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Flippant Gives Vicki Oliver Another Saturday Stakes Win At Ellis

In the first running of the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Dueling Grounds Oaks, Flippant and jockey Rafael Bejarano upset the field to give trainer Vicki Oliver yet another win at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky., Saturday.

“I know Flippant was taking a step up off a maiden race, but she was experienced enough to run against this kind of company,” said Oliver, referring to the filly's five prior starts. “We trained the mare (Frivolous), she was a really classy mare. She (Flippant) deserved to be in stakes company, and she proved it.”

After stumbling at the start, Flippant steadied and settled well off the pace, leaving Stillchargingmaria to set a representative pace followed loosely by Takntothecleaners. By the top of the stretch, Caldee and Flippant engaged each other with Flippant gaining the ultimate advantage by a half-length.

“This horse ran a tremendous race today,” said Bejarano, who was aboard on Flippant's three-length maiden victory at 1 1/4 miles. “Today, there was a lot of speed. The track played really fair today for horses that came from behind. We had a beautiful trip after having a bad break from the gate. I just got her set and tried to get her relaxed. She did good and kept running in the end. Definitely, she was the best horse today.”

Owned and bred by G. Watts Humphrey, the daughter of Tapit improved her record to two wins in five lifetime starts and increased her earnings to $115,109. Flippant went off 3-1 paying $8.20 to win while covering the distance in 1:39.56.

Asked about winning three races, Oliver said: “Oh, it's unbelievable. The last time I won three in a day was at The Meadowlands a long, long time ago (2006), when they had one of those all-day turf days.”

She said winning two stakes in a day was a first.

“Never done that, so that's exciting,” she said. “But these two fillies are really, really nice fillies and so is the filly who won earlier, which I think is a stakes horse as well. So it's fun being loaded-up for Kentucky Downs.”

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Core Values Beats The Boys To Take Kentucky Downs Preview Dueling Grounds Derby

Core Values won her third straight race and this time beat males as BBN Racing's late-running 3-year-old filly got up on the last stride to the $100,000 Kentucky Downs Preview Dueling Grounds Derby by a nose over favored Royal Prince at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky. It was another neck back to pacesetter Modern Science.

“She likes to make it close every time,” said winning trainer Vicki Oliver, who wound up winning three races on the card. “But she seems to get her head in front at the wire.”

Oliver used the turf stakes as a stepping stone to the $500,000 Exacta Systems Dueling Grounds Oaks at 1 5/16 miles on Kentucky Downs' Sept. 5 opening card. While she could have used the $100,000 Kentucky Downs TVG Preview Dueling Grounds Oaks for the same purpose, Oliver wanted the extra sixteenth-mile distance.

“We were thinking about the Pucker Up (at Arlington Park) next weekend,” she said. “But we felt we'd gain a week coming here before Kentucky Downs and half the ship. And a mile and an eighth made more sense than the mile and a sixteenth for fillies. So we decided to run her against the boys.”

Jockey Rafael Bejarano had Core Values back in last in the field of seven 3-year-olds, flying through the stretch to get up by a nod at the finish while covering 1 1/8 miles in 1:46.94 over firm turf. She paid $24.40 as the longest shot on the board.

Core Values earned her first victory on dirt last winter in Tampa. After a pair of double-digit defeats, Oliver put her back on the turf, which the filly had tried in her second start. Core Values reeled off an allowance victory at Indiana Grand and then took Arlington Park's Hatoof Stakes by a head.

“My horse did win the last two times in easy races,” Bejarano said. “She really didn't like it much the last time she ran on the dirt. When she ran on the turf, she looked tremendous. Today, I just wanted to relax in the beginning and make my own ground. By the three-eighths pole, when I had my position, I started to ask her for more and she responded and gave me a good kick. I wanted to make sure we were clear in the stretch. When I came up to the favored horse, I knew we were going to beat him.”

Core Values, a daughter of Honor Code, now is 4-0-0 in eight starts, earning $141,377 with the $60,570 payday.

Oliver said she was confident of a big performance.

“I liked that it was a small enough field, there was enough speed for her and pace for her to close into,” she said. “So I did like our chances. And we had five pounds on the boys. That's a big deal going a mile and an eighth.”

But was Oliver confident at the wire that she'd won?

“I thought we had it the whole way until I walked down here and everybody said, 'I don't think you got it,'” she said. “So yeah, I was until everyone second-guessed that we got there.”

Brian Hernandez Jr., aboard the Brad Cox-trained Royal Prince, said he wasn't sure who'd won the race.

“It was really close,” he said. “Because that horse went by me pretty good, and then my horse took off again like he was going to get back by. We just weren't sure at the wire.”

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A Look Back At Mary Hirsch, Who Opened The Door For Female Trainers At Derby

When Vicki Oliver takes Hidden Stash to the saddling paddock on Saturday, she'll join a select group of trainers in Kentucky Derby history. Oliver will be the first female trainer to start a Derby runner in six years, and only the 17^th in the race's 147-year history. In interviews on the subject, Oliver has made it clear she's not ultra-keen on the female trainer angle – after all, horses don't spend much time fretting about the anatomy of their owners, trainers, or riders, and true horsemanship isn't ordained by chromosomes. In fact, the very first female trainer who blazed a trail for Oliver and others may have felt very much the same way.

The first female trainer to try for the roses came in 1937, well before it was possible for women to be jockeys and before it became routine to see them as exercise riders or grooms. Mary Hirsch was first woman granted a trainer's license in 1935 at the age of 22, after initially being rejected on the basis of her gender.

In just about every contemporary mention of Hirsch in the media, she was immediately introduced with what reporters apparently considered her primary credential to be a trainer – she was the daughter of legendary trainer Max Hirsch. It seems Max Hirsch had hoped his daughter would not fall in love with the family business. Mary Hirsch was sent to prestigious boarding schools and admitted once her father had discouraged her repeatedly from following him into the racetrack life. Despite her characterization by sportswriters though, Mary Hirsch didn't pick up training on the strength of her family's name alone. Her entire life had been a self-guided, rigorous preparation for nothing else. She had spent some of her early years living in a cottage on the grounds of Belmont Park, waking early with her father to help feed his horses and observe workouts. She rode jumpers and learned to gallop as soon as she was big enough, learned to shoe horses and read veterinary texts in her spare time.

When Max Hirsch realized he couldn't dissuade his daughter, he apparently decided to support her in her dream. She apprenticed in his stable for several years, and eventually began training her own string. Bernard Baruch, esteemed New York owner and client of Max, was the first to place horses with her. One account suggested that Baruch, disappointed with the finish of his promising sprinter Captain Argo under Max's conditioning, turned to Mary at the end of one race and asked if she could do better. She said she could, and would make Captain Argo a successful stakes runner. Baruch was one of her chief supporters, but Mary also bought her own runners.

Still, for several years, she had to run those horses in the name of her father or her brother, W.J. “Buddy” Hirsch. She was permitted to do all the preparation – managing horses' health and training schedules, riding them, instructing jockeys — all the regular duties of a trainer until the final minutes before a race when she was not permitted to handle her own horses or receive credit in the program. Her paper training was evidently no secret, as it was reported openly in newspapers.

At last, Mary grew embarrassed at having to give away the credit for her hard work. In 1934 Hirsch requested a license by The Jockey Club, which at the time was the regulatory body for racing in New York. Her application was tabled, (which in this case was formal speak for rejected without having to go through the unpleasantness of rejecting someone), so she sought licensure in Michigan and Illinois. For reasons that were never publicly detailed, she was successful there. She became the first woman to bring a string of horses to run at Hialeah, where she was also successful in being licensed. With a win there by Captain Argo, Hirsch returned to the board in New York, waving her license and asked them for a second time what they thought about a woman training racehorses. This time, the body agreed, which Hirsch said essentially afforded her an automatic in to wherever else she wanted to run.

At the start of 1937, she had built a reputation as an up and comer with a small operation. In 1935, Mary Hirsch had saddled winners of ten races for earnings of $10,365 (more than $200,000 today) and in 1936, she had 17 wins and $18,575 in earnings.

Her Derby hopeful was No Sir, a son of Sortie out of Westy Hogan mare Fib, both of whom were trained by Max Hirsch. Mary purchased the horse from Andy Joiner in the spring of his 2-year-old season and immediately sent him to victory in the East View Stakes. He became the first female-trained entry of the Flamingo Stakes, where he finished second, and was also the first female-trained winner at Saratoga in the Diana Handicap. Ahead of the 1937 Derby, Mary was confident, despite facing a monster in War Admiral.

“With ordinary luck and a good ride my horse can win it,” she told media in late April 1937. “No Sir has worked well since he came to the Downs, and has shown he can go the Derby distance. he has a world of early foot and I think can hold his own in the early stages against War Admiral and Pompoon when the three of them probably will be out there fighting for the lead.

“Yes, sir. No Sir has plenty of heart.”

Max Hirsch evidently did not attend the Derby, wanting Mary to “go it alone.” Mary noted in earlier interviews that while her father asked her for training advice and had at times put his stable in her hands while he traveled, her training decisions with her own horses were independent of his. It was perhaps important to her that she be seen as an independent thinker. The Akron Beacon Journal noted that Max's absence would also let her bask in glory in the winner's circle outside his long shadow.

As racing fans well know however, there was no toppling War Admiral in his 3-year-old prime, and No Sir finished a disappointing 13^th.

Mary Hirsch continued on. She took over the training of Thanksgiving, a promising 3-year-old owned by Anne Corning, after a freakish lightning storm injured several horses in Max Hirsch's barn at Saratoga. In 1938, Mary took the horse to win the Travers in the fastest time since Man o' War. According to racing historian and turfwriter Brien Bouyea however, Mary Hirsch received little to no credit for her record-setting win there, and many papers erroneously reported Max as the trainer.

Hirsch's acceptance by the New York Jockey Club opened doors for others. A 1938 Daily Racing Form note mentioned seven women who had subsequently been granted licensure from New York to Nebraska.

Despite phenomenal success, Hirsch's training career was relatively brief. In 1940, she married Charles McLennan, racing secretary at Hialeah Park, Havre de Grace, Keeneland, Suffolk Downs, Pimlico, and Washington Park. After the wedding, Hirsch turned her horses over to her father and brother and retired. The couple had two children and Hirsch, now McLennan, turned her energies to homemaking. The call of the track proved irresistible however, and in 1949, she returned to the track as an owner when her youngest child entered school. Her father gave her Chinella, a King Ranch yearling whose management Hirsch took on enthusiastically.

There was relatively little coverage of Hirsch's life after that. At the time of her death in 1976, an obituary revealed that she and her husband had bred horses at their Cowpen Farm near their Towson, Md., base until just before his death in 1971.

“Her dad was a tough act to follow,” her son, Charles McLennan Jr., told the Lexington Herald-Leader's Maryjean Wall in 2000. “And she had several brothers prominent in the horse business. It was a man's world at the time.”

After No Sir's run in the Derby, it would be another 12 years before a woman would saddle a Derby horse (Mrs. Albert Roth, as she was billed in official records, whose Senecas Coin did not finish). Dianne Carpenter remains the only woman to have sent runners to the race twice – in 1984 with Biloxi Indian and 1988 with Kingpost.

Shelley Riley remains the best finisher among female trainers after Casual Lies finished second in 1992. Kristin Mulhall sent Imperialism to a third-place finish in 2004 and Kathy Ritvo sent Mucho Macho Man to third in 2011.

It's only a matter of time before a female trainer claims the roses. Whoever manages the task, she will no doubt feel the same way Mary Hirsch did about the profession of training. When asked in an [otherwise uncomfortably misogynistic] interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1937 “What this trainer's life is like for a girl, anyhow,” Hirsch replied with the only true hint the public ever got of her feelings on the 'female trainer' angle.

“For a man or woman … I love it!” she said.

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Derby Notes: Hidden Stash, Like The King Take First Gallops At Churchill Downs

Two of the three final Kentucky Derby entrants to arrive at Churchill Downs on Tuesday got their first feel for the main track beneath the Twin Spires on a humid, overcast Wednesday morning.

Trainer Vicki Oliver had Hidden Stash out for a 1 ½-mile gallop at 7:30 with Like the King galloping a bit more than a mile with exercise rider Jose Hernandez aboard for trainer Wesley Ward.

Brooklyn Strong had a walk day for trainer Danny Velazquez.

BOURBONIC, DYNAMIC ONE, KNOWN AGENDA, SAINTHOOD – The Derby Quartet, a friendly foursome that hopes to play a winning tune Saturday in Kentucky Derby 147, was busy getting in their practice Wednesday morning under the watchful eye of bandleader Todd Pletcher, who doubles as one of America's leading horse trainers.

Three of the colts formed a trio for the 7:30-7:45 special Kentucky Derby/Kentucky Oaks training session in order to get in their licks, each going for a mile and a quarter gallop around the big Churchill Downs oval. Known Agenda played his tunes for rider Hector Ramos, Dynamic One harmonized with Carlos Perez Quevedo and Sainthood and Amelia Green were right in rhythm. At 7:50 their other member, Bourbonic with Ramos crooning, went solo for a similar 10-furlong session.

After training, the Derby quartet had a paddock schooling session.

Pletcher was asked if an impending rain storm in Louisville might cause their sweet notes to be canceled Thursday morning.

“The only way we won't train Thursday is if it's unsafe (lightning) outside,” he said.

So the show will go on.

BROOKLYN STRONG – Mark Schwartz's Brooklyn Strong, who posted his final work Monday morning at Parx before vanning overnight to Churchill Downs, walked the shedrow of barn 41 and is expected to make his first trip to the track Thursday morning Trainer Danny Velazquez arrived in Louisville at 11 a.m. Wednesday to saddle his first Kentucky Derby starter from his Philadelphia base.

ESSENTIAL QUALITY, MANDALOUN – Godolphin's Essential Quality and Juddmonte Farm's Mandaloun galloped 1 ½ miles at 5:15 a.m. for trainer Brad Cox.

The duo were scheduled to school in Race 4 Wednesday.

Cox is counting down the hours until he saddles his first horses in the Kentucky Derby.

“I'm not too nervous yet, just getting excited,” Cox said. “This week is a lot of fun and I'm really excited to be a part of it in this role.”

For Cox, the Derby was a dream growing up in South Louisville. Now, it's turned into a reality which he gets to celebrate with his family. His sons, Blake and Bryson, hold a pivotal role around the barn assisting in training. Cox's youngest son, Brodie, will be at Churchill Downs for the Oaks and Derby.

“It's really special running in these big races and sharing these moments with my sons,” Cox said.

Along with his family, Cox often has a group of his friends who spend time with him at the races. Led by former Campbellsville University Football legends Joe Don Looney and Billy Troutman, Cox's group of friends have been known around the backside as the “Brad Cox Mafia.” Looney and Troutman have been friends with Cox for more than 15 years.

“We like to keep him relaxed and ready for game day,” Looney said.

Cox grew up just blocks from Churchill Downs on Euclid Avenue in the south end of Louisville. If Essential Quality or Mandaloun win Saturday, Cox would be the first Louisville-born trainer to win the Kentucky Derby.

HELIUM, SOUP AND SANDWICH – D J Stable's Helium and Live Oak Plantation's homebred Soup and Sandwich both galloped again Wednesday morning, according to trainer Mark Casse's assistant David Carroll, who said their Tuesday schooling session in the paddock went well also, while indicating his boss will be on the backstretch Thursday morning.

HIDDEN STASH – BBN Racing's Hidden Stash made his first appearance at Churchill Downs since winning an allowance race last Nov. 28 galloping a mile and a half under trainer Vicki Oliver at 7:30 Wednesday morning.

Fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes (G2) in his most recent start, Hidden Stash had been training at his home base at Keeneland since that race and arrived at Churchill Downs Tuesday morning.

With her first Kentucky Derby entrant, the time at Churchill Downs is almost like a vacation for Oliver.

“I usually gallop seven or eight a morning at Keeneland,” said Oliver, who is commuting back and forth to Lexington for the rest of the week. “The 7:30 training window is perfect for us.”

Following training, Hidden Stash had a paddock schooling session at 10 o'clock with plenty of other runners and passed with flying colors.

“I was going to do it on a race day, but with the rain in the forecast, I didn't want to do it then,” Oliver said. “He was good and we don't have to do that again.”

HIGHLY MOTIVATED – Klaravich Stables' Highly Motivated galloped 1 3/8 miles again Wednesday morning during the 7:30-7:45 allotted training time for Derby and Oaks horses and will school in the paddock prior to Wednesday's second race. Trainer Chad Brown said the son of Into Mischief has progressed each day since his final Derby workout this past Saturday, and definitely showed more today in his gallop than Tuesday.

“I like the way he's going, I thought he was moving a little better today,” Brown said. “He had a strong work and now, the second day back galloping out of the breeze, he's loosening up again and looks super. I'm really happy with him.”

Brown, a four-time Eclipse Award winner for Outstanding Trainer (2016-2019), has been on the precipice of a Derby win before, as Normandy Invasion took the lead off the far turn before running fourth in 2013, and Good Magic was second to Triple Crown winner Justify in 2018. Highly Motivated has some similarities, but some differences as well.

“He's also making his third start off the layoff, like both those horses were,” Brown said. “But this horse is a little faster positionally than Normandy Invasion. He broke then split the field when he settled in and moved early. Highly Motivated, I can see getting a better spot than that, but both horses have a quick acceleration.”

HOT ROD CHARLIE – TwinSpires.com Louisiana Derby (G2) winner Hot Rod Charlie was back at it Wednesday morning, smartly galloping a mile and a quarter under exercise rider Jonny Garcia during the special Derby/Oaks training session at 7:30. The well-made son of the 2013 Preakness winner Oxbow had his usual substantial rooting crew looking on, led by horse trainer/impresario Doug O'Neill.

The California-based conditioner has a crew of five right-hand men who oversee his latest Derby threat, including key assistant Leandro Mora as well as equine therapist Tyler Cerin.

Cerin, the 33-year-old son of Vladimir Cerin, a training mainstay on the Southern California circuit, has been practicing his “hands on” horse work for more than a decade and has become a regular around the O'Neill barn. He was there for all of their previous Kentucky Derby capers – I'll Have Another's score in the 2012 Run for the Roses; Goldencents going unplaced in the 2013 edition, and Nyquist proving the hero of the 2016 renewal.

He was asked about Hot Rod Charlie. Has he had to do anything special with the millionaire colt who has run short and long, dirt and turf and there or thereabout every time?

“Not really,” Cerin said. “Nothing special with him. I just make sure all's good with his general well being. He's a pretty straightforward horse.”

Trainer O'Neill was queried about the ever-growing gathering that surrounds “Charlie,” which includes three separate ownership groups, families, friends, newfound friends and folks who want to be their friends, most of them from California.

“They're quite a group,” he offered. “They'll be good for business here in town. By Friday night I expect them to be up around 150 people.”

KEEPMEINMIND – Kentucky Jockey Club winner Keepmeinmind continues to make a favorable impression as he once again galloped strongly over the Churchill track at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. The Laoban colt, who races for the partnership of Cypress Creek Equine, Arnold Bennewith and Spendthrift Farms LLC, is trying to overcome poor starts in the Rebel Stakes (G2) and Blue Grass Stakes (G2) in the Kentucky Derby.

“He's been working really good,” trainer Robertino Diodoro said. “In his first race this year at Oaklawn (Rebel), it was a speed biased track. It wasn't (jockey) David's (Cohen) fault, but he got hung four or five wide and when it looked like he was about to make a move, he just hung. In the Blue Grass, we knew there wasn't much speed so we tried to put him closer to the front. We did, but he didn't do it on his own. David had to force him to lay closer and when it came time to run, he was empty. He's had excuses.

“I think he'll show up to be the real horse on Saturday. It's hard to say I'm confident with a 50-1 shot, but I do think he'll show up. He'll come running.”

KING FURY – Fern Circle Stables and Three Chimneys Farm's King Fury repeated the usual routine established by trainer Kenny McPeek on Wednesday morning. During the period reserved for Kentucky Derby and Oaks horses, the winner of the Lexington (G3) at Keeneland was sent for a maintenance gallop with exercise rider Lalo Jose Quiroz aboard.

“It was a mile-and-a-half, uncomplicated,” said McPeek.

LIKE THE KING – M Racing Group's Like the King galloped a little more than a mile after 9 o'clock with exercise rider Jose Hernandez aboard for trainer Wesley Ward.

Wednesday morning's exercise marked the first time Like the King had been on the track at Churchill Downs. He had arrived Tuesday morning from Ward's main base at Keeneland.

Overseeing Like the King's preparation at Churchill Downs is California trainer Blake Heap who has served as Ward's man on the scene when the trainer doesn't travel.

“His father Dennis had a horse named Do Right by Dudley in 1987 at Turf Paradise,” Heap said of when the working relationship started. “A few years later we started being stabled next to each other and starting helping each other out.”

Ward, who will be starting his first Kentucky Derby runner, has won four Breeders' Cup races with three coming at Santa Anita where Heap oversaw the preparation of the likes of Judy the Beauty and Hootenanny in 2014 as well as other runners Ward has sent to the West Coast over the past 17 years.

MEDINA SPIRIT – Zedan Racing Stables' Medina Spirit went to the track at 7:30 a.m. with Humberto Gomez and galloped about 1 ½ miles while his six-time Kentucky Derby winning trainer Bob Baffert looked on from the main gap.

Baffert is seeking a record seventh Kentucky Derby following Authentic last year, Justify in 2018, America Pharoah in 2015, War Emblem in 2002, and back to back wins with Silver Charm in 1997 and Real Quiet in 1998.

“When I got beat with Cavonnier in 1996, I thought I'd never win a Kentucky Derby,” Baffert said. “Then, I won with Silver Charm and Real Quiet and started thinking this was easy, but then it got lean for a number of years. You just never know when these Derby wins are going to come. I'm just glad to be back here.”

Baffert said Medina Spirit, who has never been worse than second in five career starts, is probably among the top 10 runners in this year's field, but that he wouldn't be surprised to see him put in a top effort.

“The thing about Medina Spirit is he's an overachiever,” Baffert said. “He's a real fighter and if there's a battle, he'll be right there. I wouldn't be surprised if he got a piece of it.”

MIDNIGHT BOURBON, SUPER STOCK – Winchell Thoroughbreds' Midnight Bourbon and Erv Woolsey's and trainer Steve Asmussen's father Keith's Super Stock both hit the track Wednesday morning during the Derby-Oaks training session at 7:30. Midnight Bourbon stretched his legs for the first time since his final Derby breeze Monday morning and continues to thrive, while looking like a bigger, stronger version of the colt who ran in all three of Fair Grounds' Derby preps this winter. Super Stock was allowed to do a bit more, as he worked Saturday, and galloped 1 ¼ miles.

O BESOS – Bernard Racing, Tagg Team Racing, West Point Thoroughbreds and Terry L. Stephens' O Besos galloped about one mile and schooled in the paddock Wednesday morning.

“We're ready to roll,” trainer Greg Foley said.

ROCK YOUR WORLD – The tall, dark son of the stellar stallion Candy Ride continued his forward training toward Saturday's Run for the Roses with a solid gallop Wednesday morning during the special Derby/Oaks period at Churchill Downs that goes from 7:30-7:45 and limits those allowed on the track to runners headed to the two classic races scheduled this weekend.

Trainer John Sadler had rider Javier Meza up for the exercise and had him put his charge through a nine-furlong move that met with his approval.

Rock Your World is three-for-three so far in his brief career with two of the wins coming on turf, but the most recent – the prestigious Santa Anita Derby (G1) on April 3 – coming on the dirt. His race before that was a score in the listed Pasadena Stakes and in both those black-type tallies he had the top California rider Umberto Rispoli in the irons. The plan was for the Italian-born Rispoli to be there for the Kentucky Derby, too, but – as happens often in the world of racing – things changed.

Joel Rosario, currently the second-leading rider in the country and a personal favorite of trainer Sadler, suddenly came open. He thought he was booked for a Derby spin on the horse Concert Tour, but when that colt came up short in the Arkansas Derby, Rosario and his agent, Ron Anderson, were back Derby mount hunting. They turned to an old friend.

The 36-year-old Rosario is a native of the Dominican Republic and was that country's leading rider four years in a row starting at the age of 15 before heading to California and taking on tougher competition. He first made waves in Northern California where he nearly unseated the king of the Bay Area, Russell Baze, a feat considered all but impossible. Then he shifted his tack to Southern California.

“I first rode him on a horse at Golden Gate and he got beat a whisker,” said Sadler. “But I said 'Wow' to myself, that kid rode the hair off my horse. When he came south I was on him right away. I put him up on his first winner at Hollywood Park – he came through a hole that I didn't think possible in order to do it — and we were off and running from there.”

Sadler and Rosario clicked and kept on clicking. They were riding and training champs together at Del Mar in 2009 and won races – and stakes races – in bunches at all three of the Southern California tracks. Thanks to the kind folks at Equibase, the record shows that – to date – Sadler has given Rosario a leg up on 1,007 horses, won 242 races with him and earned $20,886,898 in purses. They've won 47 stakes together and 34 of them have been graded. No other trainer in the country has ridden Rosario more times or won more races with him. It isn't even close.

So, yes indeed, Sadler and Rosario have history, which led to their connection in this year's Run for the Roses.

“Make no mistake,” Sadler notes, “Umberto Rispoli is a terrific rider. He's won Santa Anita's stakes the last two weekends for me and we've won a lot of races together. But the analytics with Joel are so strong I just couldn't pass up the opportunity. I'm hoping, of course, it all works out.”

Rosario will guide Rock Your World into post 15 Saturday in the 20-horse Derby field. Then he'll ride for all he's worth for Sadler – the man who was the key in making him a star – to try to give him some payback that would be beyond sweet — his first triumph in the Kentucky Derby.

THE FIELD FOR THE $3 MILLION KENTUCKY DERBY PRESENTED BY WOODFORD RESERVE (GI)

Known Agenda (Irad Ortiz Jr., 6-1)
Like the King (Drayden Van Dyke, 50-1)
Brooklyn Strong (Umberto Rispoli, 50-1)
Keepmeinmind (David Cohen, 50-1)
Sainthood (Corey Lanerie, 50-1)
O Besos (Marcelino Pedroza, 20-1)
Mandaloun (Florent Geroux, 15-1)
Medina Spirit (John Velazquez, 15-1)
Hot Rod Charlie (Flavien Prat, 8-1)
Midnight Bourbon (Mike Smith, 20-1)
Dynamic One (Jose Ortiz, 20-1)
Helium (Julien Leparoux, 50-1)
Hidden Stash (Rafael Bejarano, 50-1)
Essential Quality (Luis Saez, 2-1)
Rock Your World (Joel Rosario, 5-1)
King Fury (Brian Hernandez Jr., 20-1)
Highly Motivated (Javier Castellano, 10-1)
Super Stock (Ricardo Santana Jr., 30-1)
Soup and Sandwich (Tyler Gaffalione, 30-1)
Bourbonic (Kendrick Carmouche, 30-1)

All starters will carry 126 pounds

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