Essential Quality one to beat
Three new horses on radar, but Cox’s horse still tops list
We are almost at the end of the prep season for the Kentucky Derby. Saturday, the last big race on the road to Louisville will be run at Oaklawn Park with the Arkansas Derby. The showstopper is supposed to be Concert Tour, from trainer Bob Baffert.
A big win there and Concert Tour will have plenty of steam heading to the Run for the Roses.
But will it be enough to steal the Run for the Roses momentum that Essential Quality has? Good question.
Right now, Essential Quality, the gray comet from trainer Brad Cox, is the horse everyone is going to have to beat on the first Saturday in May. Essential Quality showed why he is the top-ranked 3-year-old male in just about every Kentucky Derby poll in the land on Saturday when he won his final prep, the Grade II $800,000 Blue Grass, by a neck.
Essential Quality and jockey Luis Saez had to work for it as they ran down the Chad Brown-trained Highly Motivated, just edging away in the final strides to win the race at Keeneland. That kept his record perfect in five career starts, 2-for-2 this year.
“I liked that he got a test,” Cox said the day after the Blue Grass. “It was not like he just galloped up to the leader and went on by.”
Essential Quality’s Blue Grass win last Saturday was the only Derby prep race that made any sense. In the Grade I, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, Baffert’s big favorite, the 4-5 Medina Spirit, could not catch the gate-to-wire winner Rock Your World, who was on the dirt for the first time.
Rock Your World, from trainer John Sadler, went off at 5-1 and gobbled up the 100 Derby qualifying points. Now, he is a major player and lands on our list for the first time.
The real shocker last week came in the Grade II, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct when Todd Pletcher ran first and second. That’s not a surprise. The gut punch came when the winner, Bourbonic, was 72-1, and stablemate Dynamic One, who lost by a head, was 15-1.
Both of those horses are now on the Derby trail, joining Pletcher’s Known Agenda, who won the Florida Derby two weeks ago. Pletcher also has Sainthood, runner-up in the Jeff Ruby Steaks last weekend, on his Derby list.
Three weeks ago, it looked like Pletcher might be on the outside looking on as he didn’t appear to have any Derby prospects. Now, here he is. Known Agenda checks in fourth on our list and Bourbonic makes his first appearance at No. 12.
“I’ve always said that sometimes the worst thing you can have is a really hot hand in January and February,” Pletcher said. “We were hoping that something would come together. A couple of these, we felt, had the potential to step up and it’s good to see them do it.”
One major defection from the list is Florida Derby winner Greatest Honour. He was taken out of consideration for the Kentucky Derby by trainer Shug Mcgaughey on Wednesday after it was found the colt had some ankle issues.
Greatest Honour is expected to get 60 days off, and Mcgaughey hopes he might get Greatest Honour back in time for the summer at Saratoga.
Besides Greatest Honour, two other horses dropped off our list. Soup and Sandwich, the runner-up in the Florida Derby, was released even though he is on target to run in the Derby.
Also, the Brown-trained Risk Taking is off, too. He was the favorite in the Wood Memorial and finished a disappointing seventh in the field of nine. Brown is not expected to take him to Louisville.