Sierra Leone Favored in Derby Future Wager

Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), winner of the GII Risen Star S., was the 7-1 favorite when Pool 5 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager closed Sunday evening. Last year's 2-year-old champion Fierceness (City of Light) was second choice at 9-1.

“All Other 3-Year-Olds” closed as the 11-1 third betting option. Japan's G3 Saudi Derby winner Forever Young (Jpn) (Reel Steel {Jpn}) (12-1); GII Rebel S. winner Timberlake (Into Mischief) (12-1); GII Fountain of the Youth S. winner Dornach (Good Magic) (13-1); GIII Gotham S. winner Deterministic (Liam's Map) (16-1); allowance winner Conquest Warrior  (City of Light) (16-1); and GIII Southwest S. winner Mystik Dan (Goldencents) (16-1) were next in the open betting pool.

In the lone Kentucky Oaks Future Wager, which was conducted concurrently with the KDFW Pool 5, 'TDN Rising Star' Impel (Quality Road) closed as the 7-1 favorite over champion 2-year-old filly Just F Y I (Justify), who was 8-1.

Betting on all future wagers over the three-day period was $458,269.

Total handle for the KDFW pool was $334,581 ($246,076 in the win pool and $85,506 in exactas). Betting on the Oaks Future Wager totaled $69,717 ($48,334 in the win pool and $21,384 in exactas). The Oaks/Derby Double, which requires bettors to correctly select the winners of both the races, handled $53,971.

Through the first four pools, a total of $1,676,353 has been bet on Derby future wagers, a 16% increase from last year's $1,444,099.

The year's sixth and final Kentucky Derby Future Wager pool runs from Apr. 4 through Apr. 6.

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Sierra Leone Individual Favorite in Derby Future Pool

Sierra Leone (Gun Runner), who captured the GII Risen Star S. Saturday, was the 6-1 individual favorite when the Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool 4 closed Sunday evening. The pari-mutuel field of 'all other 3-year-olds' closed as the 5-1 favorite.

Other horses who attracted interest from bettors: Dornoch (Good Magic) (9-1), the GII Remsen S. winner and full-brother to 2023 Derby winner Mage; GI Champagne S. winner Timberlake (Into Mischief) (15-1); GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile third Locked (Gun Runner) (16-1); and champion 2-year-old Fierceness (City of Light) (16-1).

Total handle for the Feb. 16-18 KDFW pool–the fourth of six scheduled wagering pools in advance of this year's Derby–was $408,422 ($309,393 in the Win pool and $99,029 in Exactas). That was a 20% increase from last year's $340,880 ($259,489 in the Win pool and $81,391 in Exactas).

Through the first four pools, a total of $1,218,084 has been bet on Derby future wagers, a 26% surge from last year's $964,540.

Other Future Wager dates are set for Mar. 15-17 (Pool 5) and Apr. 4-6 (Pool 6). The lone Kentucky Oaks Future Wager will coincide with Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool 5.

For the complete Pool 4 betting field, visit  KentuckyDerby.com/FutureWager.

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The Week in Review: From Out of New Orleans Gloaming, Sierra Leone Splashes into Derby Relevance

'TDN Rising Star' Sierra Leone (Gun Runner) checked off quite a few boxes on his GI Kentucky Derby development checklist with Saturday's half-length score in the GII Risen Star S. at Fair Grounds. In just his third career start, he handled shipping away from his home base, winning as the 5-2 favorite off an 11-week layoff, rating from mid-pack while equipped with blinkers for the first time, and racing under the lights on a sloppy, sealed and eerily shadowy track.

And yet, jockey Tyler Gaffalione still believes there's room for improvement–which is exactly what you want to hear if you fancy the chances of this $2.3-million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale-topper on the first Saturday in May.

“He's a very special horse. We haven't even gotten close to the bottom of him,” Gaffalione told FanDuel TV's Caton Bredar post-win. “He's still learning. He's still green. You can see when he made the lead, he still wanted to lug in a little bit. But [he was] much more professional today. He honestly didn't hit his best stride until the gallop-out.”

After winning his one-turn-mile debut Nov. 4 at Aqueduct, trainer Chad Brown tried Sierra Leone in the Dec. 2 GII Remsen S., where the colt uncorked a sweeping, seven-wide move over a muddy surface that produced a heavily speed-slanted bias (five wire-to-wire and five on-the-pace winners). Sierra Leone sling-shotted to the lead, but bore in once it looked like he'd blow past Dornoch (Good Magic), who clawed back to the lead to win in the shadow of the wire.

It was an unfortunate loss-of-focus result for Sierra Leone, but Brown shrugged off the second-place finish and immediately suggested he'd equip the colt with blinkers to start his sophomore season.

The blinkers weren't intended to suddenly transform this deep closer into a speed freak. But on Saturday the equipment change did make a mid-pack trip easier to attain under the patient Gaffalione.

The second-favorite in the Risen Star, the 3-1 Track Phantom (Quality Road), was sent to the lead as expected, and Joel Rosario was able to milk a moderate tempo at the head of affairs, splashing through catch-me-if-you-can splits of :24.32, :25.35 and :25.07 for the first three quarter-miles of the nine-furlong race.

As a come-from-behinder, Sierra Leone might end up being one of those Derby hopefuls who is always going to be at the mercy of the pace and potential traffic. Three-eighths out, it became apparent that trying to reel in a relatively untaxed Track Phantom would be a good test of Sierra Leone's ability to overcome exactly that sort of adversity.

Going into the Risen Star, Track Phantom had won three straight two-turn races while controlling the cadence and then having to swat back legitimate stretch challenges, and he turned for home in the New Orleans gloaming still looking strong with the additional benefit of having taken no kickback at the front of the slop-spattered pack.

Sierra Leone takes a long while to unwind, but there was no panic in Gaffalione's tactics as he let his colt build momentum starting three-eighths out. Turning for home, Gaffalione was still content to be choosy about picking his path, spinning four-, six-, eight- and then nine wide for the drive, exchanging all that lost real estate for being able to get a clear shot at the hard-trying Track Phantom.

Sierra Leone was still four lengths in arrears at the eighth pole. But he sliced that margin in half a sixteenth from the finish while edging inward toward Catching Freedom (Constitution) and then Track Phantom despite left-handed urging from Gaffalione to stay straight.

With the line looming, Gaffalione knew he had Track Phantom zeroed in on his striking sights 50 yards from home, and Sierra Leone seemed to relish the task of inhaling that rival, striding out powerfully to stop the timer in 1:52.13.

Don't judge Sierra Leone's effort by that raw final clocking on a quagmire of a track that got more sluggish after sunset. By .66 seconds, it was the slowest Risen Star in six runnings (including split divisions in 2020) since the Risen Star got elongated to nine furlongs from 1 1/16 miles five years ago.

The winning Beyer Speed Figure came back as 90, which is more or less on par with the 91 Sierra Leone earned in the Remsen.

The timing to take note of out of the Risen Star is the fourth quarter clocked in :24.66.

For comparison, of the nine points-awarding Derby qualifying stakes run at 1 1/8 miles during the entire 2022-23 campaign, only one of those races (the GI Santa Anita Derby in early April) yielded a sub-25 seconds fourth quarter.

And the final furlong, during which Sierra Leone gained 2 1/2 lengths to win, was clocked in a respectable (given the course conditions) :12.73.

The Apr. 6 GI Toyota Blue Grass S. at Keeneland will be next for Sierra Leone.

“What we had planned on win or lose–but assuming a good race–is to use the Blue Grass as our Kentucky Derby prep,” Brown said after the Feb. 17 win. “So things went well today and we'll stick to that, but having the points is a nice-to-have in case there's a rough trip or something doesn't go according to plan in the Blue Grass.”

History could be on Sierra Leone's side in the Blue Grass. The last six times Brown has started a horse in that stakes, the results have been two wins, three close seconds, and a third.

But another recent angle–winning the Kentucky Derby off of just two starts at age three–could pose a historical hurdle.

After that game plan produced eight Derby winners between 2007 and 2016, horses with only two sophomore starts prior to trying their luck in Louisville have been a collective 0-for-39 since 2017.

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Frank Taylor Joins TDN Writers’ Room Podcast

Frank Taylor, the director of new business and development for Taylor Made, knew that there was an acute labor shortage in Kentucky, with farms unable to find reliable help. But Taylor thought he had a solution. Identify those who were struggling with substance abuse problems, put them into a recovery program and, when they are ready, teach them horsemanship skills that can make them candidates for jobs throughout the industry. Thus, Taylor created Stable Recovery, a rehabilitation program, and the Taylor Made School of Horsemanship.

What he didn't know at the time was whether or not farms would be willing to take a chance on individuals that had been in prison and/or struggled with drug addiction. He soon found out. His programs have been embraced in the Lexington area and several graduates have landed steady jobs and have moved on to meaningful lives.

Taylor joined this week's TDN Writers' Room podcast presented by Keeneland to talk about his programs and their many success stories. He was this week's Green Group Guest of the week.

Taylor said he arrived at the idea of starting the program when confronting his own alcoholism.

“Once I did it and quit, I started feeling better,” he said. “I was having more fun than I've ever had. It was that that kind of spurred me on to start the School of Horsemanship. It was going to be a 90-day program to teach the basics of horsemanship, to get people started off at, say, a groom level, either for Taylor Made or another farm. I had kind of a tough sales job. I went to my brothers and said, 'I've got this idea, I want to bring in a bunch of heroin addicts and alcoholics and felons in here to work with these horses.' They were looking at me like I had two heads. I just wanted a chance to make it work. They were reluctant because there were a lot of concerns. But here we are, 3 1/2 years into it. We have had a hiccup here or there, but not many. I really think we have changed a lot of lives. We've introduced a lot of people to the horse business and trained a lot of people. The results have been amazing.”

The program has been so successful that Taylor would like to expand, but, for now, it's a matter of one step at a time.

“If we wanted to have 500 people in this program by the end of the year, that wouldn't be a problem,” he said. “We need the space, money and management. The need for something like this is way beyond what we can serve at this point and always will be. It's just such a crisis and a terrible situation. It's destroying society, is destroying families. It's just absolutely one of the worst epidemics in the history of mankind. The beautiful thing is, is we have that huge problem and that we have a huge problem with labor in this country. If you blend those two together, they can help solve each other.”

It's been proven that working with horses can solve all kinds of problems for people, whether that be soldiers suffering from PTSD or individuals with drug issues. Taylor knows that the horses deserve a lot of the credit for the success of these programs.

“The horses, they are like the secret sauce for stable recovery,” Taylor said. “That's something we have that other recovery places don't have. I was born into the horse business and I love horses and they're my passion. But I didn't really realize how therapeutic horses were or understand that part of it until I started seeing people that are broken interacting with those horses and seeing the peace and joy that comes to them immediately. It's just an amazing thing.”

In the stallion spotlight segments, the podcast featured Coolmore's Corniche, who stands for just $15,000. The focus was also on Improbable, who stands at WinStar Farm for a fee of $15,000.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Coolmore, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association,https://www.kentuckybred.org/https://www.nyrabets.com/ 1/ST Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds, https://www.winstarfarm.com/and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss, Bill Finley and Zoe Cadman delved back into the Bob Baffert ban at Churchill Downs, which also extends to the GI Kentucky Oaks, which means the impressive winner of the GIII Las Virgenes S. Kinza (Carpe Diem) will be shut out. Moss agreed that the Derby week races might deserve an asterisk if Baffert's horses are all banned, but he argued that it's not too late for Churchill to change its mind and to lift the Baffert ban. The team took a look at the GII Risen Star S., to be run this Saturday at the Fair Grounds and all agreed it will be by far the deepest Derby prep run so far this year.

For the podcast video, click here. For audio only, click here.

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