That was just an experiment that worked out. We sure weren't thinking about any million-dollar race for him. |
The Derby, on the road to this thing, there are many fallen warriors. I'm not the only one. |
The winner is very impressive and a very great-looking horse that we thought would win if we didn't. I didn't expect to run third, but he did gallop out well after the race and came back to the barn in very good shape. |
There are questions about him because he's from Northern California, but this is a Grade 3 race, and a lot of horses have come out of it to do great things. |
They've only had a three-horse dead-heat once, so you can't hope for that. I just want all of the horses to have their own chance to win. |
This horse is good right now, and hopefully he'll stay good for the Sunshine Millions. I don't think he needs the lead, and today would indicate that. He probably won't get the lead in the Sunshine Millions, but today would indicate that he could punch it in from anywhere. |
We don't think there was enough pace to set the race up for us. |
We entered him, and he got kicked by the stable pony the next day. He had to have stitches in his hock. |
We need races in between what your ultimate goal is. If he can win on Saturday, it makes the ultimate goal worth pursuing. |
We'll let things settle out and see if we can make an intelligent decision on what we should do. I'm not going to say either way because I didn't like how the pace came up today. It was a deeper track, too, and the winner was used to that kind of track, but if you go to the Kentucky Derby, you have to overcome obstacles like that. Opportunities don't come very often to be in America's race. We'd like to be in it, but if we determine that there are too many things against us, we won't do it. |
We're going back with the idea of trying to win it; we're not going just to run in the race. If we get back there, and he doesn't like the track and doesn't train well, we won't run. |
When I bought him, he worked an eighth of a mile in 102/5. That was the criteria my owner wanted: a well-bred horse that worked in 10 and change and didn't cost a couple hundred thousand. We would have given a lot more for him. |
When the horse made his exciting finishes and was running on late very strong, we thought the horse might have some potential. |
Whether it's 2,000 or 2,500, it must be some kind of record for a jockey-trainer team. |
While we were disappointed, we're not down on our horse. There are a lot of different ways of looking at things. You could say he didn't run well enough to go to the Kentucky Derby. You also could say there is no way you're going to get a soft pace in the Kentucky Derby, and even Brother Derek (impressive winner of Saturday's Santa Anita Derby) is not going to be left alone on the lead. |