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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — This is an altogether different Kentucky Derby. It hasn’t been hijacked by bombastic owners. There has been no need to manufacture story lines. No, for the first time since I have been coming here, the horses are the genuine stars and there is a sense that the 141st running of America’s signature race is going to be one for the ages.
Much of it has to do with the two colts trained by Bob Baffert, American Pharoah and Dortmund. All week, horsemen and -women have been trekking to his barn as if it were the Louvre to take a look at what they consider to be the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo of a deep and talented crop of 3-year-olds.
These are hard boots who know that even the great horses lose, and who declare it often, but they have fallen like schoolboys for American Pharoah, the 5-2 morning-line favorite. The loquacious D. Wayne Lukas, 79, a trainer who has won four of these things, usually is the first to tamp down high hopes by grumbling, “Don’t bronze him yet.”
American Pharoah was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has won four of his five races. Credit Rob Carr/Getty Images
But Lukas has predicted American Pharoah will sweep the Triple Crown.
“He’s special,” Lukas, who will saddle Mr. Z, said.
American Pharoah was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has won four of his five races in effortless fashion. But it is the way the colt has floated like a cloud around this racetrack each morning that has burnished him with an aura of invincibility.
“He is a notch above everybody — he glides along so easily, like there isn’t any effort,” said Elliott Walden, president and chief executive of WinStar Farm, which is an owner of Carpe Diem.
His colt has also won four of his five starts, and $1.5 million in purses. Like American Pharoah, Carpe Diem has decimated the fields he has faced. Unlike the favorite, Carpe Diem is a son of Giant’s Causeway and bred to go the mile and a quarter.
“In any of the last 10 years, we would be the favorite,” Walden said. Instead, Carpe Diem is the third betting choice at a generous 8-1.
Much of it has to do with the two colts trained by Bob Baffert, American Pharoah and Dortmund. All week, horsemen and -women have been trekking to his barn as if it were the Louvre to take a look at what they consider to be the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo of a deep and talented crop of 3-year-olds.
These are hard boots who know that even the great horses lose, and who declare it often, but they have fallen like schoolboys for American Pharoah, the 5-2 morning-line favorite. The loquacious D. Wayne Lukas, 79, a trainer who has won four of these things, usually is the first to tamp down high hopes by grumbling, “Don’t bronze him yet.”
American Pharoah was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has won four of his five races. Credit Rob Carr/Getty Images
But Lukas has predicted American Pharoah will sweep the Triple Crown.
“He’s special,” Lukas, who will saddle Mr. Z, said.
American Pharoah was last year’s 2-year-old champion and has won four of his five races in effortless fashion. But it is the way the colt has floated like a cloud around this racetrack each morning that has burnished him with an aura of invincibility.
“He is a notch above everybody — he glides along so easily, like there isn’t any effort,” said Elliott Walden, president and chief executive of WinStar Farm, which is an owner of Carpe Diem.
His colt has also won four of his five starts, and $1.5 million in purses. Like American Pharoah, Carpe Diem has decimated the fields he has faced. Unlike the favorite, Carpe Diem is a son of Giant’s Causeway and bred to go the mile and a quarter.
“In any of the last 10 years, we would be the favorite,” Walden said. Instead, Carpe Diem is the third betting choice at a generous 8-1.
