Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Mott, Juddmonte can notch the elusive big one
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Separately, trainer Bill Mott and Prince Khalid’s Juddmonte Farms have won many of the world’s most important races.
Each has won the Dubai World Cup, a Breeders’ Cup Classic, and a Belmont Stakes.
Together, Mott and Juddmonte have teamed to win 13 Grade 1 races with horses such as Close Hatches, Proviso, and Emollient.
There is one race – the race – that has eluded them: The Kentucky Derby.
Mott and Juddmonte on Saturday return to the world’s most prestigious horse race when they run the late-developing Hofburg in the 144th Kentucky Derby. For Mott, it’s his first Derby starter – and eighth overall – since Hold Me Back finished 12th in 2009. Hofburg represents Juddmonte’s first Derby runner since Empire Maker finished second as the favorite in 2003. Overall, Juddmonte has two seconds from three Derby entrants.
“We’re lucky enough to be an organization that has won some of the great races the world over … and the big gaping hole is the Kentucky Derby,” Garrett O’Rourke, Juddmonte’s Kentucky-based manager, said Sunday. “It would be huge.”
As the all-time leading trainer in wins at Churchill Downs before being usurped by Dale Romans last fall, Mott has lamented his lack of Derby participation. Mott ran his first horse in the Derby, Taylor’s Special, in 1984. He has participated in only five Derbies since.
“I’ve tried to downplay it a little bit when I don’t have a horse in,” Mott said. “[I] say, ‘Well, when it happens, it happens.’ Of course anybody would have to realize it would be a great race to win. We’re happy to be here. We want to run well. We’d like to be proud of our horse after the race, and I think he’ll make us proud.”
That Mott is at the Derby with a Juddmonte homebred dirt horse seems a bit ironic. He was hired by Juddmonte in 2010, the year after their main U.S.-based trainer, Bobby Frankel, died. Juddmonte seemed to come up with more turf horses than dirt runners.
Over the last few years, Juddmonte has brought trainers Bob Baffert and Chad Brown on board. Baffert, a four-time Derby winner, indicated that he preferred dirt horses, and Juddmonte began going to the sales buying those type of horses. One of those purchases turned out to be Arrogate, who while unable to make the Triple Crown was the 2016 3-year-old champion after winning the Travers and Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Brown was sent a few turf horses from Europe, including Flintshire, who was the U.S. male turf champion of 2016.
Mott’s success with Juddmonte is highlighted by the achievements of Close Hatches, a five-time Grade 1 winner; Proviso a four-time Grade 1 winner exclusively on turf; and Emollient, who won Grade 1
races on turf and synthetic.
Hofburg is a half-sister to Emollient, which is one reason why he was sent to Mott. Another reason, O’Rourke said, is that Hofburg didn’t appear to be the type of horse that fit Baffert’s speed-oriented program.
“I never perceived Hofburg to be a California-speed-type horse,” O’Rourke said. “We put all of our horses where we see, in our opinion, [they] will fit best and do best. There was every reason going to Bill Mott was the right thing to do with Hofburg.”
Hofburg, a son of Tapit, debuted going seven furlongs at Saratoga on Sept. 2, breaking slowly and rallying from last to finish fourth. He breezed twice after that race, before there was some heat detected in a shin and the decision was made to stop on him. Hofburg resumed training in South Florida at the Payson Park training center and was back on the work tab by early January.
On March 3, the day of the Fountain of Youth, Hofburg made his 3-year-old debut at Gulfstream Park. Breaking from the outside post in an 11-horse field, Hofburg had a wide trip throughout and still won by a half-length.
“The race was probably a little more impressive than what the margin of victory would tell you,” Mott said.
Four weeks later, in the Grade 1, $1 million Florida Derby, Hofburg rallied from 15 lengths back to finish second, beaten three lengths by Audible while finishing 7 3/4 lengths clear of the rest of the field.
“He hasn’t backed up, he’s moved forward,” Mott said. “The races seemed to have made him better. Some horses take their races hard – they try hard and it kind of wears them out. He seems like he’s gotten stronger and better and smoother. Whether that’s good enough for Derby Day we’ll all see on Derby Day.”
On Sunday, Hofburg worked a solid half-mile in 48.03 seconds at Churchill, galloping out five furlongs in 1:00.98 and giving every indication he likes the Churchill surface.
“You want to go into a race like this where the horse is dragging you there, and we feel like the horse is dragging us there,” O’Rourke said.
With Arrogate now a Juddmonte stallion, Juddmonte’s prospects of getting more dirt horses that could potentially become Derby horses may have increased. Whether that means Mott’s chances of getting more dirt horses capable of becoming Derby horses has increased remains to be seen.
“Bobby Frankel never won the Derby, either,” O’Rourke said. “It would be killing two birds with one stone if Bill Mott and Juddmonte won our first Derby together, and I would be absolutely delighted to win it with him. He’s a great guy. He’s done very well for us in the past. I’d love to win it with him but we’ll take it any way we can get it.”