3 minute read
A rare double win for trainer Kenny McPeek and jockey Brian Hernandez.
The 150th running of these races produced a weekend to remember.
In the Oaks both the winner and the second, Just FYI ran fantastic races and will be interesting to see how they proceed. It was run on very sloppy ground so that was not to the liking of all the runners.
The Derby was one for the ages – the winner Mystik Dan 18/1, by Goldencents, got the rails break and was able to get a clear run whereas the second – Sierra Leone and the third Forever Young had to fight their way through traffic and the raced very tightly to the line. It was the first triple photo-finish for many years but viewing the head-on Sierra Leone bumped Forever Young on several occasions and in other jurisdictions this would be called interference and with only a nose separating each of the first three the two minors at the very least should have been reversed, and it may have cost Forever Young the win.
We should also mention the run of the other Japanese runner T O Password who came into the race unheralded after a couple of wins on the dirt in Japan and ran the race of his life to place 5th.
Fierceness started favourite and flopped – we were not sure why he was favourite when the Florida Derby was a slowly-run affair and in Kentucky the track except for Friday in the slop had managed to dry out and become fast.
Not sure of the stats but a trainer and jockey double in these two classics is amazing and Kenny McPeek deserves the wins as he doesn't always have the best cattle but makes sure that his horses run to their potential.