Monday's Workout Report Part 1

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ANY GIVEN SATURDAY/CIRCULAR QUAY/COWTOWN CAT/SCAT DADDY/SAM P.

‘Todd Pletcher's five Derby contenders took it easy in their race preparations after a weekend of workouts.

Sunday, four of trainer Todd Pletcher’s quintet were asked to go through five-furlong drills that served as their final serious preparations for the Kentucky Derby. Saturday, another colt – Cowtown Cat – had fired his five-panel finale.

So Monday morning in Lexington on the polytrack, Any Given Saturday, Circular Quay and Scat Daddy went for one-mile jogs, going easy even though they were going against conventional trainer wisdom that says you “walk” the day after a work. Over at Churchill Downs, Sunday worker Sam P. also jogged a mile under the eye of assistant trainer Mike McCarthy.

Cowtown Cat – two days out from his work – did do a bit more, jogging a mile and one quarter under regular exercise rider Loren Robson.

Three-time Eclipse Award winner Pletcher indicated he’d train his Keeneland contingent (which also includes the Kentucky Oaks trio of Cotton Blossom, Octave and Rags to Riches) Tuesday morning, then ship them to Churchill in the afternoon. “We’ll probably get there around feeding time – 4:30 or so,” he said. The Pletcher crew calls Barn 34 home at Churchill Downs.

BWANA BULL

The Jerry Hollendorfer-trained Bwana Bull breezed six furlongs in 1:14.40 Monday morning at Churchill Downs to the complete satisfaction of jockey Javier Castellano.

“It was a nice and easy work. He went nice and slow the first part of it and picked it up late,” said Castellano after getting up on the El Camino Real Derby (GII) winner for the first time. “He galloped out great. He worked like he needed, nice and slow. I didn’t want to squeeze him, because we’ve got a few days before the Derby. I wanted to check out what kind of horse he is. I really liked the way he went.”

Castellano, who rode his 2,000th winner at Calder Race Course on Saturday, was favorably impressed with Bwana Bull.

“He’s a nice horse to ride. He’s an easy horse to ride. He’s a big horse, a strong horse,” said Castellano, who finished seventh aboard Bellamy Road in 2005 in his only Derby appearance.

Bwana Bull showed no ill effects from a cut suffered in the fleshy area near his left hip joint during shipping.

“It was a good work,” said Hollendorfer’s assistant Galen May. “You don’t need any speed for this race.”

COBALT BLUE/GREAT HUNTER/LIQUIDITY

Trainer Doug O’Neill’s three Kentucky Derby (G1) contenders arrived at Churchill Downs on Sunday after spending the past several weeks at Keeneland, and they made their first trip around the track Monday morning. With Tony Romero aboard, each colt jogged about three-quarters of a mile then galloped 1 ¼ miles.

“All went beautifully, really, really well,” O’Neill said.

Great Hunter, who ran third in the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) last November at Churchill, was the first O’Neill runner to gallop, followed by Liquidity and Cobalt Blue.

“Great Hunter, he got over it (the track) well,” O’Neill said. “Both he and Liquidity jogged really composed and really relaxed for being their first day on the track. Tony did a great job of starting them off kind of easy and gradually picking it up. They went the last five-eighths, half-mile just really strong, putting their feet where they wanted to, real comfortably but real strong.”

Cobalt Blue was the final O’Neill horse to gallop. “We’re going to take him a little earlier,” O’Neill said of his plans for the colt Tuesday. “He’s just a little bit fresh. I don’t think he enjoyed seeing everyone else go out to play and he had to wait.”

O’Neill said the colts would gallop each morning until the Derby.

CURLIN/ZANJERO/REPORTING FOR DUTY

Curlin breezed a half-mile in :48.40 Monday morning as the possible Kentucky Derby favorite concluded his final major preparations for Saturday’s main event. One of three Steve Asmussen-trained Derby aspirants to work out Monday, Curlin completed his move in splits of :12.40, :24.20, :36.60 and :48.40, galloping out five panels in 1:01.40.

“He breezed real nicely,” Asmussen said. “I feel comfortable about the way he got over the racetrack.”

The lightly raced son of Smart Strike went to the track at 6:30 a.m. with little fanfare, trailed only by a single television camera and four still photographers. By the time he came off the track at 6:47 a.m., the usual Derby Week paparazzi had swarmed, though Curlin strolled through the crowd unfazed and relaxed beyond his relative race-day experience.

“The horse exudes confidence and has a presence about him,” Asmussen said.
“With what he’s done, he’s still the same horse whether people line up to watch you or they don’t. That sort of consistency and state of mind makes you confident.”

Asmussen later added to that point, “We haven’t walked over there when we didn’t think we were leading the best horse. We’re not just running against history, we’re running against the others.”

Curlin came to the Asmussen stable at Fair Grounds in February after being privately purchased in Florida. First named “Baby Huey” by the barn upon his arrival, he became a quick student. “You never have to show him anything twice,” Asmussen said. “…After his first breeze (at Fair Grounds), he steadily seemed to gain more focus. I thought that his first two-turn race (the Rebel), when he came into the stretch, he didn’t have the focus that he did the second time (in the Arkansas Derby).”

Zanjero’s Monday morning exercise mirrored that of his more ballyhooed stablemate, clipping off a nearly identical :48.40 half-mile breeze (tied for seventh-fastest of 29 works at the distance). Exercise rider Carmen Rosas guided both workers and his internal clock was fine-tuned. Zanjero’s splits were :12.40, :24.20, :36.20 and :48.40, galloping out five furlongs in 1:02.40.

“As David Fiske, the manager for Winchell said, ‘Side Show Bob’ is doing really well,” Asmussen said. “He’s an excellent horse. You answer the questions asked of you, and, in racing, we try to learn to not talk about what you’re ‘going to do’ and talk about what you ‘have done.’ Zanjero is a quality horse that’s kept very good competition. I think everybody’s getting the same feel about him that the barn always has had – he’s hard to eliminate when you look at him and watch him train. You don’t see anybody picking him, but you can’t find anyone eliminating him. He’s that kind of racehorse. He shows up, his state of mind is good, he’s in great flesh and he’s very sound. From watching previous runnings of the Derby, he’s a very good horse to have in the race.”

About Illinois Derby (GII) runner-up Reporting for Duty, who sits outside the top 20 on the graded stakes earnings list, Asmussen said, “It’s musical chairs right now. The horse is doing well. If he’s excluded from the Derby, he will go on to the Lone Star Derby the following Saturday.”

Reporting for Duty worked five furlongs in 1:01.60, seventh-fastest of 11 workers at the distance.

All three horses are slated to walk the shedrow Tuesday morning as Asmussen will head to Keeneland and supervise some of his massive stable operation.