Somehow, tomorrow is already May 1st and this year that means it’s Kentucky Oaks Day, with the Kentucky Derby being run this Saturday. Below — for those of our friends who are only racing fans on this one day and like to have a horse to root for — are our picks for those two races, plus a couple of additional thoughts about other horses in the Derby.
We’ve had an Oaks filly for a couple of months now, since she broke her maiden impressively in her second start, and that’s Prom Queen. Trained by Brad Cox (who knows how to win this race) for Gary & Mary West (now one of the few owner/breeder programs of any size operating in the U.S.), Prom Queen came back to win the Gulfstream Oaks-G2 impressively in her next, and most recent, start. So she comes into tomorrow’s race with only three races to her credit, but inexperience isn’t as big a hurdle in the Oaks as it is in the Derby with it’s bigger field and longer distance. Prom Queen is a daughter of Quality Road (sire of Blofeld, who you’ve read about in this blog before, as well as of previous Kentucky Oaks-G1 winner Abel Tasman) out of a Tapit full-sister to Actress, who won the Preakness companion Black-Eyed Susan Stakes-G2 during her racing career (and is now the dam of Dubai World Cup-G1 winner Hit Show). Prom Queen’s second dam, Milwaukee Appeal, was a winner of Canada’s classic Woodbine Oaks. So she’s got a pedigree very well-suited to this race, and her stalking style should also work very well in here.
The one other horse that we’ll be rooting for in the Oaks along with Prom Queen is Bella Ballerina, who was the impetus for our single most-read blog post, about the Godolphin homebred program last summer. She’s a Street Sense half-sister to the Kentucky Oaks-G1 winner Pretty Mischievous, and would be a fun story if she were able to follow in her sister’s footprints for trainer Brendan Walsh.
Now, onto Saturday’s Run For the Roses.
We had a horse all winter that was our Derby horse, and that was Coolmore’s Paladin. We were on his bandwagon from the beginning because we had purchased a mare named Sharma for our friends at Wasabi Ventures Stables, and Sharma’s dam (Kareena) is a half-sister to Paladin’s dam (Secret Sigh) — meaning that a Derby win by Paladin would’ve positively affected the value of Sharma and her future foals.
But alas, Paladin got knocked off the Derby trail about a month ago, leaving us scrambling for a new rooting interest. And the horse that we’ve landed on is The Puma.
Winner of the Tampa Bay Derby-G3 in his third start — over Further Ado, who came back to win the Blue Grass-G1 — The Puma comes into the Derby off of a very game 2nd-place finish in the Florida Derby-G1. He made a big run that day to take command, fought off the challenge of Chief Wallabee, and then couldn’t quite contain Commandment at the wire, losing by a nose in a head-bob finish.
He’s a handy horse with a good turn of foot, has shown tenacity, and should continue to improve as he gains experience for the connections that won the race just a few years back with Mage. And The Puma will be a bigger price than those other three horses mentioned in the preceding paragraph, which is always more fun than betting on the favorite.
The Puma also happens to be a son of the first-crop stallion Essential Quality (himself 3rd in the Derby-G1 and a winner of the Belmont-G1 and Travers-G1 during his championship sophomore season), and he’s out of a talented Declaration of War mare. Both of those names suggest that the 10 furlongs of the Derby distance will be right up his alley.
We’re also excited to root for a son of Essential Quality to win the Derby, given that our broodmare, Cabra Chica, was bred to that son of Tapit this spring at a very reasonable fee before it rose to twice the advertised $25k on the back of strong results from Essential Quality’s first crop runners in the last few months. A Derby win would make that mating look that much better when sales time rolls around this fall.
A couple of other horses we think have a shot on Saturday would be Emerging Market (bred all day for the Derby distance, but short of seasoning with just two starts to his credit — still, he’s gotten a lot out of both of those wins, and one came at the longest distance any of these horses have run so far); Chief Wallabee (another inexperienced but improving colt who is trained by last year’s Derby-winning trainer Bill Mott, and who has had very eye-catching workouts leading up to this race); the Into Mischief pair of Renegade (hugely-impressive winner of the Arkansas Derby-G1 and out of a Curlin mare) and Potente (2nd in the Santa Anita Derby-G1 last out, but his wickedly-fast breeze the other day gives him the feel of one of those Baffert horses that goes to the front and just doesn’t get tired when you expect them to, a la Medina Spirit); and, finally, So Happy (Santa Anita Derby winner from the family of a broodmare that we used to own named So Dear).