Kentucky Derby prep: Walsh looks for rebound by East Avenue

Put the times together from his three starts, and East Avenue has spent a little more than 4 1/2 minutes racing. As good as he looked for so much of that time, it is a fraction of a second before a timer even started that haunts his connections.

“What are you going to do?” his trainer Brendan Walsh said this week.

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Oh, that hand-wringing, buckling stumble when the Del Mar starting gate opened Nov. 1 for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. East Avenue, carrying a 2-for-2 record, a flawless two-turn debut, a Grade 1 triumph and 9-5 odds, practically went to his knees coming out of post 1.

In the twinkle of an eye, an undefeated résumé was gone. In what turned into a merry-go-round of a race, East Avenue finished ninth, 13 1/4 lengths up the track. Instead of him winning the race and the division championship that went with it, it was Citizen Bull who would be earn the spoils and be anointed the best juvenile male of 2024.

“These things happen in racing,” Walsh said with the benefit of 3 1/2 months of hindsight and 13 years of running his own stable. “It was nobody’s fault, and you just try and prepare yourself the best you can.”

Turn the page to Saturday, when East Avenue is likely to be favored again, this time with a line running through that November nightmare in California. At Fair Grounds in New Orleans, he makes his 3-year-old debut in the Grade 2, $500,000 Risen Star Stakes, a race that carries enough points to make the winner a likely starter in Kentucky Derby 2025.

If East Avenue were to add the Risen Star to his open-length triumphs in both his Ellis Park debut and his Breeders’ Futurity (G1) at Keeneland, he probably would become the individual futures favorite for the Derby in both the pari-mutuels nationally and the fixed-odds market in Nevada.

The Godolphin homebred colt by Medaglia d’Oro out of Ghostzapper mare Dance Music is already the best chance Walsh ever has had to win America’s biggest race.

“Without a doubt,” Walsh said on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod. “I’ve never really had a super chance of winning it. Plus Que Parfait, the year he won in Dubai (in 2019), we ran him in two Derby trials in New Orleans, and he didn’t run well at all. ... Outside of him and Maxfield, I haven’t really had a serious Derby horse.”

Plus Que Parfait, who crossed ninth and was promoted to eighth in 2019, was Walsh’s only previous Kentucky Derby starter. Maxfield, who showed similar promise to East Avenue by winning the 2019 Breeders’ Futurity, got hurt and missed both the Breeders’ Cup and the COVID-delayed Derby of 2020.

Turn another page. Walsh, 51, knows all too well it is impossible to flatten the peaks and valleys of this sport. A native of Ireland who started with Godolphin as an exercise rider and a stable foreman in Dubai, he has seen the highs, too. His nine Grade 1 victories have come from the likes of Eclipse Award winner Pretty Mischievous and from Santin. And yes, from Maxfield and from East Avenue.

With Jonathan’s Way being scratched for an illness, the Risen Star could turn into a showdown between East Avenue and Built. The winner of the Gun Runner Stakes in December, Built impressed with his late rally only to come up a neck short in the slop in last month’s Lecomte (G3) at Fair Grounds.

Tyler Gaffalione, who rode East Avenue at Keeneland and Del Mar, will be back in the irons in post 4 on Saturday. Even though a victory was earned through a front-running clinic in the Breeders’ Futurity, Walsh said it was not necessary to be on the lead Saturday as East Avenue is asked to add another 110 yards to get 1 1/8 miles.

“No, no. Absolutely not,” he said. “Look, he was a very fast 2-year-old. He broke well the first time out at Ellis and went out on the lead. Nobody was able to go with him. To be fair, at Keeneland, from where we were drawn and with the scenario of the race, we kind of did it intentionally that day to be either on the lead or right off.”

The difference between ages 2 and 3 is not just tactical. Kids grow up, and East Avenue is a bigger boy than we saw last fall.

“Physically he’s done very well,” Walsh said. “You worry about these 2-year-olds sometimes. Some of them are so advanced physically as 2-year-olds, and then everybody catches up, but this guy has actually advanced more again.”

A seasoned horseman can tell, especially as he sees a standout in his barn progress day by day. Walsh still had a step-back moment recently that must have been like a proud parent looking at the lines on the doorway marking a child’s height year by year.

“I was looking at a photo the other night of him on the day he won at Keeneland,” he said. “He’s lost that baby look now. He’s grown into a bigger, stronger, more of a man, you know? ... He’s filled out a lot. His neck has gotten a lot thicker. He looks almost like a 4-year-old now. It seems like he’s a year ahead of himself all the time.”

After a post-Breeders’ Cup break, East Avenue returned to the work tab last month. His third drill back was a bullet 59.4-second breeze covering five furlongs at Fair Grounds. Three more works in 1:01.4, 1:01.0 and 1:00.2 followed, setting the stage for another turning of the page to Saturday’s first chapter of 2025.

“His mind is still very good, and he’s been working great,” Walsh said. “We’ll see what happens.”