Essential Quality stays perfect with Blue Grass Stakes win. Kentucky Derby is next.
It wasn’t easy, but Essential Quality won the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on Saturday to remain undefeated and go into next month’s Kentucky Derby as the likely favorite.
Highly Motivated set the early fractions — with Essential Quality racing just off of him in second place — before Essential Quality finally challenged him in the stretch and ultimately passed him to win by a neck in his final Derby tuneup for trainer and Louisville native Brad Cox.
Essential Quality was a 1-2 favorite and paid $3.00 to win, $2.20 to place and $2.10 to show.
The runner-up spot went to 7-2 second choice Highly Motivated, who is trained by Chad Brown and earned 40 qualifying points toward the Kentucky Derby, enough to get him into the starting gate at Churchill Downs. Rombauer was third, and Hidden Stash finished fourth.
Essential Quality — a gray son of Tapit — will take a perfect 5-for-5 record to the Kentucky Derby on May 1 at Churchill Downs, the site of his first career victory, which came on Sept. 5 — last year’s Derby date.
Jockey Luis Saez will be back in the Kentucky Derby for the first time since riding Maximum Security across the finish line first two years ago, but that colt was disqualified to 17th place after a lengthy video review of the race, and Country House was named the winner. Saez has ridden Essential Quality in his last four starts, all graded stakes victories.
Cox, 41, is the reigning Eclipse Award winner for outstanding trainer, but he has never saddled a starter in his hometown Kentucky Derby. He’s now likely to have the Derby favorite with Essential Quality — last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and 2-year-old champion — and Cox is also expected to have Risen Star Stakes winner Mandaloun in this year’s Derby. Cox also trains Derby hopeful Caddo River, who is scheduled to run in the Arkansas Derby next weekend.
Essential Quality is a Godolphin homebred and will be that venerable racing outfit’s latest Kentucky Derby hope. Godolphin has had 11 Derby starters since 1999 with none of them finishing better than fourth.
No Blue Grass Stakes winner has gone on to win the Kentucky Derby since Strike the Gold took both races in 1991. Street Sense finished second in the Blue Grass and won the Derby in 2007, and Thunder Gulch (1995) and Sea Hero (1993) were both fourth in the Blue Grass before going on to win the Kentucky Derby.
Essential Quality was the 4-1 betting favorite in the final Kentucky Derby future wager pool last week and entered this week as the 7-2 Derby favorite on the William Hill sportsbook odds sheet.
Bourbonic upsets in Wood Memorial
Bourbonic, trained by two-time Kentucky Derby winner Todd Pletcher, came from the back of the nine-horse field to supply a stunner in the Wood Memorial on Saturday at Aqueduct, winning the major Derby prep at 72-1 odds.
The son of Bernardini — with Afleet Alex as his damsire — was racing against stakes company for the first time and most recently finished 4 lengths behind fellow Wood Memorial long shot Market Maven in an optional claiming race in February.
Bourbonic earned 100 Derby qualifying points for the race and caught stablemate Dynamic One — a 15-1 shot — just before wire.
Dynamic One earned 40 qualifying points, and that would be enough to put the Pletcher-trained colt in the Derby starting gate. The son of Union Rags broke his maiden on his fourth try in his most recent start on March 7.
The Wood Memorial exacta paid $453 on a $1 bet.
Pletcher, who won the Kentucky Derby with Super Saver in 2011 and Always Dreaming in 2017, also won the Florida Derby with Known Agenda last week, and that colt should be one of the top Derby contenders at Churchill Downs on May 1.
The Chad Brown-trained Crowded Trade was third in the Wood Memorial, with Gotham Stakes winner Weyburn coming in fourth.
Rock Your World takes Santa Anita
The first dirt start for Rock Your World was a major success: a convincing victory in the Santa Anita Derby on Saturday to establish himself as a major contender for the Kentucky Derby.
Rock Your World — a son of Candy Ride — was 2-for-2 on the turf for trainer John Sadler, who had been mulling a dirt try on the Derby trail for his star colt before finally deciding to enter him in the Santa Anita Derby.
He didn’t disappoint, earning a clear victory over heavy race favorite Medina Spirit, who finished second for trainer Bob Baffert. Dream Shake was third, and another Baffert trainee, Defunded, finished fourth.
Rock Your World was the 5-1 third choice among bettors coming off a Feb. 27 victory on the turf in the Pasadena Stakes — just his second career start — and had been working impressively over the Santa Anita dirt in the mornings.
Medina Spirit, the 4-5 favorite for Baffert, raced near the front and had every opportunity to make a run on Rock Your World in the stretch, but he couldn’t catch him. He earned 40 additional Kentucky Derby qualifying points and is likely headed to Churchill Downs on May 1, with Baffert looking for his record seventh Derby victory.
This story was originally published April 3, 2021 at 6:51 PM.
