DERBY DOZEN
Previous No. 1 Life Is Good will miss Triple Crown races with hind-leg injury
Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Essential Quality new frontrunner.
Time to search for a new No. 1. Last week, the Kentucky Derby took a big hit when Life Is Good, atop many rankings for the Run for the Roses — including mine — was removed from the Triple Crown trail because of a hind-leg injury.
The good news is that he is expected to run again. The bad news is he won’t compete in any of the Triple Crown races.
“There is always a possibility that when you go to the barn, something like this can happen,” Bob Baffert, Life Is Good’s Hall of Fame trainer, said last Saturday. “That’s why I try not to get too excited.”
Don’t feel too bad for Baffert. He has a bushel of horses still on the trail. Four of them are on this list, led by Concert Tour, who is a star in the making.
The new leader is the Brad Coxtrained Essential Quality, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile champion. Undefeated in four starts, he will try to become just the third Juvenile winner to win the Derby, joining Street Sense (2006) and Nyquist (2016).
The gray son of Tapit deserves the top spot. For now. He’ll put his unbeaten record on the line in his final Derby prep, the Blue Grass at Keeneland, on April 3. A win there and he would almost assuredly head to Louisville as the Derby favorite.
Unless he doesn’t. Hall of Fame trainer Shug Mcgaughey will have something to say about that. His stable star Greatest Honour is the 6-5 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park.
Greatest Honour, also by Tapit, is looking to sweep the Gulfstream prep races after already winning the Holy Bull and the Fountain of Youth. In the Fountain of Youth, Greatest Honour looked like he was beaten until jockey Jose Ortiz got him rolling late.
Mcgaughey was concerned with that race because of the 1 1⁄8-mile distance. Greatest Honour wants to run longer and he’ll get that chance in the 11⁄8-mile Florida Derby. And, if he continues onto Louisville, he should really relish the 1 1⁄4 miles.
“The biggest thing is two turns,” Mcgaughey said. “With his pedigree, he was begging to run farther. I’ve got a lot of confidence in him. These races will get more difficult as it goes along.”
So far, Greatest Honour has been just fine in Florida. If he can win on Saturday, he will become the first horse to win all three graded prep races at Gulfstream. The Florida Derby is a Grade I, the Fountain of Youth a Grade II and the Holy Bull a Grade III.
The Florida Derby will be Greatest Honour’s seventh career start. He didn’t break his maiden until the fourth and final start as a 2-year-old. That came at Gulfstream the day after Christmas.
“He has raced a lot but he has taken it and I kind of had it in my mind that he’s the kind of horse that is going to need racing,” Mcgaughey said. “That’s what we have done.”