The Week in Review

Yes, Bill Mott was loyal to Junior Alvarado, letting him ride Sovereignty (Into Mischief) in the GI Kentucky Derby after he missed the main prep in the GI Florida Derby. Alvarado fractured his shoulder blade in a Mar. 23 spill at Gulfstream and was sent to the sidelines. Manny Franco filled in for the Florida Derby and rode a fine race, guiding Sovereignty to a second-place finish. That opened the door to a number of possibilities. Mott could have kept Franco on the horse or he easily could have enticed...

It's an immense accomplishment to be one of the 20 Thoroughbreds out of the current sophomore crop of 17,146 to earn a coveted starting berth in the GI Kentucky Derby. But the cruel fate of a random post-position draw annually assigns the dreaded No. 1 gate to a single member of that elite set. Because the Derby is unmatched in American racing in its outsized stature and jumbo field size, so too is the stigma of breaking closest to the inside fence prior to the chaotic first-turn free-for-all, where primo...

Visually, there was a lot to like about Sovereignty's last-to-first score in Saturday's GII Fountain of Youth Stakes. The Godolphin homebred by Into Mischief closed with a flourish from well back after giving up four paths of real estate on the far turn. He needed to make up four lengths on an in-the-clear leader with one furlong remaining over Gulfstream's short-stretch configuration for 1 1/16-miles races (finish line at the sixteenth pole), and Junior Alvarado expertly timed this Bill Mott trainee's kick to earn a neck victory over no-quit 'TDN...

The first Saturdays in February, March and April are stacked with points-awarding prep races for the GI Kentucky Derby. It's unusual, though, for all of the coast-to-coast stakes on any one of those weekends to yield three emphatic or impactful performances. But the trio of preps on Feb. 1 produced three intriguing winners who all figure to be "horses of interest" moving forward. The victories Saturday by Citizen Bull (Into Mischief) in the GIII Robert B. Lewis Stakes at Santa Anita, 'TDN Rising Star' Captain Cook (Practical Joke) in the...

The bandwagon for Barnes was already pretty crowded heading into Saturday's GII San Vicente S. at Santa Anita. It now may be next to impossible to find a standing-room-only spot after the Bob Baffert-trained son of Into Mischief uncorked a crusher of a performance that left four rivals reeling in his 5 ½-length wake. I have no idea if the two sprint victories at the root of this $3.2 million FTSAUG colt's foundation will blossom into a blanket of roses on the first Saturday in May. I am pretty certain,...

It's understandable if you're not exactly a fan of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA). Since its inception there have been many bumps along the road. They didn't think things through when it comes to how they would handle drug positives and provisional suspensions, ignoring how likely it is that the positives were not the case of trainers trying to cheat but of environmental contamination. They went after some trainers who got positives but clearly weren't cheating. Some of the cases were heartbreaking. In October of 2023, colleague T.D....

When the TDN staff decided to make Patch Adams (Into Mischief) and Chasten (Into Mischief) 'TDN Rising Stars' after their maiden wins Saturday at Churchill Downs history was made by trainer Brad Cox. Never before has a trainer had two Rising Stars on the same day. Both were obvious choices. Patch Adams ran away from his competition to win by 10 lengths. Chasten, a winner by 1 ½ lengths, wasn't quite as impressive, but that she is half-sister to 2023 Older Filly & Mare Champion Idiomatic (Curlin) obviously swayed the...

Though he won the 2022 GI Florida Derby with White Abarrio (Race Day), Saffie Joseph, Jr. isn't necessarily thought of as someone to fear on the roads to the GI Kentucky Oaks and GI Kentucky Derby. His bread and butter remains claimers and tough older horses like the now 5-year-old White Abbario and Skippylongstocking (Exaggerator), who won this year's GII Oaklawn Handicap and the GII Charles Town Classic Stakes. But that may be about to change. It's early yet and Todd Pletcher has yet to send his first string to...

In the aftermath of the Breeders' Cup, the potential in the older horse division has shifted so that the next big-breakout, classic-distance stars might very well rise in the West. While it's true that divisional kingpins like 'TDN Rising Stars' Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), Fierceness (City of Light), and Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna), plus GI Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan (Goldencents), will be plotting 2025 campaigns from training bases farther east, those headline horses will go into their 4-year-old seasons with lofty expectations based on already-established, champion-level accomplishments. But a...

With major Breeders' Cup prep races all in the books, this past weekend's stakes action focused on state-bred and -sired programs in West Virginia, Maryland and Louisiana. It wasn't difficult to find three standout horses who turned in headline-worthy efforts for smaller-scale outfits whose perseverance and accomplishments routinely fly beneath the radar. Leading the charge at Charles Town was breeder/owner/trainer Cyndy McKee's Beau Ridge Farm, which won four of Saturday's night's 10 Breeders' Classic stakes for West Virginia-breds, and ran second and third with two other entrants. "It felt like...

Let's start this column with the disclaimer that it's way too early to start seriously talking about how a one-turn-mile victory at age two might translate to winning a 10-furlong stakes some 7 ½ months from now in a chaotic field of 20. We'll also put aside for the moment that the GIII Iroquois S. has never been a prognosticator for success in the GI Kentucky Derby. Dating to the race's inception in 1983, juveniles who ran in that late summer/early autumn Churchill Downs stakes have gone a collective 0-1-1...

Approaching the start of the sixth week of the season at Delaware Park, a pair of apprentices--one a five-pound bugboy and the other still with his seven-pound allowance--are riding high atop the jockey standings. Through Saturday's racing, the Delaware win totals by Gabriel Maldonado (25) and Ederik Robles (18) matched the rookies' ages. Maldonado just finished a blast-off week that saw him winning nine races in a four-day span at three different tracks. On Wednesday, the five-pound apprentice tallied with the last of six afternoon mounts at Delaware, then traveled...