JC / Railbird - Saturday Race Results

Saturday Race Results

Brother Derek will almost certainly go into the Kentucky Derby gate as the favorite, and for good reason. His win in Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby “was so easy Alex Solis was standing in his stirrups and celebrating well before he crossed the finish line,” 3 1/4 lengths ahead of Point Determined. A.P. Warrior was third. Yet again, Brother Derek demonstrated tactical speed and an ability to finish strong, and he looked magnificent in the post parade as well, arching his neck and pushing his lead pony around. “This horse is a monster,” said Solis of Derek. “Just incredible. He keeps impressing me more and more each race he runs.” The final time for the race was an even 1:48. “Can we add 12 and change to that?,” asked “beaming” trainer Dan Hendricks after.
Brother Derek earned a 108 Beyer speed figure for the race, the same as he scored winning the San Rafael in January, and small bounce back up from the 102 he earned in the Santa Catalina in March.
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Point Determined has certainly shown some improvement this spring. The colt that trainer Bob Baffert had to ship north to Golden Gate to get an allowance win in February finished second to A.P. Warrior in his next start, the San Felipe. On Saturday, the colt easily passed A.P. Warrior in the stretch after falling back as the field entered the far turn and having to make up several lengths. That’s something to keep in mind for the Derby, as is that second place finishers in the Santa Anita Derby — particularly those trained by Baffert — have historically done well at Churchill Downs.
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Baffert has a second Derby contender in Wood Stakes winner Bob and John. The colt handled the sloppy Aqueduct track with aplomb (if not speed — the race’s final time was 1:51.54 with the last furlong run in a slow :14.06), finishing 1 1/4 lengths ahead of Jazil. Keyed Entry was third.
“Just goes to show you that there is so much speed in California, it’s like a vacation when you get away from there,” said Baffert:

“I knew he would run much better here. He needs a bigger track. The last time, he was completely wiped out and never got a chance to run and he needed the race. I wasn’t really hard on him. I was hoping that if we tried something different, it would work and it did. Good horses run on any track.”

Keyed Entry’s third place finish was the second loss in a row for the colt, who was sent off as the favorite at 4-5, odds surely influenced by the way Keyed Entry freaked over a similarly sloppy track at Gulfstream, where he won the Hutcheson in record time and scored a 110 Beyer. Trainer Todd Pletcher said after that he wasn’t sure what would come next for Keyed Entry:

“I thought he dug in and tried hard … Originally, I thought the sloppy track was a blessing. I don’t know if that was the case, considering they went the final eighth in :14. It looked like they were all laboring. It is disconcerting that he didn’t win. I don’t like to make decisions right after a race, so we’re not going to jump to any conclusions just yet. We’ll see how he comes out of it, let the smoke settle and figure it out.”

Jockey Edgar Prado said of Keyed Entry’s effort that, “He tried hard, but a mile and an eighth appears to be too long,” and suggested that if Keyed Entry were to go into the Derby, he probably wouldn’t be the colt’s rider. “One less to worry about. I think Barbaro is the horse so far.”
The one eye-catching performance in yesterday’s Wood was Jazil’s surprising late stretch run into second place. The colt’s flying finish earned him $150,000 in graded stakes money. Although that’s enough to put him at 17 on the Derby graded earnings list, it doesn’t guarantee Jazil a spot in the Derby gate.
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Sweetnorthernsaint followed his third place finish in the Gotham last month with a win in Saturday’s Illinois Derby. “This horse improved leaps and bounds since the last time I rode him,” said jockey Kent Desormeaux. “[Trainer Michael Trombetta] said don’t give up on him. He’s really a great horse and he strutted that stuff today.” Mister Triester, who finished fourth in the Santa Catalina, was second, and morning line favorite Cause to Believe was third. Trainer Jerry Hollendorfer blamed a lack of pace for Cause to Believe’s finish and said the colt’s connections would have to think about starting him in the Kentucky Derby:

“We’ll let things settle out and see if we can make an intelligent decision on what we should do,” Hollendorfer said. “I’m not going to say either way because I didn’t like how the pace came up today. It was a deeper track, too, and the winner was used to that kind of track, but if you go to the Kentucky Derby, you have to overcome obstacles like that. Opportunities don’t come very often to be in America’s race. We’d like to be in it, but if we determine that there are too many things against us, we won’t do it.”

Sweetnorthernsaint earned a 109 winning the Illinois Derby, a career high and his fourth straight triple digit Beyer.
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Also on Saturday:
– Too Much Bling romped in the Bay Shore, winning by nine lengths. “We’re just glad he’s a fast son of a gun,” said Baffert. “We’ll keep him at one-turn races for now.”
– Spun Sugar bested Happy Ticket in the Apple Blossom. “We got outrun in a tough loss,” said trainer Andrew Leggio.
– Longshot Bushfire easily won the Ashland, while favorite Balance, who “wobbled” at the start, finished third.
– In his second career start, the $8 million colt Mr. Sekiguchi won his first race at Santa Anita.
– Jockey Rafael Bejarano won six races at Santa Anita on Saturday. “This is my best day out here, a really good day,” the happy rider said.

Posted by JC in Racing on 04/09/2006 @ 1:15 pm / Tagged Kentucky Derby / Follow @railbird on Twitter