Gulfstream Park: The GI, $750,000 Florida Derby at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points: 100-40-20-10) by Brian Nadeau Brian handicaps at Capital OTB and Horseplayer Now, and he’ll offer analysis and selections of Derby points races, hoping to make us all a little money as we head to the Belmont Stakes. Follow him on Twitter here. #1 As…
Gulfstream Park: The GI, $1 million Florida Derby at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points: 100-40-20-10) #1 Hidden Scroll (5-2): The most polarizing horse in training seems to have as many lovers as he does non-believers after he flew on the lead when he tried two turns in the local GII Fountain of Youth…
Gulfstream Park: The $1 million GI Florida Derby at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points: 10-40-20-10) #1 Strike Power (4-1): The expected inside speed got caught napping a bit when second in last month’s local prep, the GII Fountain of Youth, when fellow rival Promises Fulfilled broke sharply, was able to get over and…
Earlier this week, a few minutes before the draw for Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Florida Derby, trainer Jonathan Thomas sat by himself in a corner. He wasn’t consulting a condition book. He wasn’t talking to a client. He wasn’t even looking at his phone. He was just… sitting there. Though the Florida Derby was…
“That’s what you have to do every day, especially in this business,” said co-owner Anthony Bonomo not long after his Always Dreaming earned his first stakes victory and a trip to the Kentucky Derby with an open-lengths win in the Grade 1, $1 million Florida Derby. “The name that my wife picked, because that’s what…
Brian Nadeau is back this year to offer insight and analysis on this year’s road to the Kentucky Derby. A handicapper at Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB, he’ll analyze every official Derby points race and the three Triple Crown races, back at Brooklyn Backstretch for the sixth year. Gulfstream Park: The $1 million Florida Derby at…
Before Secretariat, there was Cicada. A decade before Secretariat became the first colt in 25 years to win the Triple Crown, Christopher Chenery, father of Helen, campaigned a filly who was setting her own records. At two, Cicada started 16 times, winning 11 races and never finishing worse than third; among her victories that year…
by Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now and Capital OTB TV. Gulfstream Park: The GI, $1 million Florida Derby at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points: 100-40-20-10) #1 Sawyers Mickey (30-1): Ridiculous longshot enters as a maiden after seven starts and likely wouldn’t even be under 6-1 if he were entered with his own kind earlier on the…
A few days before this weekend’s Florida Derby, Saratoga native Joseph DeSantis is doing errands in Lexington, Kentucky, shuttling between the three farms that his employer, Shadwell Stable, owns. With the exception of a three-year stint in Oklahoma, he’s made his home in the Bluegrass of central Kentucky for the last 20 years, most recently…
Gulfstream Park: The Grade I, $1 million Florida Derby at 1 1/8 miles (Kentucky Derby qualifying points 100-50-20-10) #1 Ami’s Flatter (8-1): If you’re looking for a price alternative to the favorites–and there aren’t too many here–then this is your guy as he added blinkers and Lasix and was a fine second to hotshot Carpe…
Brooklyn Backstretch 