Tommy Drury | Horse Racing Free Tips

‘Really Strong Favorite’ Art Collector Draws Post Four Of Full Field For Ellis Park Derby

The field was set Thursday for Sunday's first-ever Kentucky Derby prep staged at Ellis Park, with Keeneland's Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass winner Art Collector heading the thirteen 3-year-old colts and geldings entered in the $200,000 RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby.

“It's Art Collector and all the rest,” said trainer Tom Amoss, who will try to pull off the upset with Grade 3 Ohio Derby victor Dean Martini. “You've got a really strong favorite in this race, and I think everyone will measure the quality of their horse with how they perform against him.”

The Ellis Park Derby, which was instituted in 2018 as a mile race, anchors a five-stakes program that also includes the $100,000 RUNHAPPY Audubon Oaks for 3-year-old fillies, which offers 10 points to its winner toward qualifying for the Kentucky Oaks; $100,000 Groupie Doll Stakes for older fillies and mares; $100,000 RUNHAPPY Juvenile for 2-year-olds; and $100,000 RUNHAPPY Debutante for 2-year-old fillies.

The 1 1/8-mile Ellis Park Derby carries 50 points to the winner toward qualifying for the COVID-delayed Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5. Also earning qualifying points will be the runner-up (20), third place (10) and fourth (5).

Art Collector drew post 4 as he seeks to go to 4 for 4 since being turned over to trainer Tommy Drury this year. Thanks to the Blue Grass' 100 points, owner-breeder Bruce Lunsford's colt already has enough points to ensure a spot in the 20-horse Kentucky Derby field, with Drury using the Ellis Park Derby as a conditioning tool rather than training the eight weeks up to America's most important race.

“His first couple of wins, he just ran off the screen both times, certainly didn't have to overexert himself,” Drury said of Art Collector. “The Blue Grass, he had to earn it; that filly (Swiss Skydiver) made him work for it. Watching that race and evaluating the race afterward, I felt one more was going to be beneficial to him. I'm just really thankful that spot at Ellis is available. We were late getting to the party and we've needed every little thing to fall in place to get him to this point. For Ellis to have a Derby prep this year was a lifesaver to us.”

Other leading contenders include Grade 3 Indiana Derby winner Shared Sense (post 12); Anneau d'Or (post 2), the Breeders' Cup Juvenile runner-up and most recently fourth in the Santa Anita Derby; Grand Prairie Derby winner Little Menace (post 6), and last year's Ellis Park Juvenile winner Rowdy Yates (post 8).

Shared Sense could be on the Derby qualifying bubble points-wise, collecting 20 for winning the Grade 3 Indiana Derby in his graded-stakes debut. Godolphin's son of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense faced Art Collector two races back, when Art Collector controlled the speed for a dominant win over Shared Sense in a four-horse Churchill Downs allowance field.

“First time we ran against him here, we were at the back of the pack, there was no pace,” said Brad Cox, Shared Sense's trainer. “I was pleased with the effort. They almost broke the track record; the track was quick. Honestly, we were the second-best horse that day. He bounced out of it in good shape. We turned our attention to the Indiana Derby and it worked out extremely well. Obviously the other horse went on to pick off a Grade 2 at Keeneland very impressively. Both horses seem to be going the right way right now, and I'm excited about Sunday.”

Saturday's $1 million, Grade 1 Travers Stakes at Saratoga, where Belmont Stakes winner Tiz the Law looms as the big favorite, also was a possibility for Shared Sense.

“If we're dreaming about the Derby, I think with my horse I would be comfortable trying to get a nice mile-and-an-eighth race into him four weeks before the Derby as opposed to a mile and a quarter at Saratoga,” Cox said. “That's a pretty demanding course, and that's a big ask four weeks before you're hopefully going to run the biggest race of your life.”

Because he wasn't nominated earlier in the year, Godolphin would have to pay $45,000 to make Shared Sense a supplemental nominee to the Kentucky Derby, on top of entry fees.

The same is true for Dean Martini, who was claimed by his owners Raise the BAR Racing out of a $50,000 maiden-claiming race May 17. The gelding actually started his career with a second at Ellis Park but needed seven more attempts to win, albeit while accumulating three seconds and three thirds. Dean Martini won the Ohio Derby in his second start for his new connections.

“We need to know if he can validate his Ohio Derby performance,” Amoss said. “It was a very good race, but is he consistently the kind of horse who can put in those kinds of performances? We need to find out, and we're going to do that on Sunday. Obviously with a horse like Art Collector in there, it will validate one way or the other where we need to head for our next race.”

If the Ellis Park Derby is a first for the racetrack as far as being a Kentucky Derby prep race, count Cox among those hoping that it's also the last.

“Unless we start running at Ellis earlier in the year,” he joked. “I hate to say it, but hopefully it's a one-time thing. I like the Derby in May, not September. “

Still, Cox believes the 2020 running is a great start in entrenching the Ellis Park Derby among the regional Derbys that populate racing after what normally is the Triple Crown.

“West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Oklahoma — There are a lot of Derbys out there,” he said. “There's definitely a spot on the calendar where Kentucky could have a nice 3-year-old race like the Ellis Park Derby and it become a graded event. Hopefully this is the start of something bigger and better for the Ellis Park Derby.”

RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby
Purse: $200,000. Post time: Sunday at 5:10 p.m. CT (10th race). Distance: 1 1/8 miles. Division: 3-year-olds.
PP horse (weight) trainer/jockey

Trident Hit (118) Brendan Walsh/Corey Lanerie
Anneau d'Or (118) Blaine Wright/Tyler Baze
Sprawl (118) Bill Mott/Julien Leparoux
Art Collector (122) Tommy Drury/Brian Hernandez Jr.
Necker Island (118) Chris Hartman/Mitchell Murrill
Little Menace (120) Steve Asmussen/ Martin Garcia
Truculent (118) Jack Sisterson/Adam Beschizza
Rowdy Yates (118) Steve Asmussen/Shaun Bridgmohan
Dean Martini (122) Tom Amoss/James Graham
Attachment Rate (118) Dale Romans/Joe Talamo
Winning Impressions (118) Dallas Stewart/Joe Rocco
Shared Sense (122) Brad Cox/Florent Geroux
(AE) Rogue Element (118) Dale Romans/Miguel Mena
**(AE) Also eligible – needs scratch to run

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Drury ‘Hit The Lottery’ With Ellis Park Derby Favorite Art Collector

When Tommy Drury runs Keeneland's Toyota Blue Grass winner Art Collector in Sunday's $200,000 RUNHAPPY Ellis Park Derby, the trainer might be in unchartered water but he's very familiar with the route to get there.

During a training career that began almost 30 years ago, Drury has made the 284-mile round trip from his Oldham County base to Ellis Park countless times. Ditto the 176 miles to and from Cincinnati's Belterra Park, 250 loop up and back from Indiana Grand, 700 miles for West Virginia's Mountaineer Park, 735 round trip from Ohio's Mahoning Valley.

But never has Drury made the trek with a horse who is one of the favorites for the Kentucky Derby, whose four-month COVID-created delay to Sept. 5 made it possible for Ellis Park to stage a prep race for the Derby for the first time in the track's 98-year history.

“Gosh, I think the second horse I ever raced ran at Ellis Park,” the second-generation trainer said. “I've been going there my entire life. Winning the Blue Grass at Keeneland, normally when I go into Keeneland our goal is just to win a race. And for Ellis to have a Derby prep and to be a part of that, it's kind of my people, if you will. These are the tracks that I normally race at. To be able to go to these places and run in their big races, it's a lot of fun.”

Owned by breeder and Louisville businessman Bruce Lunsford, Art Collector already is in the Kentucky Derby, thanks to the 100 qualifying points he earned in winning last month's Grade 2, $600,000 Toyota Blue Grass by 3 1/2 lengths over the impressive filly Swiss Skydiver. The 1 1/8-mile Ellis Park Derby offers 50 points to the winner, but for Art Collector is simply a tool in his preparation to get to the Kentucky Derby in the best condition possible to run 1 1/4 miles. Art Collector's regular rider is Brian Hernandez Jr., the 2012 Ellis Park meet leader.

Drury has been around a lot of top-caliber horses, but mostly he was getting 2-year-olds ready or bringing horses back off layoffs for other trainers. The Blue Grass was Drury's first victory in a graded stakes, those designated as America's best races. In fact, he's only even run in 12 other graded stakes. Drury, shipping around from his base at the Skylight training center in Goshen, has run in a slew of non-graded stakes, with 13 wins. While the Ellis Park Derby is not graded, it would be his second-most lucrative race to win.

The lifelong Louisvillian is determined to not only enjoy the ride but to make sure his crew at Skylight and Churchill Downs enjoy it as well.

“We've always been the guys behind the scenes,” Drury said Wednesday after Art Collector trained at Skylight. “A lot of the Grade 1 winners we've had here, a lot of people don't know we were ever associated with them. And that's our job, that's what we do. We're certainly happy to do that. Now all of a sudden it's our name, and we get to be the ones to lead one over there and we get to kind of be involved at this level. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun for all of us. These guys work really hard, and they deserve a lot of credit for our success.”

Among the horses Drury had before they went to more high-profile trainers are Lunsford's Grade 1-winning millionaire Madcap Escapade (trained by Frank Brothers), current leading older horse Tom's d'Etat (Al Stall Jr.), Grade 1 winner Lea (Bill Mott) and 2-year-old champion Hansen (Mike Maker).

“It's nice to be able to play the game at that level, even if it's for a short period of time,” Drury said. “Just the education of having horses like that, all of a sudden Art Collector comes into my life and I felt that I've got a pretty good handle of what I need to be doing on a day-to-day basis to have him compete at this level.”

Art Collector started his career last year racing on grass (getting his first win at Kentucky Downs) before sprinting on dirt, going to Drury in January to get back in shape after some time off. The plan was for Art Collector to go another trainer for his 3-year-old season. However because of the havoc the pandemic was having on racetracks, Lunsford asked Drury — insulated at Skylight with uninterrupted training — to go on and prepare Art Collector for his return to racing in May. After he won an allowance race for keeps at seven-eighths of a mile, Lunsford simply kept the horse with Drury. He's now 3-for-3 with Art Collector, including a 6 1/2-length second-level allowance victory at 1 1/16 miles over Indiana Derby winner Shared Sense, whom he'll meet again Sunday.

“Bruce was kind enough to leave him with us and give us an opportunity of a lifetime,” Drury said. “It's certainly not something that's taken for granted. We know how we got the horse, and we just want to make the most of it and try to remember to enjoy it while we're here.”

If not for COVID, Drury wouldn't have the horse, and even if he did, Art Collector wouldn't have been in the Kentucky Derby on its original May 2 date.

“I was joking with someone the other day; this horse was a 'half-mile fit' the first Saturday in May,” Drury said. “There was zero chance. You couldn't even consider the Derby if it had been on its normal schedule. Even with the Derby being pushed back, we were still in a situation where we absolutely needed everything to go just our way. In horse racing, more often than not, that doesn't happen. It's kind of been, 'Gosh, this horse could maybe get us there' but in the back of your mind, you're always thinking 'how often does everything go perfect?'

“I think that's taken a little bit of the pressure off. I knew the water was going to get deep in the Blue Grass. He passed that test and then you immediately work backward from the Derby. You need that next race; you need that next start. You look up, and here's the Ellis race. Hopefully we can just ride this out a little longer and keep things falling into place the way they have. It's almost like the stars aligned for us.”

Now he just has to hope the stars stay that way for another four weeks. Especially for a lifelong Louisvillian, this happy turn of events is a bit mind-boggling, with Drury acknowledging a lot of nights lying awake “staring at the ceiling.”

He says at age 28, “you're thinking about winning Kentucky Derbys and Breeders' Cups every day.” By the time he reached 48, Drury knew the hard reality probably was that something would “have to fall between the cracks” to even get a shot.

“I compare it to hitting the lottery,” he said. “You think about what it would be like to hit the lottery, and you think about how you would react and what you would do. For me, growing up in Louisville, you look at the Kentucky Derby the same way. You watch it from afar every year and you're a fan of horse racing. The horses and the people who are involved, to all of a sudden see your horse in your name and that race being mentioned, gosh, you just can't find the words to describe it. It's a dream come true.”

Entries will be taken and post positions drawn for the Ellis Park Derby on Thursday.

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Art Collector Breezes Half-Mile At Churchill In Ellis Park Derby Prep

On a soggy Saturday morning at Churchill Downs, several likely contenders for the $3-million Kentucky Derby (Grade I) and $1.25 million Kentucky Oaks (GI) recorded published workouts over the “muddy” going, including Bruce Lunsford's Blue Grass Stakes (GII) winner Art Collector (four furlongs in :48.80) and Peter Callahan's multiple graded stakes-winning filly Swiss Skydiver (five furlongs, 1:01).

Other possible Kentucky Derby contenders that recorded breezes on Saturday were John Oxley's $200,000 Lecomte (GIII) hero Enforceable (five furlongs, 1:02.60); Lloyd Madison Farm's $300,000 Indiana Derby (GIII) runner-up Major Fed (four furlongs, :50.20); and Jackie Rojas, Wayne Scherr and Raymond Daniels' likely $200,000 Ellis Park Derby contender Necker Island (four furlongs, :47.80).

It was a busy morning for jockey Brian Hernandez Jr., who worked both Swiss Skydiver and Art Collector. Hernandez got the leg up on Swiss Skydiver around 5:30 a.m. (all times Eastern) and the filly worked through fractions of :13.40, :26.40 and :38.20. She finished her workout with a six-furlong gallop out in 1:14.20, according to Churchill Downs clocker John Nichols.

“She worked really good and handled the muddy surface well,” Hernandez said. “She's a very talented filly as we saw in the Blue Grass how well she handled running against the boys. She cruised along out there this morning.”

Trainer Kenny McPeek reported that Swiss Skydiver would ship to Saratoga and run in the $600,000 Alabama (GI) on Saturday, Aug. 15. Although a moot point in the case of Swiss Skydiver, who is automatically qualified for the Kentucky Oaks with 350 points, the Alabama will offer the Top 4 finishers points on a 100-40-20-10 scale for the Sept. 4 event.

About two hours later, Hernandez jumped aboard $600,000 Blue Grass Stakes hero Art Collector, who clipped through opening fractions of :12.80 and :24.60 for his half-mile drill. The son of Bernardini galloped out five furlongs in 1:01.20 and six furlongs in 1:14.80.

“It's so nice to have a horse who is versatile and can really run over any surface,” trainer Tommy Drury said. “He did everything very easily this morning and it was really just a perfect work. We are still taking things one day at a time. We just have to get there and we're keeping our fingers crossed.”

Drury reported the plan is to still point to next Sunday's Ellis Park Derby as Art Collector's final prep for the first Saturday in September.

One of the first horses to record a workout this morning at Churchill Downs was Enforceable. Sporting blinkers, which he's worn since breaking his maiden last August, the striking gray son of Tapit worked in company on the outside of 3-year-old maiden Ghost Fighter. Enforceable, under jockey Declan Carroll, started about two lengths behind his stablemate and worked through fractions of :12.80, :25.60 and :38.40. Enforceable finished about a half-length to the good at the wire but continued in front through a six-furlong gallop out of 1:15.80 and finished his work with a seven-furlong time of 1:29.60.

“I was very happy with how he worked this morning,” said 21-year-old Carroll, whose father, David, oversees trainer Mark Casse's Churchill Downs string. “He did everything in stride. I was just the pilot.”

Casse was not in town for the work but reported via text following watching a short video of his stretch run, “I really like what I'm seeing.”

About five minutes after Enforceable completed his work, Major Fed recorded his first published move since running second in the July 8 Indiana Derby. Under exercise rider Lindsey Hebert, Major Fed swiftly began his breeze at the three-eighths pole with opening fractions of :12.60 and :37.60. The son of Ghostzapper continued his work around the clubhouse turn and completed a six-furlong gallop out in 1:03.60.

“We gave him a little time off following the Indiana Derby but he's been training pretty steady for a couple of weeks now,” trainer Greg Foley said. “This was his first work back and he handled things very well. It wasn't one of those works where he needed to do much and he looked really comfortable out there.”

Major Fed, who sat No. 16 on the Road to the Kentucky Derby Leaderboard with 38 points prior to Saturday's action in the $100,000 Shared Belief (GII) at Del Mar, will forgo running in the Ellis Park Derby and point straight to the Kentucky Derby.

Currently No. 32 on the leaderboard, Indiana Derby fourth-place finisher and former $100,000 claim Necker Island worked at 7:30 a.m. under Joe Johnson for trainer Chris Hartman.

Indiana Derby winner Shared Sense is scheduled to work Sunday at Churchill Downs. The Brad Cox-trained colt has 20 points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby and is a likely entrant to next Sunday's Ellis Park Derby.

Arkansas Derby (GI) runner-up King Guillermo continued his training Saturday at Churchill Downs. The colt had an easy gallop around 5:30 a.m.

There are four races remaining on the Road to the Kentucky Derby: Saturday's Shared Belief (50-20-10-5); Aug. 8 Travers (100-40-20-10); Aug. 9 Ellis Park Derby (50-20-10-5); and Aug. 15 Pegasus (20-8-4-2). On the Road to the Kentucky Oaks, there are three remaining races: Saturday's Monmouth Oaks (50-20-10-5); Aug. 9 Audubon Oaks (10-4-2-1); and Aug. 15 Alabama (100-40-20-10). For the latest leaderboard updates and more information, visit www.kentuckyderby.com.

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Art Collector Puts In Easy Maintenance Drill Ahead Of Aug. 9 Runhappy Ellis Park Derby

Bruce Lunsford's 3-year-old Art Collector, winner of Keeneland's Grade 2 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes in his last start, worked an easy half-mile in 49 seconds Saturday morning at Churchill Downs in preparation for the $200,000 Runhappy Ellis Park Derby on Aug. 9. Regular jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. was aboard.

Trainer Tommy Drury said by phone that he shipped Art Collector to Churchill Downs because the track at his Skylight Training Center base in Oldham County is being resurfaced. He said Art Collector will stay at Churchill Downs until shipping to Ellis Park the morning of the race.

“He's fit; we weren't looking for much today,” Drury said. “Just a little maintenance half-mile, let him stretch his legs a little. Brian said he couldn't have been happier, kind of had his ears thrown up. Just cruised along. I think Big John (Churchill clocker John Nichols) had him galloping out in 1:01 and change. It was really nice, just what I wanted. I think he got off the first eighth-mile in 13 (seconds) and just kind of picked it up from there. He's on the same schedule he's been on. He'll come back and work next Friday or Saturday and that should pretty much set us up for the race.”

“Everything was good,” Hernandez said. “Just a maintenance move, nice and smooth.”

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