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Tom Law Life is all about firsts, for better or worse. First day of school, first dates, first beer when you’re legal, first beer when you’re not, first child, first marathon, first car accident, first day of work, first day of retirement, first Kentucky Derby, first kiss.
A loaded field for Friday’s 141st Longines Kentucky Oaks highlights a huge afternoon of stakes action at Churchill Downs and the handicapping team from This Is Horse Racing is ready to solve the riddles of the day.
Several lesser-known stallions sired stakes winners last weekend while the progeny of two high-end Kentucky stallions won stakes in the farthest corner of North American racing.
South African trainer Mike de Kock admitted earlier this week that his early thoughts of running Mubtaahij in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby were a bit of a “pipe dream.”
Free Dubai was welcomed into the world in late March 2005, a spicy chestnut son of prominent Mid-Atlantic sire E Dubai and full of promise. A little more than four years and 18 starts later – races at Laurel Park and Colonial Downs – Free Dubai racked up just two victories and compiled earnings of $45,641.
Months and weeks of anticipation is now down to just a few days as Kentucky Derby 141 approaches. It’s officially Derby Week and with it the requisite crush on Louisville, complete with tips and touts from just about everyone with a media credential whether they watch five horses train or 500.
On a cloudy, windy Sunday morning at Churchill Downs, a crowd of about 150 fans and media representatives gathered outside Barn 33, anxiously awaiting presumed Kentucky Derby American Pharoah to emerge for his final pre-Derby workout.
It was a calm and cool Saturday morning at Keeneland Race Course when multiple Grade 1 winner Carpe Diem logged his final Kentucky Derby workout, covering a half-mile in :48.60 under Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez.
Materiality was one of four Todd Pletcher trainees to put in a final breeze in advance of the Kentucky Derby and his half-mile work Friday at Churchill Downs was the latest step on a pretty remarkable trip to next week’s spring classic.
Spring is in full swing. The Grand National and Middleburg Spring Races are in the books, the Maryland Hunt Cup right around the corner. The Kentucky Derby a little more than a week away. The pace is picking up all over the country and in New York they welcome a new chairman to the NYRA board and rolled out plans for the Belmont Stakes Festival.
