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Joel Rosario’s 13 Wins A Meet Record At Kentucky Downs

Joel Rosario won three races Thursday to bring his meet-leading total to a track-record 13 with two days left to go in the six-day FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs.

Rosario got his record-breaking victory in Thursday's finale aboard the Wesley Ward-trained 2-year-old Castle Leoch. Rafael Bejarano first set the track standard with 12 wins at the 2004 meet. Florent Geroux also won a dozen in 2015 and 2016. Rosario bolted to the meet lead with a five-bagger on last Sunday's opening card and another five on Labor Day. He won a single race Wednesday and then two Thursday. Rosario is scheduled to ride nine races apiece on Saturday and Sunday's closing cards.

“My agent, Ron Anderson, thought we might have a good chance today, but you never know,” Rosario said. “Sometimes you have a good chance and you don't win. So I'm glad. We've been blessed the days we've been here, great opportunities. I'm glad I have an agent like Ron.”

A $17,000 purchase as a weanling at Keeneland's 2019 November sale, the 2-year-old colt Red Danger was the lowest-priced horse that Bonnie and Tommy Hamilton's Silverton Hill LLC purchased that year. Now the chestnut son of 2013 Kentucky Derby winner Orb could be on his way to being the Hamiltons' biggest money-earner.

With Luis Saez aboard, Red Danger wore down pacesetting favorite Kaufymaker and then held off Romancer for a three-quarters of a length victory in Thursday's $500,000 Global Tote Juvenile Sprint at the FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs.

“We're so happy about this because he was the least expensive horse we bought that year,” Bonnie Hamilton said. “Phil Hager picked him out, so anything from there is gravy. He's done everything right, and just fun to have one. They don't come around very often…. That's a really great thing. I mean, we've bought them for more than that. But it encourages people to think, 'I have a racehorse without spending $100,000, $200,000.' Which we have.”

Kaufymaker, who took the lead in upper stretch after pushing a swift early pace, gave way to settle for third, another three-quarters of a length back in the field of eight 2-year-olds.

“It was perfect,” Saez said. “That was the trip we were planning to get. He's a come-from-behind horse. He broke good today. He was right there. The main thing was try to relax, let the speed go and sit behind the speed. When we came to the top of the stretch, he made the move. He was a little confused with the turf at the three-eighths because it's a little like dirt. But when we came to the top of the stretch he gave me that kick, so we got there on time.”

It was Saez' second victory ever at Kentucky Downs amid limited opportunities; his first coming in the 2018 Dueling Grounds Derby on Channel Cat. Brian Lynch also became the first trainer to win the Juvenile Sprint other than Wesley Ward, who won the first three runnings of America's richest 2-year-old turf stakes outside the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.

Red Danger finished fifth on dirt at Saratoga in his debut, then won at 5 1/2 furlongs on turf in his next start.

“He's really been a problem-free colt that just kept getting better,” Lynch said. “Every time we worked him leading up to his first race he just kept getting better. Never left an oat. Never had a pimple on him or a snotty nose. So we tried him on the dirt first time because he worked so well, but I always have a tendency to try my horses on the grass. So he ended up on the grass next time and won very impressively.

“We came back and had a work in between and the work was just fantastic. Mike Luzzi worked him for me up at Saratoga and he said, 'Not only did he work good, I just couldn't pull him up.' That gave me hope that we could press forward here in the 6 1/2 and gave us a glimmer of hope he could be Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Mile horse. This is an undulating sort of track, so 6 1/2 plays like seven.”

Red Danger covered 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16.51, paying $7.20 as the third choice.

“The one bit of confidence I had going into this race is that I always felt he'd do his best running late,” Lynch said. “So when I saw him sort of get to the outside there and I could see him digging in, I always thought he'd close ground. Whether he was good enough to beat them, he wasn't going to back out of it. So it was great to see him prevail.”

Ward was vying to win the stakes for the third time in four years with a filly.

“She ran good. Did everything right. Just got outrun,” he said. “She ran a great race… She made the lead like she was supposed to. Maybe it's just a distance issue. She ran great and the winner ran tremendous.”

The start was delayed when No. 7 Detroit City reared in the gate, then twisted and had his front legs over the back doors of his gate stall, tossing jockey Adam Beschizza in the process. Even as Detroit City was extricated and burst out the back, No. 6 Pure Panic bolted out the front and ultimately also was scratched. Both Detroit City and Pure Panic walked off the track on their own. Trainer Jack Sisterson said Detroit City was unscathed. Beschizza's agent, Liz Morris, reported that the jockey also was OK.

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A loss at Saratoga Race Course last month resulted in a big win for Hendy Woods Thursday in the $400,000 One Dreamer Stakes at Kentucky Downs.

Hendy Woods, a Stonestreet Stables homebred, came from off the pace under Tyler Gaffalione to win by 4 ¼ lengths over Sweet Melania. The 4-year-old Uncle Mo filly covered the mile and 70 yards in 1:38.33 and paid $6.60 as the second choice in the field of 11 older fillies and mares. Alta's Award was third at 25-1. Dominga, the 2-1 favorite, was fifth, a head and a nose behind Alta's Award.

“Actually, I thought this was a tough race,” trainer Mark Casse said. “I was surprised with the ease that she won it. She was training really well. We lost a heart-breaker with her at Saratoga.”

That half-length loss in the listed De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 8 turned out to be a timely defeat. If she had won that $120,000 race she would not have been eligible for the One Dreamer, which is restricted to horses that have not won a stakes this year. First-place money in the $120,000 De La Rose, won Regal Glory, was $66,000. Hendy Woods earned $233,120 in the One Dreamer, pushing her career earnings to $528,451.

Hendy Woods was Gaffalione's third winner of the day and fourth of the meet. His record through the first four days of the six-day meet is 4-7-4 from 33 starts. He is second in purse money earned to Joel Rosario, the record-setting runaway leader in wins, with $923,173.

“It started off a little slow but we just kept persevering,” Gaffalione said. “Our horses are showing well today in the big races. This filly was push-button the whole way. She broke sharp, put me in a great spot. It was just hang on, really. She really stretched it out beautifully. All the credit goes to Mark and his team.”

Gaffalione was up for the De La Rose, which the 4-year-old filly led late, but was overtaken.

“Last time she ran a big race,” he said. “You never want to lose, but it actually worked out because we were able to run in this.”

Sweet Melania led the way through opening fractions of 22.74 and 45.98 seconds. She was 1 1/12 lengths in front through six furlongs ion 1:10.28. Hendy Wood was never more than about three lengths off the pace, took over at the eighth pole and extended her advantage through the stretch.

In 2019, Casse and Gaffalione and Stonestreet won the One Dreamer with Hanalei Moon.

“This has been a good race,” Casse said. “We're going to try again next year.”

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This Side Up: Mourning Two Exceptions, Lamenting the Rule

The shocking loss this week of the young gun Laoban, preceded just days earlier by that of the venerable Malibu Moon, could not fail to renew the kind of questions we should all keep asking themselves about how a stallion can make an enduring reputation.

Both had started out in a regional program, having shown only marginal eligibility for a stud career on the racetrack, before quickly earning migration to Kentucky. If that was just about all they had in common, then their different roles on two of the biggest commercial rosters will have made the exit of both deeply grievous for their respective farms.

Malibu Moon will be remembered as an important horse perhaps not so much for his genetic legacy, notable as it was, as for his founding contribution to the new Spendthrift. He arrived from Castleton Lyons in 2008 as one of just three stallions to relaunch a farm that has since presided over a revolution in commercial breeding. By that stage, he had already elevated his fee to $40,000, from an opening $3,000 under the estimable Pons family at Country Life Farm. Over the years that followed, Malibu Moon weighted down the roster as B. Wayne Hughes set about trying to float young stallions like Into Mischief.

That horse was famously launched into the backdraft of the financial crisis, with incentives that other farms considered ruinous until they started introducing similar schemes themselves. We'll never know whether Into Mischief might have fallen between the cracks in a more conventional environment. As it was, Malibu Moon remained the elder statesman even as the younger paragon established the viability to an experiment meanwhile expanding giddily in both quantity (to two dozen stallions) and quality (over the past couple of years Hughes has corralled a conspicuous series of upgrades).

Laoban, in contrast, was last fall drafted onto another industrial roster that had lately found itself in need of rejuvenation. The brutal loss two years ago of Pioneerof The Nile, at just 13, left all WinStar's top sires in the same veteran bracket as Malibu Moon: Distorted Humor was then 26, Tiznow and More Than Ready 22, and Speightstown 21. Tiznow has since been pensioned, and Distorted Humor is being managed with due restraint; but Speightstown has bucked one of the most witless prejudices around by actually earning a fee increase in the pandemic economy. I look forward to him emulating Danzig, who conceived War Front and Hard Spun respectively when aged 24 and 26, and so rebuking those who discern some inherent deterioration in the corrosive work of fashion plus competition from cheaper sons.

Be that as it may, happily WinStar have meanwhile seen Constitution step up to the plate, with plenty of promising new recruits in his slipstream. What was interesting about Laoban, much like Daredevil after his repatriation from Turkey to Lane's End, is that he had effectively been rebranded. At precisely the stage where most young sires are creaking under the weight of new, unproven competition, Laoban had demonstrated that the rewards for a fast start are just about as impulsive and disproportionate as the punishment for a slow one.

Think about sires like–well, how about Orb, the most accomplished son of Malibu Moon? When Orb, like Laoban, was about to launch his third crop of juveniles two years ago, he was already confined to just 28 mares. Last year, incredibly, he received seven. Unsurprisingly, he has since been given a fresh start in Uruguay–leaving behind O Besos, who made up more ground than any rival when fifth in that processional GI Kentucky Derby.

One of few others to close in the race was Laoban's son Keepmeinmind, whose Grade I placing the day after Simply Ravishing won the GI Darley Alcibiades S. last fall was sufficient to start an overnight auction to bring their sire to Kentucky. Was that 24-hour breakout more significant than, say, Orb producing GI Spinaway winner Sippican Harbor? Yes, Laboan was working from New York mares, and has come up with handful of other stakes operators; whereas Orb failed to build on his opportunities at no less a farm than Claiborne. But if Laoban was indeed about to become an important stallion, then it would have remained pretty challenging to explain why.

A fairly ordinary page was only somewhat improved by his own contribution. Yes, he was a conduit for a very expensive sire whose other sons in this intake, Nyquist and Outwork, suggest something that can be recycled. But now that all bets are off, I must confess that a fee of $25,000 for Laoban, in a market where Malibu Moon himself (126 stakes winners, 51 graded stakes winners, 17 Grade I winners) was down to $35,000, seemed strong.

Built into that fee, it seemed, was the expectation of renewed market momentum accompanying a “rebirth” in the Bluegrass. It's almost as though a stallion like this gets to be a freshman twice over.

I feel terribly sorry for the WinStar team, to lose Laoban so soon. A young stallion is one of the ultimate symbols of virility in all Nature, and an abrupt death like his–or that of Pioneerof the Nile–is all the more shocking as a result. For the rest of the industry, meanwhile, it's a shame that we won't now get to find out properly whether bringing Laoban to Kentucky was opportunism or an inspired gamble. Because it does us all good, especially the inflexible purists among us, when things happen that don't fit our templates.

It's not as though even the aristocratic Malibu Moon could satisfy us entirely, as he was routinely wheeled out on behalf of any number of instant breakdowns: “This could be another Danzig, another Malibu Moon!” What a difficult business this is, when that is so much more resonant a hope than announcing: “This could be another Orb!”

As it is, Orb's failure leaves the Malibu Moon branch of the A.P. Indy dynasty looking rather precarious–though I must say I do give a decent chance to Gormley, down to a giveaway fee as his first runners hit the track.

When Laoban reached the same crossroads last year, he just hit the pedal and raced straight ahead. But so many stallions, nowadays, are at this point diverted into a blind alley by nervous breeders. The world has changed since Malibu Moon lent gravitas to an experimental new regime at Spendthrift. Nowadays, the rookie stallion is the absolute last to require an incentive scheme. If you were to introduce Share The Upside (and equivalent offers elsewhere) today, you'd surely retreat a step and offer future breeding rights for supporting those stallions under most pressure. It's not commitment to first and second books that stud accountants need, but to third and fourth, or fourth and fifth.

We mentioned Daredevil. Well, he covered 376 mares across his first three seasons at WinStar. Yet he plummeted from 140 mares to 21 as his first runners were approaching the track. Hence his sale to Turkey.

As I've often said, it's neither the farms nor the breeders who are principally to blame for commercial obsession with unproven sires, but those directing consumer investment. Breeders are just anticipating the market. Orb, Daredevil and Laoban are all extreme examples of what happens when young stallions reach the squeeze point. Orb, to be fair, was indulged with four consecutive three-figure books before being abandoned. It's the nature of the beast that most stallions would never succeed, even if guaranteed 140 mares for a decade. Nonetheless, stallions at this stage generally tend to be punished or rewarded unduly according to their first dividends.

The kind of imbalance that has caused paternalist intervention–and litigation–on stallion books could perhaps be avoided if the consumers, on the one hand, were not so poorly advised; and if the farms, on the other, could move back their incentive schemes to support the stallions who nowadays could most do with the help. Otherwise, unlike with Malibu Moon and Laoban, the only respects we ever pay them will be in obituaries.

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This Side Up: Something Missing in the Modern Derby

The fastest two minutes in sport? Maybe. Only sometimes, these days, it feels as though time is standing still.

Last Saturday we had yet another GI Kentucky Derby where the protagonists had already volunteered themselves before the clubhouse turn. For the moment, speed seems to have a lock on the race. You have to go back to Orb for a closer; and beyond, for the flamboyant pounces of Calvin Borel.

This time round, the first four were all in the first six at the first bend. At the quarter-pole, they were already in their finishing positions. Was this a horse race, or a procession?

The paradox is that while everyone wants to be pressing the pace in the modern Derby, that doesn't seem to involve going especially fast. Once you get your position, it seems you don't have to apply perilous levels of energy to hold it.

The most obvious explanation is the starting points system: sprinters are no longer contributing to the pace because they can't earn a gate in two-turn trials. If that's the case, we need to be very careful about what we're doing to the defining examination of the American Thoroughbred. Because we may find ourselves hammering our genetic gold into stallion ingots in too cool a forge.

Obviously a 20-runner stampede round two turns is a pretty brutal test, by the standards of American racing, and possibly jockeys are now exploiting the dilution of the pace. They feel it's imperative to get a position, to avoid the traffic; but they would get a nosebleed even thinking about Angel Cordero's fractions on Spend A Buck in 1985.

To be fair, a fast surface and the indefatigable speed we associate with Bob Baffert has now produced consecutive times more in keeping with the old days than the three preceding years, where you could have used a sundial rather than a stopwatch to clock them on or around 2:04.

Spend A Buck missed two minutes by a fifth after blazing 1:09.6 and 1:34.8. If that was a historic achievement–putting him behind only Secretariat, Monarchos and Northern Dancer–then the fact remains that only Baffert's lionhearted Bodemeister (Empire Maker) in 2012 has recently posted terror fractions. Take him out, and the other 14 Derby fields to clip :46 for the half did so between 1962 and 2005; while the other eight to go a mile under 1:35.5 did so between 1952 and 2001.

But you can't blame the driver for the engine, so perhaps there's another dimension to all this. Perhaps we need to ask whether breeders are limiting the available horsepower?

The whole point of the Derby, as the ultimate measure of the maturing dirt Thoroughbred, is to find an optimal equilibrium between speed and stamina. We talk about “carrying” speed and, in this unique race, that should imply a really punishing burden.

It's precisely for that reason, indeed, that I am always complaining about the myopia of contemporary European breeders in largely neglecting dirt stallions. Combing speed and stamina is the grail at Epsom no less than Churchill Downs, and those Europeans who claim to be helpless against the Galileo (Ire) dynasty should duly come to the Bluegrass for a solution. After all, I could be wrong, but I always understood Galileo to be the grandson of a horse that won the Kentucky Derby in two minutes flat. As it is, commercial breeders in Europe succumb to a childish dread of stamina and instead pollute the gene pool by mass support of precocious sprint sires without the slightest pretension to Classic quality.

But this is a two-way street. If the trademark of a dirt horse is the ability to carry speed, then what do we most admire in a top-class European grass horse? Well, it's a different brand of speed: that push-button acceleration, that turn of foot. Not Frankel (GB), funnily enough: I always said he really ran like a dirt horse. But most of those European champions imported by the great Kentucky farms, to seed the modern American Thoroughbred, were classical turf dashers: Blenheim II (GB), Sir Galahad III (Fr), Nasrullah (Ire), Ribot (GB), Sea-Bird (Fr), Caro (Ire).

And it appears that the European breeder does not have a monopoly on parochialism. Standing a turf horse in Kentucky is becoming close to impossible, commercially, whether indigenous or imported. If many American breeders nowadays reckon their families can do without the kind of “toe” that distinguished, say, Karakontie (Jpn) or Flintshire (GB), then I guess we had better get used to a deficiency of class in the Kentucky Derby closers–and settle for “speed” horses that don't actually run terribly fast.

We need to strive for the best of both worlds. As it is, the benchmark Classics on both sides of the ocean have lately obtained a ceremonial quality: a virtually private contest at Epsom, to establish which of the top half dozen colts at Ballydoyle has most stamina, and a peloton of sharp breakers at Churchill whose pursuers lack the flamboyance to run them down.

Two footnotes on the last closer to win the Derby. First, his finish was set up by Palace Malice (Curlin), forced into a white-hot tempo he could not maintain (:22.57, :45.33, 1:09.8). Second, Orb is by a son of a top-class French filly. Her own dam, also a Group 1 scorer, was by French Classic winner Green Dancer-whose own sire, Nijinsky, bears historic witness to the transferability of speed-carrying dirt genes to the European environment.

But we are where we are. And, that being so, let's hear it for Baffert. Forget bloodlines, here is a genius who is single-handedly impacting the breed–not least, in this context, by loading Quarter Horse speed into his works. If he seldom bothers with turf pedigrees, then at least he's maximizing class and dynamism in the modern dirt horse.

There seems to be some kind of nebulous mainstream agenda against Baffert, who has just saddled the first Derby winner with no raceday medication since 1996. But our own community has been too ungenerous to one of the greatest achievers in the sport's long history. Since 2000, Baffert has been recognized by one Eclipse Award as Outstanding Trainer. One! That was in 2015, when he had just ended our 37-year wait for a Triple Crown winner.

He's a confident guy and doesn't need to be told how good he is. (Actually I sometimes wonder if something of that rubs off on his horses, too). All the same, he's only human and absolutely entitled to feel affronted by this. With zero disrespect to the fine practitioners honored in the meantime, it's preposterous to suggest that Baffert has been professionally outperformed in 20 of the past 21 years.

Of his seven Derbys, he has won now four with horses who came under the hammer at various times–Medina Spirit (Protonico) $1,000 ($35,000 pinhook); Real Quiet (Quiet American) $17,000; War Emblem (Our Emblem) $20,000 RNA; Silver Charm (Silver Buck) $16,500 ($100,000 pinhook)–for a grand total of $54,500 between them. Maybe that's why Baffert is resented. He has made it impossible for other horsemen to complain that all they lack is opportunity.

By the same token, the greatest achiever of his generation has given everyone hope, wherever they are starting out. And that deserves gratitude from us all.

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Breeders’ Cup Presents Connections: Kentucky Derby ‘Kisses’ For Santana

It just feels right that a Derby horse whose name translates to “kisses” has an origin story filled with so much love; love of the horse, love of the sport, and love for one especially strong little girl. When O Besos enters the starting gate beneath the Twin Spires this Saturday, he'll have more people rooting for him than only those listed in the program.

The story begins in 1993 at Trinity Meadows, a now-defunct racetrack located just west of Dallas. A filly named With A Splash was entered in a $2,500 claiming race, and horseman Carl Potts took notice.

Potts convinced his owners, the Hall family, to claim the filly, hoping to breed the granddaughter of Roberto. The claim was voided when With A Splash broke down during the running of the race, but Potts bought her anyway.

It proved a shrewd decision — With A Splash foaled nine winners from 11 starters, four of which earned $100,000 or more.

The best of her foals was Snuggs and Kisses. Sired by Soto, the filly was born in 2007. By this point, Potts' daughter was three years old and had already survived more than most people endure in an entire lifetime.

Her mother was 40 when she became pregnant, and an amniocentesis when she was just three months along showed the presence of an extra chromosome. Potts remembers being horrified when the hospital performing the procedure wrote them a prescription for an abortion.

Instead, Santana Love Potts was born six months later, healthy and happy.

“When people see this little girl, she's opened a lot of eyes,” Potts said, becoming emotional. “I've never been married, and I never had peace of mind until this little girl came along.”

Santana Love Potts, the namesake behind O Besos' dam, Snuggs and Kisses

When Santana was just 12 months old, Potts noticed small dark spots along the insides of her wrists. A visit to the doctor revealed that she was suffering from leukemia.

“We went from the doctor's appointment straight upstairs and lived in the hospital for a year,” said Potts. “It was the toughest thing I ever had to do.”

St. Jude's Children's Hospital treated Santana with the most intense regimen available at the time, for upwards of 96 hours at a time. All that time, Potts spent every moment he wasn't taking care of his horses at Santana's side. When she turned two, doctors finally declared her to be in remission.

“This little girl,” Potts said, his voice wavering, “you know, you get a horse ready to run, take them over to the paddock and send them out, and that horse might let you down. But this little girl, she's never let me down.”

Santana loved helping her daddy at the farm, especially bringing the young horses in from the field. She and that daughter of Soto met in 2008, when the yearling filly would allow Santana to “ride” on her back as she was led in from the field.

Potts named that filly Snuggs and Kisses in Santana's honor.

“Santana likes to snuggle and give everybody kisses,” he explained.

A big filly, Snuggs and Kisses showed she'd need a little extra time before entering training, so the Hall Family gave her to Potts. He turned her out for several months, allowing the filly time for her growth plates to close.

In her third career start, Snuggs and Kisses ran third in a maiden special weight at Churchill Downs. It was that race that made Kentucky native Dr. Barrett Bernard stand up and take notice.

An emergency room physician and graduate of the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Bernard first fell in love with horse racing through his father, who particularly loved harness racing. Though the man worked banker's hours (including Saturdays), he always made time to take his son to the local OTB on Kentucky Derby day.

Bernard had gotten into a few small partnerships after his residency training was completed, but as he began to ease back on medicine — from 100 hours a week to something more reasonable, like 60 — he wanted to spend more time enjoying his passion for horse racing.

“It's my relaxation time,” said Bernard. “I like to go out and watch my horses train, and of course to see them race. It's like a mini-vacation.

“I actually have a son that I just can't watch races with; he's jumping up and down, slapping the program against his hand. My friends always say, 'Why don't you get more excited?' But as an E.R. doc, you have to be even-keeled. You can't be up one minute, then doom-and-gloom the next, so I just sit back and enjoy the race my way.”

Potts hesitated to sell even part of Snuggs and Kisses, knowing there was more to the mare than she'd shown on the track at that point. However, with Santana's medical bills and the always-challenging economics of a small-time trainer, it was hard to turn down Bernard's offer.

At first, Bernard bought half of Snuggs and Kisses for $25,000. Still a bit immature mentally, the filly finished off the board once before running a good third at Tampa and a fourth at Keeneland.

Eventually Potts relented and allowed Bernard to buy out the second half of the filly.

“I told him then, 'I want you to remember that Carl Potts sold you the best horse you ever had,'” the trainer remembered.

In her very next start, Snuggs and Kisses broke her maiden for a $50,000 tag.at Churchill Downs. She would go on to win 12 of her 32 starts, finishing on the board 21 times and earning $288,020. She may not have won a stakes race, but in her final start in February of 2013 at six years of age, Snuggs and Kisses defeated millionaire and Grade 1 winner Daisy Devine by a head at Fair Grounds.

“She could really run,” said Bernard, 72. “She gave us so many thrills, I wouldn't have sold her for any amount of money.”

Though Bernard had never previously owned a broodmare or bred a Thoroughbred, he couldn't bear to let Snuggs and Kisses go, so he decided to breed her himself. He still has just the one broodmare.

“She has a home for life,” Bernard said. “And the fact that he named her for his daughter, that just makes her even more special. She still loves carrots, I go out to Knuckles Farm in Midway and feed her once a month or so.”

As it turns out, Snuggs and Kisses was an even better broodmare than her dam.

Her 2014 son by Stormy Atlantic, Transatlantic Kiss, is a stakes-placed earner of $203,516. Her 2016 colt by Central Banker has earned $162,418 thus far.

“She's gold,” Bernard said. “It doesn't matter what I breed her to, she just throws runners.”

Now, her 2018 son by Orb is taking Bernard and family to the Kentucky Derby.

O Besos ran fourth in the G2 Risen Star and was an impressive late-closing third in the G2 Louisiana Derby for trainer Greg Foley.

“No matter what happens, this has been such a blessing,” Bernard said. “In all seriousness, he really can be there at the end. He'll do his best.

“Even small people in the Thoroughbred industry can get lucky and make it big occasionally. That's what I've thought my whole life; I just didn't think I'd be the one to do it.”

O Besos will have his fans cheering for him from outside the track, as well, and likely a few extra kisses blown toward him on the television screen.

“I'm not really a gambling person, but I could put $100 on the horse,” Potts said, laughing. “I'll be watching the race with Santana, cheering him home.”

O Besos training for the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs

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