Off the Derby trail, Weyburn points toward Belmont Stakes

The ride to the Kentucky Derby is over for trainer Jimmy Jerkens and his colt Weyburn.

But we still might see the dark brown horse before the Triple Crown season comes to an end.

After Weyburn finished fourth in Saturday’s Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, Jerkens pretty much took the son of Pioneerof the Nile off the Kentucky Derby trail.

“I don’t think so,” Jerkens said about a trip to Louisville.

Rob Landry, the general manager of Chiefswood Stables in Ontario, which owns Weyburn, was feeling the same vibe.

“It’s pretty hard to head that way off of this,” Landry said. “If he had won, it would have been a lot easier to decide.”

The 96th running of the Wood will be remembered mainly for the slam-bang finish that saw the Todd Pletcher duo of Bourbonic, at 72-1, the longest shot on the board in the field of nine, winning the race by a head over stablemate Dynamic One, another price at 15-1.

Weyburn and jockey Trevor McCarthy were prominent throughout the race as they tracked early pacesetter Market Maven through very slow early fractions (24.88, 50.18, 1:14.98). Weyburn got the lead for a split second heading into the stretch, but he could not hold off Dynamic One, who emerged on the scene and took the lead nearing the eighth pole.

Weyburn retreated and Dynamic One was a hard-luck loser to Bourbonic. Dynamic One was 1 1/4 lengths in front of Crowded Tate, who was 1 3/4 lengths ahead of Weyburn.

“I was hoping he could have hung on, but he drifted towards the inside where it wasn’t the best in the lane,” Jerkens said. “That’s what he does. As soon as a horse pulls alongside of him, he has a tendency to shy away a little from him.

“If he had a little more of an inside post, (McCarthy) probably would not have had to use him quite as much,” he said. “That probably hurt him a little in the end.”

In his first start of 2021, Weyburn was the surprise winner of the Gotham (G3) at Aqueduct, scoring by a nose over Crowded Trade. Weyburn was 46-1 in the mile Gotham. Even after that win, Jerkens was not going to commit to putting Louisville on his radar.

He was willing to give the Wood a try and see where he stood after that.

Weyburn picked up 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points for his fourth-place finish in the Wood. He has 60 points and would be a shoo-in to get a spot in the Churchill Downs starting gate. Jerkens has to be darn sure his horse belongs in a race such as the Kentucky Derby before he spends the first Saturday in May in Louisville.

The son of the late Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens has sent only one horse to the Kentucky Derby in his career, which began in 1997 after working for his father for 20 years. That one Derby horse was Wicked Strong, who won the Wood Memorial in 2014 and then was fourth in the Run for the Roses.

What sounds more appealing to Jerkens for Weyburn is a start in the final leg of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes on June 5 at Belmont Park.

“If any of the three we would be thinking about the best to go for would probably be that one,” Jerkens said. “How we get there, I don’t know. We’ll have to figure it out.”

Jerkens knows he has some things to work on with Weyburn, who has won two of five career starts. The Gotham was his first graded stakes race.

Before the Wood, Weyburn balked at entering the starting gate, where he was assigned the No. 8 post position.

“He needs to act better in the gate, he needs to grow up a little bit,” Jerkens said. “I think once he figures things out – and some of them don’t – he has the breeding and the class to do it. Once he settles down and gets a little more professional, I think he will be an even better horse.”