Saez has another shot at Kentucky Derby after Maximum Security’s disqualification

Luis Saez was a Kentucky Derby champion jockey for 22 minutes in 2019. He had crossed the finish line first aboard Maximum Security in the slop at Churchill Downs, only to sit through a review of the race by the track’s stewards after the jockeys of two other horses challenged the result.

The fallout was doubly devastating: Not only did the stewards disqualify Maximum Security for interfering with three other horses, but the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission ruled nine days later that Saez was to blame, finding that he failed “to control his mount and make the proper effort to maintain a straight course thereby causing interference with several rivals.”

The board suspended him for 15 racing days.

This year, the Kentucky Derby is back on the first Saturday in May after the pandemic scrambled last year’s horse racing calendar.

Saez is back at Churchill Downs, too, again aboard a contender — Essential Quality, the 2-to-1 morning-line favourite — as the 28-year-old Panamanian looks to win the Run for the Roses, again, for the first time.

“It’s one of those things where Luis has confidence in him (and) we have confidence in Luis,” Essential Quality trainer Brad Cox said Sunday.

Essential Quality has won all five of his races and Saez has been on board for four of them, including the Blue Grass Stakes on April 3 and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in November.

But Saez also is no stranger to discipline, having been suspended 18 times for more than 100 days for “careless riding” since 2013, according to a Louisville Courier-journal examination of Association of Racing Commissioners International data.