Two Phil’s carries Chicago hope into Kentucky Derby 2023

Louisville, Ky.

The last thing on Jareth Loveberry’s mind two months ago was Kentucky Derby 2023.

As he will Saturday at Churchill Downs, Loveberry was riding a 3-year-old colt. No, not Two Phil’s. That part of the story comes later.

This time it was Not On Herb, a decent horse who already had a black-type stakes win to his name. In the starting gate for an otherwise forgettable $52,000 allowance race March 1 at Fair Grounds, the colt reared, and Loveberry’s left leg got the worst of it.

DeRosa’s fair odds: 1 horse is a solid play for Kentucky Derby.

“I was just hoping that the X-rays came back not as bad as it felt,” Loveberry said this week.

To his relief, they revealed a small, hairline fracture in his fibula.

“It’s kind of funny,” said Loveberry, who was on the bench for only 15 days. “Larry said in one of the interviews it was like the movie ‘Seabiscuit.’ Tape his leg together. That’s kind of what he had to do.”

Larry is trainer Larry Rivelli. Loveberry and Rivelli. Chicagoland racing fans know they go together like Jordan and Pippen. In the final years Arlington Park was open, they were an invincible tandem. Rivelli won nine training titles, and Loveberry was the top rider the last two seasons before the track was closed in the fall of 2021.

“Oh, yeah,” Rivelli, 52, told Horse Racing Nation. “We’ve been together a long time.”

“Been together probably since 2010, 2011,” said Loveberry, 35, standing next to Rivelli outside barn 1 at Churchill Downs. “Reunited back in Chicago and been together ever since.”

From those early days at Canterbury Park in Minnesota through Arlington to their current home base of Hawthorne in suburban Chicago and now to Saturday. It will mark the first time for Loveberry and Rivelli in the Kentucky Derby, carried in by a March 25 win by Two Phil’s in the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3). Loveberry rode that victory on the synthetic track at Turfway Park only three weeks after he got hurt.

From what could have been a horrible nightmare to a sigh of relief to a dream come true for him and Rivelli.

“You always shoot for this. You’re striving win the Super Bowl, so to say,” Rivelli said. “You never know until the horse comes. It’s all about them. That horse has evolved and gotten better and better.”

Two Phil’s is a Hard Spun colt bred in Kentucky by Phillip Sagan, who maintained a 20 percent share with loyal Rivelli client Vince Foglia being the majority owner. Sol Kumin eventually bought in as a third partner who clearly saw an upside.

“When I first ran him, he got beat first time out in a maiden special,” Rivelli said. “The farthest thing from my mind was running in the Derby. But we worked with him, we kept going, and he just progressed. It’s like the dangly, gawky teenager who was just an athlete. All of a sudden he’s the star on the varsity football team.”

Two Phil’s’s past performances – get used to the coupled apostrophes – were built modestly. In a summer sprint at Colonial Downs in Virginia he broke his maiden on his second try. Then came a 9 3/4-length runaway in a 2-year-old stakes race at Canterbury.

A first crack at two turns proved humbling. Two Phil’s wilted to finish seventh in the Breeders’ Futurity (G1) in October at Keeneland. That was the last time he finished out of the money.

He won the Street Sense (G3) on Oct. 30 going 1 1/16 miles on the very Churchill Downs track where he will race Saturday. That was in the slop, which looked unlikely to be duplicated this weekend.

“There’s been a lot of time between then and now,” Loveberry said. “I think he’s developing like all the other horses, but I think he’s going the right direction.”

Two Phil’s spent his 3-year-old winter at Fair Grounds, where he finished an indefatigable second to Instant Coffee in the Lecomte (G3) and a competitive third to Angel of Empire and Sun Thunder in the Risen Star (G2).

It was suggested to Rivelli that the 12-1 morning-line odds given to Two Phil’s for the Derby belied the strong performances he turned in in New Orleans.

“I agree,” Rivelli said. “I was guessing his odds before and how they would lay them out. I figured between 8-1 and 15-1. That’s right exactly where he landed.”

Then came the Jeff Ruby and a first start on something other than real dirt. In his typical mid-pack style, Two Phil’s took to the Tapeta like it was made for him, running away to a 5 1/4-length triumph that assured him of a place in the Derby.

“He’s been a developing horse,” said Loveberry, who has ridden all but Two Phil’s’s debut start. “Coming into those races and learning a lot from him, I think he just put it together in the Jeff Ruby.”

The triumph went beyond Two Phil’s qualifying to be at Churchill Downs on Saturday. Daily Racing Form said it was worth a 101 Beyer Speed Figure, the best for any 3-year-old male in 2023. Skeptical horseplayers, though, have wondered aloud whether that was built entirely on a recipe of faux dirt.

“I guess the jury’s out,” Rivelli said. “We’ll see if that was the thing that really moved him up. I think the horse is getting better. He’s definitely getting better.”

Being as intertwined as they are, Rivelli and Loveberry have discussed the Derby pace picture more than once in and out of media interviews this week. Two Phil’s’s P 3 designation in Brisnet’s Quirin Speed Points has mid-pack written all over it but probably not far back in the field.

Other than in his off-the-board loss in the Breeders’ Futurity, Two Phil’s never has been more than 4 1/4 lengths behind at any call in his two-turn races and never farther than 2 1/2 lengths back in his wins.

Drawing a less-than-desirable post 3 could have complicated things, but Rivelli thought it through.

“Before the draw we were looking at like a 7 to 14 post,” Rivelli said. He and Loveberry then determined that Verifying from post 2, Kingsbarns from 6 and Reincarnate from 7 would bring the early speed from their side of the 20-horse starting gate.

“This horse wants to be covered up,” Rivelli said. “Whether he’s second or fourth or fifth or wherever. It doesn’t matter. Obviously it’s going to be up to (Loveberry) and how it plays out. If those horses get away, he can sit behind them. He doesn’t really have to navigate himself down. It’s probably less pressure off of Jareth just trying to keep (Two Phil’s) relaxed behind a horse. All those other horses out there, they can figure it out on their own. We don’t have to figure it out.”

Rivelli went so far as to say the closers who will break to the outside will not foil Two Phil’s trip up the backstretch.

“They’re not going to be able to cross our face,” he said. “They’re not going to shove him out of there. They’re going to just have to break and maybe just get hung out wide. The good thing about Phil is he’s got enough tactical speed. You can put him wherever you want.”

Loveberry remembered Epicenter, the 4-1 favorite who finished a more than game second last year, also broke from post 3.

“He worked out a good trip in that same type of style,” Loveberry said. “Watching that race over again, I think we can try to emulate without moving early.”

“Just ride him the same way you rode the last race,” Rivelli said to Loveberry. “It’s an extra quarter-mile. Just get him comfortable. I don’t care if he’s third, fifth, seventh. He knows the rhythm of the horse. He knows his cruising speed.”

The best-laid plans, right? For a couple men who are in their first Derby, it will be a case of learning on the fly.

“Naturally, in a race like this, you’re going to get geeked up,” Rivelli said. “Everybody tends to do something just a little bit faster. And not even knowingly, because you’re racing. Even the jocks on other horses. ‘I’ve got to get in position. I’ve got to get in position.’ Your clock’s moving faster because of the height of the event. As long as he can remain cool, and the horse can just relax, that’s all I ask.”

So Rivelli and Loveberry have their plan as they have so many times together from Arlington to Canterbury Park to Fair Grounds. Now it happens on the biggest racing stage there is. In Rivelli’s mind, the X factor is Two Phil’s himself.

“If he’s good enough, he’ll do it,” he said. “If he’s not, he won’t. And that’s up to him after that.”

Loveberry boiled it down more simply than that.

“Just ride the horse.”