Trainer
John Sadler looked at the weather reports, put an eye to the sky and made a call at Barn 42 Saturday morning: Work today, not tomorrow.
California’s current leading conditioner doesn’t
often have to make weather- and track-related decisions about his
horses at his home base, but such was not the case on a threatening
morning at Churchill Downs with overnight rain already having turned
the track “sloppy” and much more rain and thunderstorms projected for
the coming 24 hours.
“I’m going to take what I can get right now,” he said. “It could be worse tomorrow.”
Sadler met with jockey Joe Talamo at 8:10 and plotted out a six-panel drill for Sid and Jenny Craig Trust’s Sidney’s Candy,
the Santa Anita Derby (GI) winner who’ll be among the favorites for
next Saturday’s Kentucky Derby. The colt was to go trackside at 8:30
following the renovation break and take advantage of Churchill’s
“Derby/Oaks horses only” exercise period. He’d have a “rabbit” with
him, too – the 3-year-old winner Via Verde, who came
in from California with the trainer’s nine-horse contingent and is
earmarked for an allowance race on Derby Day. Stable exercise rider Lupillo Alferez
would break off Via Verde a couple of lengths in front of “Sidney” near
the six-furlong pole and Talamo would run him down. “Let him roll,” the
trainer said.
Roughly 20 minutes later that scenario happened
just as Sadler planned, with the conditioner stationed in the
grandstand to watch it unfold.
Talamo went after Via Verde approaching the far
turn and collared him as the pair made the bend. The horse race was all
over there, but the work continued on sharply for the young rider and
his racy chestnut. They finished up well clear of their workmate and
track clocker’s rang him up in a bullet 1:11.60. Via Verde followed
home in 1:13.40.
The splits on the son of Candy Ride were :12.20, :24, :35.20, :46 and :58.80. He galloped out the seven furlongs in 1:26.20.
“It was a good work,” Sadler said at the barn
afterward. “I was looking for a strong work coming into this race and
he got it today. I would have preferred to have worked him over a fast
track – that’s what we’re likely to see here next week – but we didn’t
have a choice. I’d say the conditions were less than ideal, but we
dealt with them as best we could. I actually liked the way he handled
the wet track. That (working on an ‘off’ track) was a first for him.
But that South American sire line of his says he should probably like
it and it appeared today he did.”
Talamo, an ebullient 20-year-old who had risen to
the upper echelons of the jockey rooms in Southern California, had on
an even bigger smile than usual following the work.
“He felt great out there,” the rider said prior to
dashing off to the airport for a plane back to the West Coast. “He
loves the mud. If it rains Derby Day, I won’t be mad.”
A few hours before Sidney’s Candy’s exercise, Sadler sent his other Derby hopeful, Ike and Dawn Thrash’s Line of David,
out to the track with Alferez on board. They galloped a mile and a half
around the big oval, bathed in the track lights that now have become
part of the morning scene at Churchill.
“That’s a first for him, handling a wet track,”
Sadler said. “We don’t see that much out our way with the weather in
general and the synthetic tracks. He seemed to handle it fine and
that’s encouraging. He’ll have his final work here Monday.”
Line of David, the winner of the Arkansas Derby (GI) in his most recent start, will be ridden by Rafael Bejarano in the Run for the Roses.