It’s a big weekend on the Triple Crown trail, as the Kentucky Derby Championship Series begins with the Risen Star Stakes on Saturday at Fair Grounds, and the Kentucky Derby prep series concludes with the El Camino Real Derby on Saturday at Golden Gate Fields and the Southwest Stakes on Monday at Oaklawn Park. There’s also the Hyacinth this weekend at Tokyo Racecourse, which concludes the second annual Japanese road to the Kentucky Derby.
For FREE Ultimate Past Performances of the three prep races, click the name of each race: Risen Star, El Camino, Southwest (available Friday). For FREE Premium Past Performances of ALL races at Fair Grounds & Oaklawn, CLICK HERE. For ALL Brisnet.com handicapping products for these and all tracks, CLICK HERE.
The first half of the Championship Series offers 85 points per race with 50 to the winner, meaning the Risen Star will shake up the current Kentucky Derby leaderboard while not necessarily affecting the top horses in most polls. Indeed, I plan to keep multiple Grade 1 winner Bolt d’Oro, champion Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Good Magic, and the speedy McKinzie among the top 3 until they give me a reason not to.
Copper Bullet is the current reach horse–having not raced in more than six months, though he has worked six times as a three-year-old, including a bullet five furlongs on February 12 at Fair Grounds for Racing Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen. However, no race has been pinpointed for the More Than Ready colt, and the clock is beginning to tick given he has no points.
Instilled Regard is the biggest name running this weekend as the Risen Star favorite, though Noble Indy shipping to that race for trainer Todd Pletcher is an interesting one to watch, and there’s some thought that Principe Guilherme is still figuring things out for the aforementioned Asmussen barn.
The El Camino offers 17 points with 10 to the winner, but it’s tough to get too amped from a Triple Crown perspective considering only two of the nine entrants are nominated to the Triple Crown, though the presence of filly Paved certainly adds intrigue and excites for a possible Kentucky Oaks tilt for the Quality Road filly whose 100 Brisnet Speed Rating when breaking her maiden going 1 1/8 miles on turf is one of only 7 of her crop to crack triple digits and 6 points more than the closest turf number (War Heroine when winning the Sweet Life Stakes on February 11 also at Santa Anita). That Paved is trying synthetic from turf (and against males no less) is enough to move her into the top 5 on my Oaks list.
The biggest jump on either poll for me is Mississippi who has proven win shy in his short career so far but is fast and has the look of the type that improvement could launch him to the Grade 1 level. He finished second behind the aforementioned Noble Indy two races back.
Finally, a reminder that all three prep races are a part of the 20% double bonus at TwinSpires.com. Given the placement of these races, you have 6 opportunities to increase your payout by 20% (up to $100). We’ll look at those options in a separate blog on Friday.
