Romans ends Dennis' Moment's time on the Kentucky Derby trail

It was last May that, in an interview with The Pressbox’s Gene McLean, trainer Dale Romans made first mention of a young colt named Dennis’ Moment, which he hoped could win a Kentucky Derby for the barn.

A year later, Romans revealed in a new conversation with McLean published Monday that Dennis’ Moment is no longer a Derby hopeful.

“I wasn’t real comfortable with the way things were going after his first start back,” said Romans, who sent the son of Tiznow out for one start this season, a last-place finish in the Feb. 29 Fountain of Youth (G2) at Gulfstream Park.

There was talk of trying to regroup in the Blue Grass Stakes (G2), at least until Keeneland had to call off its meet as fallout to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then the connections of Romans and Albaugh Family Stables elected to stop altogether.

“There was nothing wrong with him,” Romans said. “I put him in for scans and sent him X-rays — no fractures or anything like that.

“We decided we’d try to run him as a 4-year-old next year, so let’s just stop on him right now — try to give him a little time and get him moving like he did last fall.”

Dennis’ Moment, after losing his rider in a much-hyped debut, delivered second out, running away from his maiden special weight competition by 19 1/4 lengths at Ellis Park. He moved up the ladder to then win Churchill Downs’ Iroquois Stakes (G3) while geared down.

It was a long winter of waiting for connections when, as the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile favorite, Dennis’ Moment stumbled leaving the gate and never factored at Santa Anita. He then disappointed as the top betting choice in the Fountain of Youth, never able to get into the race.

Now, Romans will plot the course for another return the second half of this season.

“The horse always has to come first,” he told McLean. “…You can’t push them somewhere they’re not ready to go or don’t want to. He was leading us to give him a little time off, so that’s what we did.”