Bourbonic upsets the Wood Memorial at 72-1 for Pletcher

New York

The 72-1 long shot Bourbonic made a late rally down the middle of the track to upset the $750,000, Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. As the final stop on New York’s road to the 2021 Kentucky Derby, Bourbonic earned 100 Derby qualifying points to give the Calumet Farm homebred a spot in the Churchill Downs' starting gate on the first Saturday in May.

Bourbonic, who is trained by the soon-to-be Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, paid $146.60. He was joined in the exacta, which returned $906 for a $2 wager, by stablemate Dynamic One, who was 15-1. Crowded Trade was third.

Dynamic One earned 40 points for second, which is usually enough to get in the Kentucky Derby field. Crowded Trade, who was second in the Gotham (G3) in his previous start, now has a total of 40 points and a likely spot in the Kentucky Derby. The 10 points for fourth went to the Gotham winner, Weyburn.

As the pace setters carved out slow early fractions, Bourbonic and Dynamic One were content to sit in the back of the field. Dynamic One made the first move from seventh and took the lead at the 16th pole. But Bourbonic, who was ninth and last most of the way, made the last move, which turned out to be the best move.

The final time for the nine furlongs was 1:54.49, which was .35 seconds slower than the 3-year-old fillies ran in the Gazelle in race 9. At the wire, Bourbonic beat his stablemate by a head.

“We were just taking a shot with Bourbonic,” said Pletcher. “Mr. Kelley of Calumet said, ‘Can you guys please fine a find a points race for him to give him one try.’ He was based in New York, I felt like this was a logical place to give it try. Kendrick (Carmouche) gave him a great ride. He took him back and made one late run and finished strong.”

Dynamic One entered the Wood with only a maiden special weight victory, which came at Aqueduct on March 7.

“Dynamic One was able to break his maiden here going the mile and an eighth. We always felt that Dynamic One was one that showed us a lot more promise than we have seen in results in the afternoon. So, we are proud of him for starting to put it all together.”

For Pletcher, this was his sixth victory in the Wood Memorial, so finding one of his horses at 72-1 was rare.

“I was pleasantly surprised," was Pletcher's reaction. "We felt that he was doing well in his last few breezes. He is horse we felt that longer was better. He stepped up.”

Looking ahead to the first Saturday in May, Pletcher said, “I thought they both earned their way into the Derby and we’ll see how they come out of today’s race.”