This Year's Kentucky Derby Trail

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com


After watching Saturday's Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream and Santa Anita's Sham Stakes, I feel pretty good about the 2009 Kentucky Derby field.

I haven't seen every Derby hopeful yet this year, but the 5 or 6 I've followed have impressed me moreso than the top 5 or 6 in recent years.

As a starting point for the discussion of the top 3-year olds can be found on the left margin here- Mike Watchmaker's "Watchmaker Watch". The top two horses, Old Fashioned and Dunkirk, I have not seen, but if they're atop the list, I have ever reason to believe they're flat out beasts. The third horse, Pioneer of the Nile, I watched a few weeks ago in the Robert Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita, below. Check it out for yourself. That's an impressive ride from a jockey who knew exactly how much horse he had left, and didn't ask his horse to do any more than he had to. You get the feeling that if the jockey wanted to send Pioneer of the Nile much earlier, he could have won by 6 lengths.



Next on Watchmaker's list is the winner of the Breeder's Cup Juvenile, Midshipman. He is off the Derby trail due to a recent injury. I hope to see him in the Travers in August at Saratoga, as I don't think we've heard the last of him yet. Friesan Fire is ranked 5th on the Watchmaker Watch and I have not seen him either. In 6th is Vineyard Haven who had a very impressive two-year old campaign on the East Coast. He ran a clunker in Dubai recently, but his work as a 2-year old still looms. Here's his impressive win in the 2008 Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park.




Coming in 7th place in Watchmaker's Watch is the horse that inspired me to write this article, who is pictured at the top of this article, and who won me $70 on Saturday- The Pamplemousse.

It is worth noting that he was heavily, favored in this race, however he didn't even show an inkling of concern for the others in the race (like Pioneer of the Nile did, for instance). It looks like the jockey said "Ok other horses, my horse is better and will run his race and let you guys run yours. And "yours" is gonna have a view of The Pamplemousse's hiney the entire time. You really aren't any concern to us. Good luck out there." The visual evidence is below.



The last three ranked horses on the Watch (Capt. Candyman Can, Notonthesamepage, and This Ones For Phil) all raced in Saturday's Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream. The field in this race was very deep, and I found other horses in the race very likable as well (Theregoesjojo, and Beethoven, most notably). The winner of that race? A horse named Quality Road. So of the 5 horses I liked a little bit in that race, none of them won. Quality Road won impressively and is still on the Derby Trail, as well as Theregoesjojo and Beethoven. The three horses from Watchmaker's Watch that entered this race, appeared to be the horse racing equivalent of a one-hit wonder, as often happens with young horses hoping to enter in the KY Derby. Here's the Fountain of Youth from Gulfstream.