Medina Spirit scores at Del Mar for 1st win since Kentucky Derby
Medina Spirt – the colt whose Kentucky Derby upset became courtroom controversy – is a winner once more.
Making his first start since the Preakness Stakes, Medina Spirit topped a field of six, including fellow Grade 1 winner Rock Your World, to win Sunday’s $100,000 Shared Belief Stakes. He covered a mile at Del Mar in 1:37.29, returning $3.80 as the 4-5 favorite.
Medina Spirit’s victory came just shy of four months since his May 1 triumph at Churchill Downs. That win was clouded by trainer Bob Baffert’s announcement a week later that his record seventh Derby hero tested positive for an anti-inflammatory substance banned on race days in Kentucky.
Attorneys for Medina Spirit’s connections and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission are battling in court over the Derby winner’s post-race urine sample. The KHRC has not yet disqualified the 3-year-old son of Protonico from that victory.
Churchill Downs suspended Baffert soon after news broke of Medina Spirit’s positive test. The New York Racing Association followed suit, although Baffert successfully fought that suspension in federal court and has since been able to run horses at Saratoga.
As the controversy swirled around Medina Spirit, he ran only once between May 1 and Sunday, fading to third May 15 in the Preakness. He worked once in June at Santa Anita, then returned to the tab in late July at Del Mar and trained steadily toward the second half of his 3-year-old campaign.
Baffert supplemented Medina Spirit last week to the Shared Belief to give him a prep for the Grade 1, $1 million Pennsylvania Derby on Sept. 25. The colt got out of Sunday's race what the trainer wanted, going gate-to-wire, and holding off Santa Anita Derby (G1) winner Rock Your World.
Baffert called Medina Spirit's victory "a Shared Belief relief."
"I did not have any intention of running him in this race until a couple weeks ago," Baffert said. "I started thinking about it, figuring it couldn’t come up that tough. Then (son) Bode said, ‘You know Rock Your World’s running there?’
"For what this horse has gone through he’s such a game horse and I wanted to run him here and see if he likes Del Mar. I’ve never had a Derby winner come back and win here so that’s a first. He looks good and John (Velazquez) said he feels better than ever. There’s still some good racing for him out there. We’re waiting for the process to happen.”
Velazquez earned a fourth Kentucky Derby score in May aboard Medina Spirit. He flew cross-country from New York to ride the colt Sunday at Del Mar and got him out of the gate well to set fractions of 22.52 and 46.92 through the first half-mile.
John Sadler trainee Rock Your World, making his first start since a sixth-place effort in June’s Belmont Stakes, tracked Medina Spirit just to his outside. Team Merchants from the Doug O’Neill barn got up through the far turn to make it a three-wide battle.
Medina Spirit hung tough under Velazquez, separating himself from those rivals and scoring by 1 1/4 lengths. Rock Your World, Stilleto Boy and The Great One rounded out the superfecta.
“I think he got a really good race out of it,” Velazquez told TVG of Medina Spirit's victory. “I don’t think we got to the bottom of him today. You could see that in the stretch, that he was kind of waiting and waiting. The gallop-out was really good. I’m pretty happy with the way he did it.”
The Florida-bred Medina Spirit improved his record to 8: 4-3-1 with nearly $2.35 million earned for Zedan Racing Stables. He sold for $1,000 in 2019 before owner Amr Zedan purchased the colt for $35,000 last year.
Parx's Pennsylvania Derby is Medina Spirit's most likely destination for his next start, though Baffert told TVG that the $300,000 Awesome Again Stakes (G1) on Oct. 2 is also an option. That event is a "win-and-you're-in" Breeders' Cup Classic qualifier and would pit the Derby winner against older runners.