Just before 7 a.m. (EDT) at Churchill Downs on Thursday morning, Arkansas Derby
(G2) winner PAPA CLEM (Smart Strike) blew out three furlongs in a bullet :34.
The move, with Kentucky Derby (G1) jockey Rafael Bejarano in the saddle, was
easily the fastest of 13 at the distance on the fast track. The second-fastest
works were timed in :37 2/5.
In a true Stute family tradition, trainer Gary Stute said Papa Clem was now
officially “Melvinized,” a term trainer Bob Baffert coined for the fast blowout
works typically given by Stute’s father, Mel.
The elder Stute was on hand to watch his son’s horse prepare for Saturday’s
Run for the Roses and gave a smile of approval. It also brought good vibes to
the younger Stute.
“You see me smiling, don’t you?” Gary Stute said. “If he gets beat, it’s all
my fault.”
“He was so comfortable,” Bejarano said of the work, which drew splits of :11
1/5, :22 2/5 and a gallop-out of :47 1/5. “I didn’t have to push him or nothing.
Past the wire, I just let him gallop out strong and stay up in the saddle.”
Thursday’s workout for Papa Clem perhaps stemmed the tide of a few
unimpressive moves.
“Everyone has been criticizing his works,” Stute said, and then admitted, “I
would have been worried if he didn’t work well today.”
Papa Clem will walk the shedrow for the next two days, Friday and race day.
Stute indicated that if Papa Clem had worked slower this morning, he might have
brought him to the track Saturday morning, but now feels they are ready to go.
Trainer Nick Zito’s 11th-hour Derby 135 entrant NOWHERE TO HIDE (Vindication)
met jockey Shaun Bridgmohan for the first time Thursday with a quarter-mile
blowout down the lane in :25 1/5. Nowhere to Hide tugged hard for more as
Bridgmohan worked overtime to get him pulled up, even midway down the
backstretch.
“Shaun just got familiar with the horse this morning,” Zito said. “That’s all
I wanted. The good thing is that he didn’t want to pull up.”
The two-time Derby-winning trainer and his owner, Len Riggio of My Meadowview
Farm, have been accused of a case of Derby fever, but Zito reasoned that horse
racing is the ultimate game of chance.
“No one has a lock on this game — no one,” he said.
“He ran fourth three races in a row — the Risen Star S. (G3), the Tampa Bay
Derby (G3) and the Illinois Derby (G2) — and if he ran fourth in the Kentucky
Derby, it would be all right by me,” Zito said. “We’ve been trying to get him
here all along; we’ve taken him all over the country.”