Thirty-five years ago, on the morning of the Kentucky Derby (G1), a youthful Ian Wilkes would tell anyone who would listen that Unbridled could not be beat in that afternoon's Run for the Roses. Although the 24-year-old Australian had only been working for Carl Nafzger a short time, Wilkes' skills as an exercise rider had impressed his boss enough to earn the seat on the trainer's first Kentucky Derby starter. The dynamic pairing was just what Unbridled needed to cross the wire a winner that first Saturday in May 1990.
Two Derbies later, achieving one more win with Street Sense in 2007, the duo is back at racing's biggest stage—this time with Wilkes at the barn's helm as trainer—with Burnham Square for the 151st Run for the Roses. And although Nafzger, 84, can't be at the barn as much he was in years past, the Hall of Famer remains an ever-present member of Wilkes' life and with the daily running of his stable.
"He's my Monday morning quarterback," Wilkes joked. "He tells me what I did wrong on the weekend. We have a father-son relationship, we talk every day.
"He watched (Burnham Square's final Derby work April 26 at Churchill Downs) with me. He's going to come to the Derby and watch it with me, which is great, I love to have him there."
Nafzger went into semi-retirement in 2006, save for horses owned by longtime client James Tafel, owner of Street Sense, and handed over a majority of his barn to Wilkes, his assistant at the time. One of those clients was Janis Whitham of Whitham Thoroughbreds, the owner and breeder of Burnham Square.
"(Janis Whitham and her son Clay) have been in the barn a long time," Wilkes said. "To win the Derby for Mrs. Whitham... I can't explain it. She is priceless. She's an icon for me and an icon of the game. She's a Marylou Whitney; she belongs in that same category."
Burnham Square is a son of the Scat Daddy mare Linda, who was campaigned by the Whithams and scored in the 2016 Mrs. Revere Stakes (G2T) at Churchill Downs under Wilkes' care.
There are still remnants of Nafzger's influence sprinkled throughout Churchill Barn 26. Leather racing bridles with gold-studded brow and nose bands hang in the tack room, and horses are given a bath and allowed to rest in their stalls after morning exercise instead of being handwalked through a 20-minute cooldown. Long before the first set heads out to the track, horses are stretched by exercise riders and foremen in their stalls, persuaded by a carrot, as both Nafzger and Wilkes are firm believers in equine chiropracty and will oftentimes adjust a horse themselves.
"And acupuncture," Wilkes said. "I love acupuncture; it really helps me when diagnosing a horse."
However, Wilkes said first and foremost amongst the lessons he heeded from his mentor was to "always watch the horse. They tell you everything: they don't lie, we just many times misread them."
Wilkes compared Burnham Square to Unbridled in the sense that both horses "needed a lot of racing" as a key to their development. Unbridled raced 10 times before his 1990 Derby win, losing his final prep in Keeneland's Blue Grass Stakes (G1), a race Burnham Square won April 5. Burnham Square will make the seventh start of his career May 3.
Wilkes praised Nafzger's ability to zero in on a target to ensure a horse was primed to peak on the big day. While Nazfger's barn wasn't going to break any win percentage records, the former trainer's horses had an uncanny knack for showing up when it mattered the most. Unbridled wouldn't win another stakes in 1990, going 0-for-4 against black-type company following his Derby win until he put the pieces together in his start of the season, posting a scintillating victory over older horses in that fall's Breeders' Cup Classic (G1).
"Carl is very good at pointing a horse for a race," Wilkes said. "Even if the race is months away. He's good at focusing in on that main goal and having that horse get better and better and better to peak in a specific race. He's very good at it."
Burnham Square has been the poster boy of a horse coming into his own at the right time. Gelded early in his career due to an unruly disposition at the farm, the "plain bay", as Wilkes calls him, made his first start for a $150,000 claiming tag last October at Keeneland. It took two more starts and the addition of blinkers for the gelding to find the winner's circle in an eye-catching nine-length romp down in Florida. From there, Burnham Square climbed the ladder in each start, circling the field to win the Holy Bull Stakes (G3), running a so-so fourth in the Fountain of Youth (G2), and then overcoming traffic trouble to rally to a thrilling score in the Blue Grass.
"Burnham Square needs racing," Wilkes said. "He can work good, but he makes too many mistakes in a race, and you don't want to make mistakes on the first Saturday in May. So I just had to use every race to educate this horse. And I think I've got him pretty well educated at this point. He worked really well (Saturday), and he's ready to go. I'm quietly confident in him."
Nafzger called Burnham Square's final Derby work, a solo five furlong move in :59 2/5, "perfect" and called the son of Liam's Map a live "contender" in the Derby. The gelding will break from post 9 with last year's Kentucky Derby winning rider Brian Hernandez Jr. in the irons.
"But like I always say, there's 20 horses in the race, you only got to beat 19," Nafzger said with a smile.
Nafzger recently told a story where an owner asked him who really trained Unbridled—him or Wilkes.
"I said that's what I want to know, was it me or Ian? I'm not sure," Nafzger said. "I don't know, maybe I learned from (Wilkes). My first Derby winner came the same year he did."
