Florida Derby winner Hal’s Hope, Louisiana Derby winner Mighty, Tampa Bay Derby winner Wheelaway and five others will meet Saturday in a race that for the last four decades has been the No. 1 preliminary for the Kentucky Derby.
The race is the $750,000 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, and it’s one of three major Derby preps being packaged for simulcast bettors as the Big 3 Pick 3.
Leading off will be the $750,0000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct followed by the Blue Grass and the $500,000 Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park.
Horseplayers at Sportsman’s Park and its intertrack and off-track betting affiliates also will have six home-cooked $75,000 stakes races on their parimutuel menu. The occasion is the 11th annual Illinois Day card celebrating Illinois-breds.
Conspicuous by his absence will be eight-time Sportsman’s jockey champion Mark Guidry, who in 1993 put on the best riding performance in Illinois Day history by winning three of these races, plus the National Jockey Club Handicap, which then was part of the card. Guidry will be at Keeneland, riding last fall’s Hawthorne Juvenile winner Deputy Warlock in the Blue Grass.
“We were dealing with a few problems and Deputy Warlock struggled a bit in Florida,” said the 15-1 morning-line long shot’s trainer, Ken McPeek, alluding to seventh-place finishes in the Fountain of Youth and Florida Derby. “He improved in the Spiral [finishing fourth], and now we think he can take another step forward.
“Horses change between Florida and Kentucky. Sea Hero struggled in Florida. He came north and did a lot better.”
Sea Hero used a fourth-place finish in the 1993 Blue Grass as his springboard to the winner’s circle in the 1993 Kentucky Derby. He is one of 15 Blue Grass contestants who have gone on to win the Derby since 1962. Of this group, eight won both races, but it hasn’t been done since Strike The Gold did it in 1991.
Now, Strike The Gold’s co-owner, Bill Condren, and trainer Nick Zito are trying to do it again with Bare Outline, a 20-1 long shot who finished ninth when he made his stakes debut last time out in the Florida Derby.
“I told Nick that I’m providing the date for the guy who was all dressed up and had no date to take to the dance,” quipped Condren. “He better run at least half as well as you think he can.”
Stretch-runner Mighty is projected as the 2-1 favorite. Mighty has won only three of his 10 races for trainer Frank Brothers, but he has finished in the money nine times and is coming off an impressive victory in the Louisiana Derby.
The 5-2 second choice is High Yield, a member of trainer Wayne Lukas’ perennially powerful equine army who defeated runner-up Hal’s Hope by 3 1/4 lengths in the Fountain of Youth and then lost to him by a head in the Florida Derby.
Hal’s Hope, a colt bred, owned and trained by 88-year-old Harold Rose, is the 3-1 third choice followed by last year’s 2-year-old sensation, More Than Ready, at 4-1 and Wheelaway at 12-1. This is only the fifth start for Wheelaway, whose sire, Unbridled, won the 1990 Kentucky Derby after running second in the Blue Grass.
Less is more? Two other lightly raced colts are considered the class acts in the 12-horse Wood–trainer Neil Drysdale’s California invader Fusaichi Pegasus and Red Bullet, who has won all three of his races for owner Frank Stronach and trainer Joe Orseno.
Foreign intrigue: Cash Asmussen, one of the top riders in Europe, is flying back from France to ride 2-1 favorite Snuck In for his brother, trainer Steve Asmussen, in the Arkansas Derby.
