There aren’t any firsts for Saturday’s Run for the Roses to compete with the big one last year – the race being run in September rather than at the start of May – but there is still a fair number of them this time. Todd Sidor reports.
Godolphin’s first Derby favorite
Essential Quality enters this year’s race undefeated as the leader of the Road to the Kentucky Derby with 140 points. This will be the first time a Godolphin-owned colt has started favorite for the race.
Essential Quality was a second Champion Two-Year Old for Sheikh Mohammed’s operation – the first was Midshipman in 2008 - and their third Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner after Vale Of York in 2009 and Midshipman.
Godolphin has run 11 horses in the Derby. Fourth (Frosted in 2015 and Mohaymen in 2016) is their best effort to date.
What does Essential Quality have in common with both Frosted and Mohaymen? They are both by Gainesway supersire Tapit.
Sheikh Mohammed’s late brother, Hamdan, also had a fourth - Jazil in 2006 - as his best result. Jazil, of course, went on to win the Belmont Stakes, the first and only Triple Crown race winner for the Maktoum family to date.
In 1992, when Godolphin was created, Sheikh Mohammed made winning the world’s top contests a priority for his stable. Those contests included the Epsom Derby, the Kentucky Derby, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Melbourne Cup.
Godolphin have won all but the Kentucky Derby since. Could this be the year they complete the set?
First runners for Brad Cox and Wesley Ward
2020 Eclipse Award-winning trainer Brad Cox saddles two entries: Essential Quality and G3 Risen Star winner Mandaloun, a well-bred Juddmonte-owned colt by Into Mischief out of Empire Maker daughter Brooch.
With the death at the start of the year of Prince Khalid Abdullah, a Kentucky Derby victory might be a fitting way for the racing gods to bid the Juddmonte founder a fond farewell.
While Cox may not have experience in the Kentucky Derby itself, he does know Churchill Downs and can take an awful lot of confidence into the Run for the Roses after his extraordinary successes last year, which include Eclipse Awards for Essential Quality and Champion Older Female Monomoy Girl. He also won four Breeders’ Cup races.
Ward has been a Thoroughbred trainer since 1991. Before that, he had won the 1984 Eclipse Award for Outstanding Apprentice after reeling off 335 wins and racing titles at Aqueduct, Meadowlands and Belmont Park. In 1985, he was up when future Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Ferdinand broke his maiden.
Since then, Ward has won four Breeders’ Cup races on turf. He is, of course, probably best known for his successes at Royal Ascot, where he has 11 wins.
His runner on Saturday is Like The King, a son of Palace Malice who won the G3 Jeff Ruby Stakes at Turfway Park. Since the adoption of the Kentucky Derby points system, all the horses who have finished first in that race have been winners of 100-point races, so Ward’s entry fits the model of some past winners. In 2019, of course, Maximum Security finished first, but was disqualified because of interference.
Hard times for Baffert?
Bob Baffert has been on a role for the past half-dozen years. He has the most Triple Crown wins of any trainer in history. He has won two Triple Crowns with American Pharoah and Justify. He has won four of the last six Breeders’ Cup Classics. However, this is the first time since 2017 that he does not have either a 100-point or 50-point stakes-winning horse in the Derby.
This has only happened once since the points system started in 2013: In 2017, when he had no entries at all.
This time Medna Spirit, a son of Protonico, will be his only runner. A $35,000 purchase for Zedan Racing Stables, he has run in four Graded stakes this year, finishing first in the G3 Robert Lewis and second in the Sham, G2 San Felipe and G1 Santa Anita Derby. One can never count Baffert out, though.
New starting gate at capacity?
Last year, Churchill Downs debuted its new Australian-based Steriline Racing custom-made, 20-stall starting gate, which sought to reduce the disadvantage of post positions.
“We believe that a new custom-made, 20-stall starting gate will deliver a clean start for all horses and enhance safety for horses and riders in the Kentucky Derby,” said Mike Ziegler, executive director of racing for Churchill Downs.
The 2020 edition featured only 15 entries, so this year’s running promises a much sterner test of the new fixture.
The turf graduate
One of the favorites for this year’s race is the John Sadler-trained Rock Your World, who broke his maiden on New Year’s Day at Santa Anita on turf, and then captured the listed Pasadena Stakes, also on turf, before his 4¼-length victory in the Santa Anita Derby.
He did not race at 2, which would have saddled him with the Curse of Apollo had Justify not shattered that by winning the Triple Crown without running as a 2-year old.
The son of Candy Ride out of the Empire Maker mare Charm The Maker is bred to run all day and notched the top Beyer Speed Figure in the field with a 101.
Former turf horses have had success in the Kentucky Derby before, but none with so little experience on dirt or synthetic. The 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro, made his first three starts on turf at two before changing to dirt and reeling off wins in the G3 Holy Bull and the G1 Florida Derby.
In 2008, Big Brown debuted on turf at Saratoga in early September. However, he started twice on dirt - in an allowance race and the Florida Derby - before tackling the Kentucky Derby. Rock Your World will be one of the favorites on Saturday.
One-start 3-year olds
Two horses enter this year’s Kentucky Derby after just one run at three. In his first and only start of the year, the Mark Casse-trained Helium won the G2 Tampa Bay Derby by threequarters of a length over Hidden Stash. That race is eight weeks before the Derby, and the last horse to win at Churchill coming out of the Tampa Bay Derby was Street Sense, who followed his win there with a runner-up finish in the Blue Grass Stakes.
Kenny McPeek sends G3 Lexington Stakes winner King Fury into the Derby off a 2¾-length win in the slop at Keeneland.
One horse to be successful with less than one start was champion filly Regret. In 1915, the Kentucky Derby was her first start of the year.
Todd Sidor, an attorney by trade, has helped produce equine law seminars, and has been a member of racing partnerships for a number of years. His more-tha- two-decades passion and respect for the sport of horseracing will always make him, first and foremost, a racing enthusiast with a penchant for racing history.