By T. D. Thornton
This past weekend we were three weeks out from America's most historic and important horse race, and all was quiet on the GI Kentucky Derby front.
Too quiet, in fact.
Compared to pro and college team sports, which have expanded their wild-card and play-in formats to capitalize on the immediacy of games with win-or-go-home playoff berths on the line, the lead-up to the Derby has silently shifted in the opposite direction.
Instead of maximizing the relevancy of making the final cut as the sport's main event nears, racing rolls out a non-bettable, mid-April version of musical chairs.
This essentially consists of updates every few days about which horses might defect from the Derby after already having accrued enough qualifying points, thus allowing “on the bubble” aspirants to enter the field of 20 (plus four also-eligibles) by slipping in the back door.
This watch-and-wait void has existed on the pre-Derby schedule since 2022, when Oaklawn Park rescheduled the GI Arkansas Derby from three weeks to five weeks before the Kentucky Derby. That meant the three final, 100-points-to-the winner, nine-furlong preps for the Kentucky Derby would all now occur on the first Saturday in April.
That's three races at the exact same distance and with similar conditions–the GI Santa Anita Derby, the GI Blue Grass Stakes and the GII Wood Memorial Stakes–all offering the same amount of qualifying points and competing for the same set of horses while all going off within about an hour of each other on the same day. (Although this year was an aberration because Keeneland's rained-out opening Saturday card pushed the rescheduled Blue Grass to Tuesday.)
Sure, the GIII Lexington Stakes at Keeneland is positioned on the calendar three weeks out from the Derby. In most years it features at least one points-hungry horse taking a final crack at qualifying.
But with only 20 total points up for grabs, and at a 1 1/16-miles distance that is a cutback compared to the seven 100-point qualifiers at nine furlongs or longer that precede it on the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points schedule, the Lexington functions not so much as a true prep that trainers aim for months in advance but as a last-gasp afterthought.
This season, the Apr. 12 Lexington didn't have a single entrant close enough to make the Derby cut even by winning that prep.
A one-month gap between the final meaningful qualifier and the Derby itself is wasted chance for the sport to leverage the inherent drama of racking up points when they are most coveted.
Although the evolving (some might say “devolving”) less-is-more approach to training top-level Thoroughbreds now practically makes it a given that four weeks is considered the required minimum spacing between starts for Derby-quality sophomores, the opportunity is there for some enterprising entity to claim the vacant three-weeks-out spot on the calendar and transform it into a compelling, stand-alone Saturday that doesn't go head-to-head with other major tracks.
And the entity to do it is the New York Racing Association (NYRA), starting in 2027 by repositioning the Wood Memorial to a place of prominence three weeks before the Kentucky Derby for the first full spring of racing at the newly rebuilt Belmont Park.
The importance of the Wood Memorial has eroded over the decades, producing only two winners in the past 44 years (Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000 and Pleasant Colony in 1981) who went on to wear a blanket of roses at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.
The Wood last carried a Grade I designation between 2002 and 2016, and its current same-day placement on the schedule alongside the higher-graded Santa Anita Derby and the Blue Grass Stakes sets up a vicious cycle that keeps the race from gaining traction for an upgrade.
The two Grade I races in California and Kentucky annually lure better horses, in part because of their elevated status (but also because of geographic considerations).
The Wood Memorial too often ends up with second-tier contenders whose connections view the Grade II option at Aqueduct as a points path of lesser resistance.
Sure, it would be a gamble to buck the prevailing race-spacing trend by carding the Wood Memorial three weeks ahead of the Derby.
But there's also a speculative “build it and they will come” element to attempting this paradigm shift: If NYRA dangles 100-50-25-15-10 points to the top five finishers, you can bet that trainers will take notice and schedule spring campaigns based on there being a three-weeks-out qualifying option.
Burnham Square led the excitement on an unusual Blue Grass Day Tuesday at Keeneland, where it usually headlines the first Saturday in April | Coady Media
And the connections of horses who raced in mid-March stakes but didn't quite earn enough points will now have a viable Plan B to consider.
When it comes to attracting Triple Crown-caliber entries, do not ever underestimate the incredibly persuasive drawing power of owners getting a whiff of Derby fever.
Putting together a couple of editions of Wood Memorials with higher-quality horses who go on to win bigger and better races after competing in New York's premier spring stakes is the Wood's best chance to regain a Grade I upgrade.
Dovetailing the schedule switch to coincide with the grand reopening of Belmont Park in two years makes sense because the Wood Memorial will be an entirely different type of race once NYRA vacates Aqueduct and consolidates all downstate racing at Belmont.
The reason? Nine-furlong races over Belmont's 12-furlong oval are contested around one turn and not two, like at Aqueduct.
This will give the Wood Memorial a unique tactical aspect that will set it apart from most other 1 1/8-miles preps (the mid-March Virginia Derby, new this season at Colonial Downs, is the only other one-turn, nine-furlong Derby qualifying stakes in America).
Think of it this way: New racetrack + new type of race + new spot on the calendar = renewed relevancy.
Bill this change as giving the historic Wood Memorial a chance to stand apart from the competition while filling a national vacuum on the pre-Derby qualifying calendar.
Beyond NYRA not having to play third fiddle against opening weekend at Keeneland and the biggest racing day of the meet at Santa Anita, there are other positive scheduling aspects that would come into play if the Wood Memorial got moved to three weeks in advance of the Derby.
First, although the weather can be dicey in New York on any given date in April, pushing the Wood Memorial one week later theoretically affords a better chance at not having to battle Mother Nature.
Plans are for Belmont to race on its one-mile Tapeta surface for the winter and early spring of 2026-27, and the newly positioned Wood Memorial could function as the official main-track kickoff to the start of the spring meet in New York. If the elements cooperate, it's possible that turf racing could also return around that same time.
A Wood Memorial program anchored by supporting stakes on an otherwise quiet day on the national calendar also would concentrate most of the nation's top jockeys and trainers in New York, increasing betting appeal.
Shifting the Wood Memorial by one week would also allow NYRA to advantageously adjust scheduling for the two prep stakes that precede it.
Currently, the ungraded Withers Stakes gets run on the first Saturday in February and the GIII Gotham Stakes goes on the first Saturday in March.
Moving both of those stakes back to the second Saturday of those months would mean NYRA isn't carding points-awarding stakes in direct competition to higher-graded stakes at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita.
Although it's not as likely that this switch would draw better horses from either of those tracks on those February and March dates, the move would at least mean that the Withers and Gotham would be conducted on two Saturdays that have comparatively less competition for simulcast handle, with only two Tampa Bay Downs stakes (the ungraded Sam F. Davis and GIII Tampa Bay Derby) usually headlining the national action for 3-year-olds on those two dates.
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