Hansen Hoping for First in Jerome

Kendall Hansen | Horsephotos

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One of racing's most colorful owners hopes he has another 3-year-old for the GI Kentucky Derby. But don't look for Kendall Hansen to dye Let Me Go First (Paddy O'Prado)'s tail blue to match his silks, as the Newport, Kentucky pain doctor did with champion Hansen (Tapit) four years ago.

Not that Hansen second-guesses having Hansen's flaxen tail stained University of Kentucky blue hours before the ethereal-looking gray finished second in Keeneland's GI Toyota Blue Grass S.–a coloration ordered washed out under threat of a stewards' scratch. (Hansen did run with a blue-tipped tail in Mountaineer's GII West Virginia Derby, a fourth-place finish in the colt's final race.)

“That's just for white horses,” Hansen said by phone when asked what's in store for Let Me Go First.

Hansen recently bought a half-interest in the bay gelding, who runs in Saturday's GII Jerome S. at Aqueduct.

Obviously Let Me Go First, a good-looking winner of a Parx Racing maiden race in his third start Nov. 22, has a long way to go before earning the right for his owner–also known for throwing toy Hansen horses to fans as well as for bringing showgirls in his stable colors to the Kentucky Derby–to be so flamboyant. Or at least for people to notice.

“If I had American Pharoah, I'd have had belly dancers, for sure,” he said of the Triple Crown winner, now retired to Coolmore's Ashford Stud, where Hansen stood in 2013 until being sold to the Korea Racing Authority.

The Mike Maker-trained Hansen, out of Dr. Hansen's $5,000 claim Stormy Sunday, went three-for-three and held off Union Rags by a head to win the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs and the 2-year-old championship for 2011. Hansen took Aqueduct's GIII Gotham before his Blue Grass second, was ninth in the Kentucky Derby, then won Prairie Meadows' GIII Iowa Derby before retiring with a tendon injury after the West Virginia race.

Hansen bought 40 mares to send to Hansen, who then was exported to Korea several months after the 2013 breeding season. The doctor is selling most of the mares and their Hansen-sired yearlings, which at auction averaged more than $50,000 (for a $12,500 stud fee), including a $250,000 filly he bred.

“That was right before Tapit hit big-time. Just bad timing,” he said of the sale. “.… So many times a month it occurs to me that he isn't here, and it's just so sad, kind of an emptiness. [But] I had a year that I was doing so well that I was even jealous of myself.”

Hansen's only horse at the track was the claimer Tapanna, Hansen's soon-to-be eight-year-old full-brother, when he got a call from Ryan Patterson, a 25-year-old bloodstock agent from Cincinnati asking if he'd be interested in Let Me Go First.

Owner-breeder Spendthrift Farm sent Let Me Go First to Blane Servis, the 28-year-old son of trainer John Servis. The mission was to win and sell the gelding, in which Spendthrift gave Blane half-interest.

Servis loved the horse, who is out of the Chief Seattle mare Aspen Mountain, making him a half-brother to graded-stakes winner Bolo (Temple City) and from the family of 2009 GI Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird (Birdstone) and Dullahan (Even the Score), who beat Hansen in the 2012 Blue Grass.

Let Me Go First finished fifth in a debut sprint, then improved to a third around two turns–an even better performance considering that Let Me Go First lost a month's training thanks to an equine herpes virus quarantine at Parx. Then came a 3 1/4-length victory. Time to sell.

“The way he trains, the way he's run and his pedigree show he's going to like more distance,” said Servis, who was 16 when his dad trained 2004 Kentucky Derby and GI Preakness winner Smarty Jones. “When you first see him, he'll catch your eye, a big, really good-looking horse. He's still a bit immature, which makes what he's done more impressive.”

Servis sought an owner who would leave Let Me Go First in the barn. A high-school friend in Arkansas suggested reaching out to Patterson, who lined up Dr. Hansen.

Hansen said Dullahan in the pedigree “perked me up.”

“We thought if we could hold off Dullahan in the Blue Grass then we'd have a really good shot for the Derby,” he recalled. “Little did we know Dullahan was a synthetic monster. Plus for two hours instead of getting his afternoon nap, they were washing the blue stuff out of his tail.

“…I looked at pictures of this horse, did some handicapping on what he did the first three races and said, 'This could be a mile and a quarter horse easy.' And he's run OK on dirt, but with his turf breeding he'd have a really good shot at Turfway's Spiral S., a synthetic prep race for the Derby. This is just one of those things that falls into your lap. If he could finish one-two in the Jerome and finish strong, then I'll think we've got something.”

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