets a set-up, he’s got as good a shot as anyone. I really do believe that.”

Bettors will be more bullish on Cox’s undefeated filly in the Kentucky Oaks. Good Cheer has won her six races by margins of 2 1/2 to 17 lengths. With Sáez in the irons as usual, she stalked and pounced March 22 in her 3 1/2-length triumph in the Fair Grounds Oaks (G2).

The one thing Godolphin’s homebred daughter of Medaglia d’Oro has not done yet is take on a top-level test.

“This is a big challenge,” Cox said. “First opportunity for her to run in a grade one. And it’s obviously I would say the toughest Grade 1 run for fillies. It’s not just a Grade 1. It’s what I would like to call a super Grade 1.”

Cox has won the Kentucky Oaks with Monomoy Girl in 2018 and Shedaresthedevil in the delayed COVID renewal of 2020. It actually looked like his best chance for a third triumph would come from three-time Grade 1 winner Immersive, the 2023 juvenile champion filly for Godolphin. That was before an early-winter diagnosis of bone bruising put the daughter of Nyquist on the bench until this summer.

“Hopefully, we can get her back,” Cox said. “I feel very good about where we are with her. She’s resumed training here at Churchill, and she looks amazing. So, you know, no rush. We’ll just let her come along at her own pace.”

It is a testament to the depth of Cox’s barn that Good Cheer might have been an underdog had Immersive been able to go in the Oaks. Either way, they would have made for a short-priced exacta ticket.

“I don’t think it’s fair to compare them,” Cox said. “We’ve just got to keep moving forward with Good Cheer. ... I don’t think I’ve ever had a filly start out 6-for-6 or a horse, let alone, 6-for-6.”

Cox did have Essential Quality, who went 5-for-5 with his first of two Eclipse Awards before he was promoted from fourth to third in the 2021 Kentucky Derby. Those first five races included a pair of Grade 1 victories, a void Cox was not reluctant to repeat when talking about Good Cheer.

“The consistency, the dominance in which she’s won her races says a lot,” he said. “It’s not as if she’s ever really been close at the wire. She always puts a margin on them. She’s special, no doubt, but she needs a Grade 1. Bottom line.”

A two-time Eclipse Award winner himself, Cox, 45, became the first Louisville native to train a Kentucky Derby victor. That was when Mandaloun was promoted nine months after apparent 2021 winner Medina Spirit failed a drug test. He hopes to celebrate more normal triumphs in less than two weeks and follow Kenny McPeek last year in pulling off an Oaks-Derby double.

No matter what, though, Cox feels right at home with America’s biggest race returning to his back yard.

As he surveyed the gradual swell of backside visitors last week, Cox said, “It’s definitely Derby time.”