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Curious colt, loner, should spice up Derby
Associated Press
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SUNDAY NOTEBOOK
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D. Wayne Lukas is ready for the Kentucky Derby. He says his three entries are as well after solid morning workouts over a fast
track Sunday.
"I'd like to run this thing Tuesday. We're ready," Lukas said. "We have been able to do everything we wanted to do since we got here. I think all you can do is get your horse as good as you can possibly get them, and then see what happens.
"The last piece of the puzzle was Exchange Rate working well this morning. We are at the point with High Yield and Commendable that they had very good weeks. I've looked around and I feel
comfortable."
Commendable worked first, going six furlongs in 1:12 3/5 under exercise rider Stacey Maker.
Next out was Blue Grass Stakes winner High Yield. Under Maker, High
Yield worked the same distance in 1:13 3/5. The last to work was Exchange Rate, who earned his ticket into the Derby with a five-furlong work from the gate in 1:00 under Calvin Borel in
company. Borel will have the mount in the Derby.
Lukas, who has had a starter in each of the last 19 runnings of the Kentucky
Derby, said he was satisfied with all the works and noted that working
Exchange Rate from the gate was the first time he had done that with any of
his Derby starters.
High Yield is Lukas' strongest candidate, being a three-time Grade I winner.
After finishing third in last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Lukas compared
High Yield with 1999 Kentucky Derby winner and Horse of the Year Charismatic
as being a horse that could stand up to a Triple Crown campaign.
A fourth Lukas hopeful, True Confidence, who finished last in Saturday's
Derby Trial, is now being pointed to either the Illinois Derby, Preakness or
the Riva Ridge.
Fusaichi Pegasus turned in his final workout with a strong six furlongs in 1:14
3/5 for trainer Neil Drysdale. He was timed galloping out seven furlongs in
1:27 flat. Drysdale said Fusaichi Pegasus' subsequent exercise coming up to the Derby
will be restricted to galloping and there is a possibility he will be back
on the track Monday morning merely to trot.
Captain Steve, the lone hope of trainer Bob
Baffert in this year's Kentucky Derby, galloped a mile and one-half and remains on target for
Saturday's race. Captain Steve, third in all three of his races this year, is scheduled to
breeze again Tuesday. Baffert was unsure this morning of the distance for
Captain Steve's Tuesday drill.
Santa Anita Derby winner The Deputy got a mile and three-eighths worth of exercise Sunday morning, galloping around sunsplashed Churchill Downs. "He's just doing great; I couldn't be happier with him," said trainer Jenine Sahadi. The Deputy is scheduled to put
in his final serious move for the Derby on Tuesday with rider Chris McCarron
jetting in from the Left Coast to do the honors.
--ESPN.com
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Fusaichi Pegasus is curious, and sometimes rambunctious. The Deputy is a loner.
"He just adores looking around," trainer Neil Drysdale said of Fusaichi Pegasus, the Wood Memorial winner.
And sometimes, the trainer added, the colt just gets too full of himself, as he did last Thursday when he reared up while leaving the Churchill Downs track, unseated his rider and fell. Neither horse nor rider was hurt.
"He works hard at his job, but his down time is his own time," trainer Jenine Sahadi said of Irish-bred The Deputy, the Santa Anita Derby winner. "When he's in his stall he wants to be left alone."
These two colts will add spice to the Kentucky Derby next Saturday at Churchill Downs.
Helping to stir the pot of what could be a full field of 20 3-year-olds will be Sahadi, who will try to become the first female trainer to win the Derby, and Harold Rose, the 88-year-old breeder, owner and trainer of Hal's Hope.
Back again will be D. Wayne Lukas and Bob Baffert, the trainers who have won the last five Derbies.
Lukas, who won with Thunder Gulch (1995), Grindstone (1996) and Charismatic (1999), is expected to have three starters, including High Yield, winner of the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland. Three starters would give Lukas a total of 38 in 20 consecutive Derbies. He also won with the filly Winning Colors in 1988.
Baffert, who won the Derby with Silver Charm (1997) and Real Quiet (1998), will try for No. 3 with Captain Steve, third in the Santa Anita Derby.
Fusaichi Pegasus, bought for $4 million as a yearling by Fusao Sekiguchi of Japan, has established himself as the favorite for the 126th running of America's race with impressive wins in the San Felipe at Santa Anita and the Wood Memorial.
But will Fusaichi Pegasus' temperament nullify his talent on Derby Day? The noise and hoopla has damaged the psyche of many good horses.
After the colt fell Thursday morning, Drysdale said, "He was doing superbly, and then he felt so good that he reared up and sat down.
"Some mornings he's a perfect gentleman; some mornings he's feeling so good he doesn't know what to do with himself."
It took five minutes to get Fusaichi Pegasus into the starting gate for the Wood Memorial, then after winning the colt stood on the turn for several minutes before he decided to go to the winner's circle.
Drysdale, who also will saddle War Chant, the Santa Anita Derby runner-up, has not been back to the Derby since he had to scratch Japanese-owned A.P. Indy the morning of the 1992 race because of a foot injury. A.P. Indy went on to win the Belmont stakes and was voted Horse of the Year.
The Deputy was bought by Barry Irwin of Team Valor after a 2-year-old campaign on the grass in England.
The Deputy has done his job very well. After winning a grass stakes in his U.S. debut, he won Santa Anita's Santa Catalina, finished second to Fusaichi Pegasus in the San Felipe and won the Santa Anita Derby.
It would appear the 37-year-old Sahadi has a better chance of winning the 1 1/4-mile Derby than the previous seven female trainers.
Shelley Riley finished second with Casual Lies behind Lil E. Tee in 1992, but that colt was a 30-1 shot. The lowest-priced starter for any of the female trainers was Biloxi Indian, a member of the 10-1 seven-horse mutuel field, who finished 12th in 1988.
The first Derby Sahadi attended, but did not see, was as a University of Kentucky freshman in 1981. She was in the infield, where nobody sees the race.
She got a view of the race in 1983 when Desert Wine, owned by her father Fred Sahadi, finished second to Sunny's Halo.
Hal's Hope, who won the Florida Derby, will be a sentimental favorite because Rose underwent quadruple bypass surgery after a stroke last year. But the horse's odds of winning got dramatically longer after his last-place finish in the Blue Grass.
Rose and 43-year-old jockey Roger Velez said they were puzzled
about the Blue Grass performance and chose to disregard it.
Rose was at the 1984 Derby when Rexson's Hope, another colt he
bred, owned and trained, finished 10th.
Lukas' other two probables are Exchange Rate and Commendable.
Todd Pletcher, a former Lukas assistant, could take a page from his
old boss' book and start four horses -- More Than Ready, second in
the Blue Grass; Graeme Hall, long-shot winner of the Arkansas
Derby; Trippi, winner of the Flamingo; and Impeachment, third in
the Arkansas Derby.
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