LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Will Harbut Racing LLC, is one of the three owners of Kentucky Derby entrant Necker Island. Will Harbut’s name is familiar to students of racing history – he cared for the legendary Man o’ War in his stallion career in Kentucky for more than 16 years. The man behind Will Harbut Racing is the groom’s great-grandson, Greg Harbut, a bloodstock agent who named the operation for his family’s deep ties to racing, which are especially poignant in this year of racial unrest.
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DRF Past Performances
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – For the first time in more than two decades, Angel Cordero Jr. won’t be rooting for his protégé John Velazquez to win the Kentucky Derby.
Arguably the most accomplished agent-jockey tandem in racing history, Cordero and Velazquez split up earlier this year after 22 years together. Cordero believes the split came at least in part because he fought hard for the connections of Tiz the Law to keep his other client, Manny Franco, on the horse when other riders were inquiring about replacing him following the horse’s only loss last fall.
Jockey Vinnie Bednar sustained lower-limb paralysis in a one-horse spill at Los Alamitos on Aug. 22, his father, Scott Bednar, said on Tuesday, and will be moved to a hospital in Colorado for treatment.
“The injuries are significant,” Scott Bednar said. “He lacks movement in his lower extremities. We’re hoping for the best in the long-term prognosis.”
The Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, historically run in recent years on the day before the Preakness Stakes, will instead be run on the same card as the Preakness this year, according to a stakes schedule distributed by Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Wednesday.
According to the schedule, the Oct. 3 Preakness card will feature 12 races, all of them stakes and seven of them graded. This year, the Preakness is the third leg of the Triple Crown, scheduled one month after the re-scheduled Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
A cooperative effort between Del Mar and Santa Anita to use high-level diagnostic equipment based at Santa Anita has been credited by veterinarians with catching potential small problems before they become big ones during a summer season in which Del Mar has continued its strong safety record of recent years.
Del Mar has subsidized the transportation to Santa Anita of horses to use three highly advanced diagnostic services – nuclear scintigraphy, position emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) – provided by the Southern California Equine Foundation.
John Shirreffs trained Zenyatta throughout her Hall of Fame career and can’t wait to see her soon, but the demands of the Kentucky Derby will mean the next visit will come later this month, when he returns for the yearling sales. This week, he’s sticking to Churchill Downs like Calvin Borel sticks to the rail.
“It’s hard to leave. You never know when something unforeseen could develop,” said Shirreffs, who trains Honor A. P.
LOUISVILLE, KY. –Joe Talamo, in his first year of riding the Kentucky circuit after more than 13 years in Southern California, was the leading jockey at the 25-day Runhappy summer meet, which ended Sunday at Ellis Park in western Kentucky. Talamo rode 20 winners, two more than Rafael Bejarano, who missed the last nine days of the meet. Talamo led in mount earnings with $746,716.
Brad Cox and Kenny McPeek tied for leading trainer with 10 wins, while the PTK of the Haughey family of Virginia was the leading owner with six wins.
The Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May – or, as it turns out in 2020, the first Saturday in September – is the Super Bowl of American Thoroughbred racing. Every trainer and jockey in the sport dreams, however casually, of giving or getting a leg up to answer the call to the post for the classic race.