After the Road to the Kentucky Derby had stops in Kentucky and Louisiana this past week, it moves March 30 to Florida, Arkansas, and even Dubai.
Saturday's Florida Derby (G1) at Gulfstream Park, the Arkansas Derby (G1) from Oaklawn Park, and the UAE Derby (G2) from Meydan Racecourse in Dubai are all 200-point qualifiers for the May 4 first leg of the Triple Crown. Winners of these respective preps are assured of gaining entrance for the typically oversubscribed 20-horse Kentucky Derby, and based on past trends, the runner-up finishers will be poised to qualify.
All three preps have legitimate Derby contenders. Fierceness, Conquest Warrior, and Hades headline the Florida Derby; Timberlake, Mystik Dan, Liberal Arts, and Time for Truth are Derby hopefuls in the Arkansas Derby; and Japanese star Forever Young aims to punch his ticket to Kentucky in the UAE Derby.
Muth is also formidable in the Arkansas Derby, though as a Bob Baffert trainee, he is ineligible for the Kentucky Derby owing to Churchill Downs Inc.'s ban of the trainer from racing at its tracks. So a race like the May 18 Preakness Stakes (G1), the second leg of the Triple Crown at Pimlico Race Course where Baffert remains eligible to compete, could fall into Muth's eventual plans.
Having produced 25 winners of the Kentucky Derby, no race has been more successful as a prep for the Run for the Roses than the Florida Derby. The Blue Grass Stakes (G1) and Champagne Stakes (G1) are next in having generated 23 winners apiece, with the Champagne having noteworthy success as a fall one-turn race for 2-year-olds.
Mage , runner-up in the Florida Derby last year, was the latest to race in the Florida Derby before glory beneath the Twin Spires. He is one of seven Florida Derby participants to win the first leg of the Triple Crown since the turn of the century.
Arkansas
The Arkansas Derby (seven winners) and UAE Derby (no winners) have been less impactful in the Derby picture, though the Arkansas Derby has become a key prep, particularly over the past 20 years. All seven of its Derby winners have been since 1983, topped by four since 2004.
Country House , third in 2019, won the Kentucky Derby via disqualification of Maximum Security for interference that May to become the latest Arkansas Derby competitor to score in the Run for the Roses, and four years before him, American Pharoah took the Arkansas Derby on his way to a sweep of the Triple Crown, which ended a 37-year drought in the series.
With a purse of $1.5 million, the Arkansas Derby is the richest stakes race on the Road to the Kentucky Derby. Many of the top preps, including the UAE Derby and Florida Derby, are worth $1 million.
Dubai
UAE Derby runners have not paid off in the Kentucky Derby for various reasons, including higher-quality dirt competition in Kentucky, long travel, and a change in environment from the Middle East. Nineteen UAE Derby runners have raced in the Derby, with none finishing better than fifth.
It does seem just a matter of time before that trend is reversed, however, given active Japanese interest in the UAE Derby. Japanese horses have excelled on the international stage.
Japan's Derma Sotogake, who qualified for the Derby last year by winning the UAE Derby, was a decent sixth in the Run for the Roses and, later in the year, would return to the United States to finish second against older horses in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Santa Anita Park.
Forever Young, unbeaten in four starts and likely to be favored Saturday in international betting pools offering wagering on the UAE Derby, might be Japan's best Derby hope to date.
Florida
It is the Florida Derby that is the most compelling prep of the weekend, however. The 1 1/8-mile race offers a prime bounce-back opportunity for 8-5 morning-line favorite Fierceness, last year's champion juvenile colt for Repole Stable, after his surprising defeat in the Feb. 3 Holy Bull Stakes (G3) earlier this winter.
His trainer, Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher, bids for a record-extending eighth victory in the race. He also starts longshot Bail Us Out.
D. J. Stable and Robert Cotran's Hades, who improved to 3-for-3 in defeating Domestic Product and Fierceness in the Holy Bull, is again a leading adversary and is the anticipated 7-2 third wagering choice.
Though he has yet to race in a stakes, Courtlandt Farms' Conquest Warrior is the 3-1 second favorite. The son of City of Light , a $1 million purchase from the Keeneland September Yearling Sale in 2022, has notched two victories this winter at Gulfstream. After overcoming a troubled trip to win going a mile in his second career start Jan. 13, Conquest Warrior stretched out to race two turns for the first time and produced a five-length triumph in a 1 1/8-mile allowance optional claimer March 1.
Trainer Shug McGaughey acknowledged the "big step up" in class he is taking into the Florida Derby.
"He's going from a non-winners-of-one allowance race to a grade 1 in the Florida Derby. He's meeting some pretty challenging horses, but it's time to see if we're going to go on down the road the way we hope to," McGaughey said. "He's going to have to show up in the Florida Derby. It will be a nice test for him. There's some nice horses in there. They've all been running in top-class races against some really nice horses."
McGaughey used the Florida Derby as a route to win the Kentucky Derby just over a decade ago. In 2013, Orb won both races for the Hall of Fame conditioner.
