Oaks Prospects
Sunday Training
Out and about at Churchill Downs this morning …
Stay Thirsty
Watch Me Go
Pants on Fire
Uncle Mo and Stay Thirsty, working in company
Joyful Victory, with trainer Larry Jones
R High Figure
As measured by the speed figure makers, the Kentucky Derby field may be “solid, competitive … and slow,” but there’s a dominant figure in the Oaks.
Speaking of figures …
“Frankel’s performance can only be described as awesome,” said the official BHA handicapper for milers, apparently as awed as everyone else watching Frankel cheerfully gut the field running behind him from the start in the 2000 Guineas (replay). “He destroyed the others, not himself,” said trainer Henry Cecil. At the end what impressed almost as much as the ease with which the undefeated colt won was how hard his rivals had to run to even keep him in view. Timeform gave Frankel a provisional rating of 142, the third best ever; the Racing Post rated him 133, the highest ever on that scale.
Friday Training
A few photos from this morning at Churchill Downs …
Archarcharch
Santiva
Arienza
Bouquet Booth
Decisive Moment
Uncle Mo
Hanging Out
Kentucky Oaks contender Daisy Devine and Derby contender Uncle Mo waiting for the track to re-open for training at 8:30 this morning.
The Shake Up
So, Uncle Mo lost. Considering the self-flagellation, told-yas, schadenfreude, and hearsay diagnoses that flooded the web immediately after the race, you would think the Wood Memorial was The Greatest Trouncing in the History of American Turf, and not a 1 1/4-length defeat by the 1-10 favorite to Toby’s Corner and Arthur’s Tale, the second- and third-favorite respectively. (For that matter, the horse bet fourth, Norman Asbjornson, finished fourth. Aside from an excess of Mo-thusiasm, bettors pretty much got the Wood right.)
So, Mo can lose. And look remarkably unexceptional while doing so. After leading the field through a half in :47.98 and three-quarters in 1:12.28, the previously undefeated colt displayed neither fight nor interest when jockey John Velazquez asked him to pick things up in the stretch, running the final eighth in :12.88. Toby’s Corner closed quickly, finishing in :11.97. “Oh, I’m surprised. But no longer is [Uncle Mo] such a dominant force, and it just opens up the entire picture [for the Derby],” said winning trainer Graham Motion.
It would seem so. Less than four weeks to the Derby, and only the Blue Grass and Arkansas Derby are left now to make sense of this 3-year-old crowd, following Midnight Interlude’s upset in the Santa Anita Derby. By the margin of a head, he went from a maiden winner to G1 victor, giving trainer Bob Baffert a third Derby prospect. “The Kentucky Derby was once a horse race,” groused Bill Dwyre of yesterday’s results. “Now, it has become a crapshoot.”
In an era when conditioners seem to be competing on who can bring the freshest horse to the Derby, could it become anything but?
Trainer Todd Pletcher reported this morning, via text to Darren Rogers, that Uncle Mo will ship to Churchill Downs on April 18, which should help put to rest rumors that the former Derby favorite is out of contention. He’s expected to work twice before the Derby. How he trains will determine whether or not he starts, but it probably won’t answer the questions many were already asking about Uncle Mo’s light prep schedule. As Paul Moran writes:
Apparently, the Timely Writer Stakes at Gulfstream, a combination publicity stunt and public workout, was insufficient to propel Uncle Mo to a Grade I, even in the absence of proven Grade I company, which beyond the bowed favorite was lacking in the Wood. Almost certainly, the Wood will leave the light-bodied Uncle Mo short of an effective effort at 10 furlongs in Kentucky on the first Saturday of May.
That’s got to be the concern of anyone who backs him going forward. “We’ll see if we can get him prepared to step up,†Pletcher said this morning. “It was not a typical Uncle Mo performance, but I do not feel like the mile and an eighth was an issue.” Maybe the Wood was just the gut check he needed.
Beyer speed figures: 94 for Toby’s Corner and 92 for Uncle Mo in the Wood; 95 for Midnight Interlude in the Santa Anita Derby; 93 for Joe Vann in the Illinois Derby; 87 for Lilacs and Lace in the Ashland Stakes.
6:00 PM Addendum: “If not Mo, who?” That is the question this weekend.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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