The major platoon of Derby madness, the sixteen other horses roiling up the right flank of Summer Is Tomorrow, will form the impenetrable right wall of the box in which Epicenter will be caught. Given a clean break - an iffy prospect at any Derby - Summer Is Tomorrow can be at or near the front, and sharply so, because that’s what speed does. In a way, Epicenter and Rosario have drawn the worst possible post position in the field.īecause: They’ve got Mo Donegal bulling through them like a linebacker up on their left, and in the four hole immediately to their right, the absolute speed of the field in Summer Is Tomorrow, who will, also, be blasting past. In a way, Epicenter and Rosario are caught in a pickle, or more accurately, in a vise, and come Saturday that will certainly change the handicapping and perhaps even the direction of larger chunks of the money. New Churchill gate or not, this is a good offense for the Derby rail horse to bring to the crush coming down on him in the instant of and in the moments after the break.īut if Mo Donegal is as tough as Pletcher thinks, he will give Epicenter and his jockey, the estimable Joel Rosario, plenty to worry about, breaking as they are from two stalls to the right. Battaglia as the race’s fourth-place favorite until the track’s windows open on Friday, as “a locomotive,” which is to say, he’s got a bruising momentum that can’t be stopped. The man on the hot seat of the rail this year, trainer Todd Pletcher, has described his charge Mo Donegal, at 10-1, rated by Mr. Needless to say, clean breaks are a thin on the ground of the Derby. Still, Derby starts being the chaos they are, it’s axiomatic among horsemen, oddsmakers, and pundits alike that the further outside one is in the Churchill gate on the first weekend in May, the greater the likelihood of getting an undisturbed, clean break, which is the foundation for the Derby’s Holy Grail, namely, a clean trip. Wayne Lukas, Luis Contreras, 30-1īecause Churchill’s new gate is made as a contiguous thing, as opposed to having a “main” gate and an “auxiliary” section as the old gate did, it does afford a few more crucial inches of room to the inside horses, and particularly to the rail horse. Tawny Port, Brad Cox, Ricardo Santana Jr., 30-1Ģ0. Classic Causeway, Brian Lynch, Julien Leparoux, 30-1ġ8. Cyberknife, Brad Cox, Florent Geroux, 20-1ġ7. White Abarrio, Saffie Joseph Jr., Tyler Gaffalione, 10-1ġ6. Barber Road, John Ortiz, Reylu Gutierrez, 30-1ġ5. Simplification, Antonio Sano, Jose Ortiz, 20-1ġ4. Pioneer of Medina, Todd Pletcher, Joe Bravo, 30-1ġ3. Tiz the Bomb, Kenny McPeek, Brian Hernandez Jr., 30-1ġ0. Charge It, Todd Pletcher, Luis Saez, 20-1ĩ. Crown Pride, Koichi Shintani, Christophe Lemaire, 20-1Ĩ. Messier, Tim Yakteen, John Velazquez, 8-1ħ. Smile Happy, Kenny McPeek, Corey Lanerie, 20-1Ħ. Summer Is Tomorrow, Bhupat Seemar, Mickael Barzalona, 30-1ĥ.
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