Best in East, West to clash in Derby
HALLANDALE — Today’s Florida Derby is a big race. Big. HUGE. It’s the kind of dream matchup — the best in the West versus the best in the East — the Kentucky Derby and other Triple Crown races plan for, hope for, but only occasionally offer up.
Affirmed and Alydar met 10 times as 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds, but they avoided each other in the spring of their Derby season until Kentucky. Sunday Silence and Easy Goer had their final showdown at Gulfstream Park, but it was in the Breeders’ Cup Classic in the fall. The first time they met was in the Run for the Roses.
The only reason the two highest-ranking 3-year-olds, Nyquist and Mohaymen, both undefeated, are going head to head in the $1 million Florida Derby is the potential for an additional $1 million bonus, which is what lured Eclipse Juvenile champion Nyquist from California.
Ten horses have been entered for the mile-andan-eighth Grade 1 stakes, which goes as the 14th and final race on a marathon card featuring seven supporting stakes. Fellowship with two wins and a pair of thirds behind Mohaymen is the most accomplished of the lesser eight. Six others have only one win. Sawyers Mickey is winless in seven starts. By normal handicapping practices, most don’t belong in the same starting gate as Nyquist and Mohaymen.
But someone has to finish third and the show horse will earn $100,000 as well as 20 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, which could be enough to earn a slot in the Churchill Downs starting gate. The first two places in the Florida Derby are worth100 and 40 points. By past stand- ards, Mohaymen (70 points) and Nyquist (30) already are comfortably into the Derby field. Today’s winner will undoubtedly inherit the role of favorite.
Nyquist is 6-for-6 and the Eclipse champion juvenile last season. Nevertheless, Mohaymen has been established as the even-money morning line favorite to Nyquist’s 6-5. Home-track advantage is a major consideration.
Nyquist, named for a Detroit Red Wings player, has raced only once outside Southern California, in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland, in which he overcame a nightmare wide trip to remain undefeated. Mohaymen’s trainer, Kiaran McLaughlin, said watching the troubles Nyquist was encountering that day, he thought there was no way he could win.
Other factors figure into Mohaymen, which translates to Dominant or Dominator, being a slight favorite. He has a stakes win at the Florida Derby distance and is by one of the world’s leading stallions, Tapit. Nyquist has not run further than a mile and a sixteenth, which is also the longest distance at which his sire, Uncle Mo, won.
Mohaymen also has had two distance preps this winter. Nyquist has only a sprint at Santa Anita.
Both colts will have the only jockeys who have ridden them in a race; Mario Gutierrez on Nyquist, Junior Alvarado on Mohaymen.
The possibility that the Florida Derby could be such a taxing race that Mohaymen could have little left for the Kentucky Derby doesn’t concern McLaughlin.
“This is a very special colt. We don’t mind a stern test. It will be tough on both of us. It will be nice to have a tougher test than we’ve had. We’ll see where we are.”