Kentucky Derby
Edited Press Release Early nominations for 3-year-old Thoroughbreds to become eligible to compete in the 2022 Triple Crown series are due Saturday, Jan. 29 with a $600 payment. Payment for early Triple Crown nominations must be made at the time of entry on www.TheTripleCrown.com. Information regarding phone or mail-in entries can also be found on the website. The 2022 Triple Crown opens Saturday, May 7 with the 148th running of the $3-million GI Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve at Churchill Downs. The 147th running of the $1.5-million GI Preakness...
Lily Swan, a junior at Mercy Academy in Louisville, has been named the Grand Prize winner of the 36th annual Horsing Around With Art competition, presented by WinStar Farm. The Grand Prize is awarded to the artist whose work best captures the spirit of the Kentucky Derby. Swan's artwork, entitled 'The Bath,' shows Rock Your World receiving a bath after a workout over the Churchill Downs main track. This is the artist's first oil painting. Students from grades 1-12 in Louisville Metro public, private and parochial schools were eligible to...
The Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy's 20th annual Race For Grace, a dinner event raising financial support for the chaplaincy, will be held May 2 on Millionaires' Row in the clubhouse at historic Churchill Downs, five days before the running of the GI Kentucky Derby. Hall of Fame Jockey and Derby winner Pat Day, who has been the President of the Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy the past six years, will be the Master of Ceremonies. The keynote speaker will be nationally-recognized Pastor Bob Russell. At the age of 22, Bob became...
Pool 2 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager ("KDFW") is set to open at noon Friday with the pari-mutuel field of "All Other 3-Year-Olds" tabbed as the heavy 7-5 morning line favorite. The second of five pools for the KDFW will run for three days through Sunday at 6 p.m. Bettors can place win and exacta wagers at simulcast outlets throughout the country and online at TwinSpires.com. Like in Pool 1, the KDFW pools assumes that horses under the care of trainers suspended from competing in the 2022 Kentucky Derby...
Trainer Bob Baffert told a federal judge Wednesday that a group of bettors who are suing him in a class-action lawsuit alleging a years-long pattern of racketeering based on his purported "doping" of Thoroughbreds have twisted their case so far from reality that their alleged misstatements amount to libel. In a Jan. 12 filing in United States District Court (District of New Jersey), Baffert stated that the plaintiffs' recent attempt to portray him as the "Lance Armstrong of the horse racing world" is a "desperate conglomeration of highly inflammatory statements...designed...
According to a report in the New York Times, Bob Baffert has threatened to sue Churchill Downs and its CEO Bill Carstanjen if the track does not lift a two-year ban that will keep the trainer from competing in the 2022 and 2023 runnings of the GI Kentucky Derby. The ban was put into place after Medina Spirit (Protonico) tested positive for the substance betamethasone following his win in last year's Derby. In addition, Churchill is not awarding any points to Baffert-trained horses who compete in preps for the Derby...
Bidders will have the chance to vie for a promising 3-year-old when debut winner Belgrade (Hard Spun) (hip 853H) goes through the ring at the Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale Wednesday in Lexington. The colt was purchased by Randy Bradshaw for $45,000 at the 2020 Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearlings Showcase and had originally been targeted for resale at the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream Sale. "He was a good-looking horse, but I am kind of a Hard Spun fan," Bradshaw said of the colt's appeal as a yearling. "He fit the bill...
Still recuperating from an injury that prevented him from running in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, 'TDN Rising Star' Jack Christopher (Munnings) is about two weeks away from rejoining Chad Brown's Florida division. However, the trainer said he was not sure if he has enough time to get him ready to run in the GI Kentucky Derby. "He's going to be up against it, that's for sure," Brown said when asked about making the Derby. "I don't want to rule anything out until I put my hands on him, but...
by Bill Finley and Dan Ross The New York Racing Association (NYRA) has amended its Statement of Charges issued against trainer Bob Baffert to include a pair of positive tests for phenylbutazone that occurred in 2019 in California and a subsequent inspection of the trainer's barn in which it alleges that 25 improperly labeled medications were found. NYRA's Statement of Charges now contains allegations that, over a 16-month period prior to the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby, six horses under Baffert's care violated rules and regulations in six separate races. Having...
Lentenor (Dynaformer--La Ville Rouge, by Carson City), a stakes-winning full-brother to GI Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, has been purchased from Calumet Farm by Ryan Campbell's RisenStorm Company and will stand the 2022 season at Cabin Creek Farm in Bernville, Pennsylvania for a fee of $1,000 (stands and nurses). The 15-year-old stallion, who previously stood in Indiana, is the sire of stakes-placed Uphold from 33 foals.
The Week in Review by T.D. Thornton Oaklawn Park readjusted its series of prep races for the GI Kentucky Derby this year by moving back the date of its premier stakes, the GI Arkansas Derby, so it now sits five weeks out from the first Saturday in May instead of the traditional three. That changed the overall complexion of the prep-race picture so that the final three nine-furlong stakes that award 100 coveted Derby qualifying points to the winner will all take place Apr. 9. This means that for the...
The well-bred Courvoisier (Tapit), a narrow maiden winner at fourth asking at the Big A last time Dec. 2, picked up 10 points for the GI Kentucky Derby while securing his second straight win in Saturday's sloppy $150,000 Jerome S. His third and second-place finishes in his first two starts respectively set the colt up for a move forward with the addition of blinkers Oct. 27 at Delaware Park, where he was caught late going a mile and lost by a nose. Stretching out to 1 1/8 miles for his...