Zandon’s last-to-first move earns Blue Grass Stakes win and a spot in the Kentucky Derby
More than half the race already run, it didn’t look like it would be Zandon’s day.
The Kentucky Derby hopeful was exactly six months removed from his last and only victory on the race track, a maiden win at Belmont Park last fall.
On Saturday evening at Keeneland, he was in last place as the field of 11 in the Blue Grass Stakes rounded the final turn and headed for the stretch. And that’s when he found his race.
Zandon went from last to first — passing 10 horses in a matter of 27 seconds — to win the Grade 1 Blue Grass and punch his ticket to the Kentucky Derby on May 7.
“He broke just OK. Then I got myself covered up so I was there with nothing I could do about it,” jockey Flavien Prat said. “The pace was a bit slow, so I was wandering down the backside. But I was traveling super — it was just a matter of finding a gap and getting a clean run down the lane.”
Zandon went off as the 2-1 second choice Saturday, coming to Keeneland for the first time to make just the fourth start in his young career. Last time out, he finished third in the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds, a race in which he ran 10th and last in the early going before making his move, but still falling short of Epicenter and Smile Happy, two top Kentucky Derby contenders.
Before that, Zandon finished second in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct, beaten by only a nose following a thrilling stretch duel with Mo Donegal that resulted in a steward’s inquiry but no change to the result. Zandon’s owner, Jeff Drown, later filed a protest over that decision, but Mo Donegal’s victory was upheld.
On Saturday evening, they both found the winner’s circle, with Mo Donegal winning the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct less than 30 minutes before Zandon’s rally in the Blue Grass.
Drown, a real estate executive from Minnesota, was all smiles at Keeneland after his colt finally broke through with a win on the Kentucky Derby trail.
“One day at a time,” Drown said when asked about the four weeks between now and the first Saturday in May.
Not present in Lexington on Saturday was winning trainer Chad Brown, who has been honored with four Eclipse Awards but has not yet saddled a Kentucky Derby winner in six previous tries. Brown was back at Aqueduct, where he watched another one of his Derby contenders, Early Voting, finish second in the Wood Memorial and accrue enough qualifying points for the May 7 race.
The 43-year-old trainer also won the Blue Grass Stakes with Good Magic, who finished second to Justify four years ago to give Brown his best Derby finish so far.
Prat was aboard Zandon for the first time Saturday. The son of Upstart — bred in Kentucky by former Gov. Brererton Jones — has now had four jockeys in four career races, and each one of those starts has come at a different track.
Zandon will see his fifth different track next month at Churchill Downs, but it sounds like Prat — winner of the 2019 Derby aboard Country House — will be sticking around. The 29-year-old native of France was already looking ahead to maneuvering a 20-horse field on a horse with a penchant from starting in the back.
“It’s going to be a bigger field, but it was already a good field today,” Prat said. “It’s just a matter of getting a clean break and getting yourself into position. That’s always key.”
Smile Happy was the 9-5 favorite in the Blue Grass Stakes for trainer Kenny McPeek, a Lexington native with a long list of career achievements but an 0-for-6 record on Kentucky Derby Day. His latest star did enough to make the Derby field, racing wide and near the lead all the way around after starting from the No. 10 post, then taking over the lead from pacesetter Emmanuel early in the stretch before giving it up to Zandon a few moments later.
“I am not disappointed whatsoever,” McPeek said. “I thought the timing of this race was good. I think the next race will be his best race.
“He got a little tired at the end. We will see how much water he drinks and how (tired) he is. This is a really good horse. This is only his fourth career start. I feel like I could win the Derby or the Preakness with this horse. The only horse I was worried about (in this race) is the one who won.
Zandon beat Smile Happy by 2½ lengths with a winning time of 1:50.35 over a muddy track that was hit with April snow earlier in the day. Emmanuel, an impressive allowance race winner for trainer Todd Pletcher earlier this year, held for third place — 3¾ lengths behind Smile Happy — after setting relatively slow fractions in the early going.
Emmanuel doesn’t currently have enough qualifying points for the Derby starting gate and would need some defections over the next few weeks to make that field, though Pletcher said Saturday it was “a little premature” to be thinking about May 7.
“I thought Emmanuel ran well,” he said. “He ended up on the lead and he seemed like he was in a good rhythm. He just flattened out in the last part.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2022 at 7:04 PM.
