SMILE HAPPY looked fine galloping but perhaps raised a few red flags when getting extremely hot in the coat Wednesday despite the cool temperatures, a trait he’s exhibited in the past but not so much as of late until Wednesday morning.īARBER ROAD, a familiar face during the Derby/Oaks sessions for much of the past two weeks, trained about an hour earlier than usual Wednesday and did not appear quite as sharp as he’d been prior to his final work here last weekend.Final entries for the Breeders' Cup on Nov. :: Get Derby Clocker Reports from Mike Welsch and the DRF Clocker Team to access exclusive insights from the morning workouts and 7:45, even pre-dawn fixtures such as EPICENTER and the Brad Cox trio of CYBERKNIFE, ZOZOS, and TAWNY PORT, with gate schooling the order of the day for a good many Derby starters on a crisp and cool morning.Īmong the gallopers to catch the eye today were ZANDON and CHARGE IT, per usual, along with recent arrival WHITE ABARRIO, the Florida Derby winner who made a very favorable appearance while galloping over the local strip for the first time since arriving here early Monday morning.

The majority of the prospective Derby field trained between 7:30 a.m. Taiba, who has not worn blinkers in either of his two previous starts, blew out in a similar manner 72 hours in advance of his victory in the Santa Anita Derby. TAIBA had a set of blinkers on when coming out on the track this morning, an indication there might be a little something more than a routine gallop in the cards, and indeed there was, an easy three-furlong blowout in 38.40 with a final quarter in 26.39. Although the watch told a lot of the tale, the most noteworthy aspect of the breeze was how relaxed Crown Pride appeared from start to finish after being such a bundle of energy and virtual run-off down the stretch during a couple of his training sessions here last weekend. The UAE Derby winner picked up the pace steadily and effortlessly thereafter, completing four furlongs in 46.67, with a final quarter-mile split in an eye-catching 22.29 without any encouragement whatsoever from Lemaire, before easing up purposefully and while kept off the rail into the turn. Although he left the barn with his regular exercise rider in the saddle, it was jockey Christophe Lemaire who hopped aboard Crown Pride for the work, which was officially listed as a half-mile but actually began at the five-eighths pole with an easy opening furlong in 13.99 seconds. The racetrack dried out nicely after being a sea of slop Tuesday with temperatures hovering in the mid to upper 50s for Wednesday’s training session, which featured, at one time or another, the entire prospective lineups for this year’s Derby and Kentucky Oaks.ĬROWN PRIDE was out on the track while the harrows were still doing their thing during the first renovation break, warming up behind the auxiliary gate in the one-mile chute well before the start of the special Derby/Oaks training session. Get more North American racing coverage from Daily Racing Fo rmĬrown Pride was all the rage, and rightfully so, Wednesday morning at Churchill Downs after turning in a powerful and very impressive final breeze for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.

Drf clocker reports