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BAFFERT, LUKAS, PLETCHER, ZITO VIE FOR 2010 DERBY WIN; ‘RACHEL’ RETURNS
“The four great training titans of America’s classic Thoroughbred racing---Wayne Lukas, Bob Baffert, Nick Zito and Todd Pletcher” is how New York Post racing columnist Ray Kerrison describes the conditioners of the winners of a cumulative 27 Triple Crown races in their careers. This year, the four have arrived in Louisville for Saturday’s 136th Kentucky Derby with ammunition to win again.
Baffert, with three previous Derby wins, has favored Lookin at Lucky, last year’s 2-year-old champion, along with the speedy Conveyance, whose only loss came in his last start, the Sunland Derby. Lukas, a 4-time Derby-winning trainer, has Dublin, last year’s winner of Saratoga’s Hopeful Stakes, but with only two runner-up and one third-place finish in Oaklawn stakes this spring. Zito, with two Derbies to his credit, will send out Ice Box and Jackson Bend. And Texas-born Pletcher, 0-for-24 in the past nine Derbies, who lost his best chance this year with Eskendereya’s scratch, still has several chances with Louisiana Derby winner Mission Impazible, Risen Star victor Discreetly Mine, Kentucky Jockey Club winner Super Saver and the filly, Devil May Care, to get his first Derby victory.
Derby weekend visitors will have an added treat on Friday when 2009 Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra, last year’s Kentucky Oaks winner, makes her second start of 2010 in the $400,000 La Troienne Stakes at 1 1/16 miles and her appearance almost makes the renewal of the Oaks of secondary interest.
MYTHICAL POWER PREVAILS OVER EUROEARS TO WIN LONE STAR’S TEXAS MILE
It took the Bob Baffert-trained Mythical Power the length of the Lone Star Park stretch before last year’s Lone Star Derby winner could prevail over Jim and Marilyn Helzer’s front-running Euroears in last Saturday’s Grade 3 $200,000 Texas Mile. The winning son of Congaree completed the eight furlongs in 1:35.71 and paid $5.40 as the public choice of the good crowd of 18,232. Fifteen Love rallied to be third.
The two supporting stakes found Deal Breaker putting in a strong stretch run to take the $50,000 Grand Prairie Turf Challenge as an odds-on favorite and Bubbler adding her sixth victory in eight starts and first win on grass when she scored in the $50,000 Irving Distaff at 4-1 odds.
‘KEENELAND’S TED BASSETT: MY LIFE’ WINS DR. TONY RYAN BOOK AWARD
The book “Keeneland’s Ted Bassett: My Life” co-authored by Bassett and Eclipse Award-winning Turf writer Bill Mooney, won the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award, it was announced last Friday evening at a reception in Lexington, KY, at Castleton Lyons Farm, one of the sponsors with Thoroughbred Times. The other finalists for the fourth annual presentation were Lynn Reardon’s “Beyond the Homestretch---What I’ve Learned from Saving Racehorses,” and Andrew Plattner’s “The Kentucky Derby Vault: A History of the Run for the Roses.” The winner received a check for $10,000 and the runners-up were awarded $1,000.
Fast furlongs...South Korean buyers took home 92 offerings from the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company’s Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds, paying $1.7 million as they try to fill the growing demand for racing stock in the Asian nation, where a third racetrack is being built and China will soon have similar needs...Illinois horse racing interests are pushing for legalization of video slot machines at state tracks before the General Assembly adjourns later this spring...The slots revenue flowing to purses at Pennsylvania tracks has tripled the amount paid to winning owners in four years...The American Horse Council reports President Barack Obama has signed into law a continuation of the more generous expensing allowance through 2010, which means that $250,000 of the total cost of horses and other depreciable property placed in service in 2010 can be deducted this year as it was in 2009...Bettors in the outdoor simulcast area at Manor Downs have new challenges on Wednesdays and Thursdays when they will have to make all their wagers on self-service machines since there will be no tellers in a cost-saving move that some wags claim is the newest chapter in Manor’s “customer prevention program”...Martha and I headed for Louisville early Tuesday morning for another Derby weekend, my 42nd in the past 46 years, and we’ll visit with longtime friends Ken and Sarah Ramsey who have Lane’s End Stakes winner Dean’s Kitten entered in this year’s Run for the Roses...All the Texas tracks will be open early Friday and Saturday mornings for simulcasting, as 9:30 (CDT) is post time for the first race on both Oaks and Derby Day.