LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Journalism is likely to be the favorite for Kentucky Derby 151 next Saturday at Churchill Downs. The colt was scheduled for his final Derby prep work Saturday morning at 7:15.
The Derby favorite did not work. Stop the presses. Journalism merely galloped.
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What began as a column about a Derby trainer coming out of his feed tub and worrying too much shifted into a column about a Derby trainer doing the right thing after the race lost another one of its top contenders to a broken bone while training.
Follow along. These are measures that trainer Michael McCarthy and the Journalism camp took before canceling the workout.
They asked jockey Umberto Rispoli to board a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Cincinnati and then speed to the track to exercise the colt.
McCarthy drove from his local hotel room to Churchill Downs backside Friday night. McCarthy walked from Barn 35 to the racing surface. He checked it at 8:15. He checked it again at 9 p.m.
There was still time to tell Rispoli to cancel his 10 p.m. flight from California to northern Kentucky. The jockey was told to get on the plane.
But rain has come and gone the last few days in Louisville. And the temperature plunged Saturday morning. And McCarthy returned to the track before 6 a.m. Saturday to check the track again. Apparently the surface didn’t look the way the trainer wanted it to look.
He had 75 minutes to make a decision. Aron Wellman, one of the colt’s owners, said that McCarthy studied “aerial shots,” of other horses training on the Churchill surface.
The trainer watched the tractors smooth the track after it was cleared for only Derby and Kentucky Oaks horses.
At 7:15 it was time to make the call.
“We took every measure possible to get a gauge on the track,” Wellman said. “Ultimately we decided just to gallop.”
Was that the right call?
No, it was not. Yes, it was. Keep following along.
Burnham Square, the winner of the Bluegrass Stakes, trained impressively at 7:15. Ian Wilkes, the colt’s trainer, made that call.
Why train?
“I wanted to stay in a rhythm,” Wilkes said. “They harrowed the track. The track looked good. I worked some earlier today and I thought they got over the track well. So I was quite comfortable to work.”
Even though several other trainers, including the trainer of the likely Derby favorite, passed?
“I’m not training them,” Wilkes said.
Brad Cox has two solid runners pointed toward the 20-horse field — Tappan Street and Final Gambit.
They were supposed to train at 7:15. They did not. But Cox sent his colts to the track at 9 a.m. when the Churchill surface was open for all horses to train.
They moved impressively.
Around 9:30, Kevin Kerstein of Churchill Downs posted a video on X of Tappan Street covering five furlongs in 59.60. It was quickly followed by another video of Final Gambit, his stable mate, going the same distance in 1:01.
Around 10, as a small group of media members waited outside Barn 22 when Cox keeps his horses, came the news that every trainer, owner and jockey fears:
Tappan Street, the winner of the Florida Derby, was out of Kentucky Derby 151.
Despite the impressive work, the colt suffered a condylar fracture to his right front leg. Cox told media members that the injury would not require surgery and that he did not believe it would end Tappan Street’s career.
He’ll go on the list with A.P. Indy, Uncle Mo, Omaha Beach, Forte and other talented runners who got this close to the first Saturday in May — and were stopped by an injury.
In the Derby, you are always one bad step from sorrow. Now Cox has one Derby horse.
Wellman said that Rispoli, the jockey on Journalism, was rushed back to the airport Saturday morning for a return flight to Los Angeles. He never made it. His connecting flight in Atlanta was canceled and Rispoli had to take off from six mounts.
His agent, Matt Nakatani, said that Rispoli will be back in California to ride on Sunday but did not say if Rispoli will be in Louisville to work Journalism. In horse racing and connecting flights you never know what’s going to happen.
“We had some doubts about the track this morning,” Wellman said. “We don’t think we will tomorrow.
“We never take anything for granted. We know anything can happen at any time.”
And usually does.
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