Plenty of bases to touch in the wake of Saturday’s Florida Derby, Louisiana Derby, United Arab Emirates Derby and Gulfstream Oaks:
* Orb heads for Louisville as no worse than the second choice in the 139th Kentucky Derby on May 4 after his 2 3/4-length score in the Florida Derby, his fourth win in a row including the Fountain of Youth. The stretch-running son of Malibu Moon could easily be the Derby favorite, depending on how Verrazano performs in this Saturday’s Wood Memorial.
John Velazquez, who rides both colts, could have a very difficult decision to make.
* Trainers Todd Pletcher, with Revolutionary, and Eddie Plesa, with Itsmyluckyday, put all their eggs in one basket when both colts came off long layoffs to run in the Louisiana Derby and Florida Derby, respectively. The gamble paid off.
Going into Saturday, each had only 10 points under Churchill Downs’ new system to determine the top 20 qualifiers for the Derby field. But Revolutionary, making his first start since the Feb. 2 Withers, earned 100 points when he rallied wide from far back to win the Louisiana Derby by a neck over 19-1 shot Mylute.
Itsmyluckyday, unraced since the Jan. 16 Holy Bull, banked 40 points for finishing second in the Florida Derby after clawing past pace-setter Merit Man to take the lead in mid-stretch.
* Like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, Europe’s top trainer, Aidan O’Brien, has been trying to win the Derby for years with one of his Coolmore colts from Ireland, to no avail. He’ll try again with Lines of Battle, who earned 100 points winning the UAE Derby in Dubai by 1 1/2 lengths.
* Perhaps the best 3-year-old to run Saturday, maybe the best in the nation, will not be allowed to race in the Derby: Dreaming of Julia, who, carrying the Stonestreet Stable colors of Rachel Alexandra, turned in a Rachelesque performance in the Gulfstream Oaks, winning by 21 3/4 lengths in 1:48.97, nearly two full seconds (10 lengths) faster than Orb’s time of 1:50.87 in the Florida Derby.
Seeing as the late Jess Jackson sent out Rachel to beat males in the Preakness, Haskell and Woodward, his widow, Barbara Banke — or any owner, for that matter — might be inclined to give the Derby a second look after Dreaming of Julia’s eye-popping performance. Under the old system for determining Derby starters, based on earnings in graded stakes, the homebred daughter of A.P. Indy would rank among the top 20, and she would certainly be one of the betting favorites.
But Churchill’s new system doesn’t award points for races restricted to fillies, so Dreaming of Julia will have to settle for the Kentucky Oaks.
* Shanghai Bobby appears to be a victim of the Breeders’ Cup jinx; that is, he’ll likely be the 28th of 29 BC Juvenile winners not to win the Derby. Caught in tight along the rail after breaking from post 1, he finished fifth in the Florida Derby and is stuck at 24 points. The Todd Pletcher-trained colt could be the first 2-year-old champion in history barred from the Derby starting gate.
As one wise old man noted in the Aqueduct press box on Saturday, the chief benefactor of the new Derby point system might be the Preakness.