February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The race was a disappointment for the Coolmore contingent, whose Dunkirk checked in 11th in the 19-horse field. Dunkirk went off as the 5-1 second choice. The Eoin Harty-trained Mr. Hot Stuff finished 15th, while Kelly Breen’s duo of West Side Bernie and Atomic Rain were ninth and 16th, respectively.
Musket Man broke sharply from the 2 post and maintained a close stalking position past the grandstand the first time and around the far turn. He backed off a bit down the backside and swung wide into the far turn under jockey Eibar Coa. As the field straightened for home, Musket Man loomed up on the outside to make a race of it and engaged Pioneerof the Nile and Papa Clem in a 3-way battle down the center of the track to the wire, but Mine That Bird zipped by on the rail for all the glory.
“He got hung out so wide, but he was still coming at the end. I was really proud of him the way he ran today,” Ryan said. “He got bumped around, but that’s the Derby.”
“I got bumped near the finish and I know that cost me second because [Pioneerof the Nile] only beat me a nose,” Coa said.
Ryan indicated on Sunday that Musket Man would next run in either the Preakness Stakes or Belmont Stakes, but not both, depending on how he came out of the Derby.
As for the others, there weren’t any excuses.
“No thoughts,” Harty said of Mr. Hot Stuff. “He didn’t run any good.”
“My horse was just not comfortable out there,” said John Velazquez, Dunkirk’s rider. “[The winner] was next to me the whole way on the backstretch. My horse was not running, with mud getting kicked in his face, so I eased out a little bit and [Mine That Bird] took the spot I left open on the inside. Then he just took off and passed everyone. It was unbelievable.”
IZZY AGAIN AT A.C.
Izzy Kate made it two wins in eight days when she wired the field by two lengths in the first race at Atlantic City on Thursday. Ryan trains Izzy Kate for Thomas Bledsoe. Pierre Ortega Hernandez had the mount on Izzy Kate, a 3-year-old filly, which paid $13.20 to win.
Eddie Kenneally sent out his first winner of the Churchill Downs spring meet in Joseph Sutton’s Valtrus, which closed relentlessly over the turf course to get up by three-quarters of a length in last Tuesday’s ninth race, a second-level allowance race. Kent Desormeaux rode the 5-year-old horse, which paid $5.40 to win as the favorite.
Kenneally also got a win out of Homewrecker Stable’s Multipass, which relished the mud in Friday’s second race, scoring by four lengths in a starter allowance at a mile out of the chute. Julien Leparoux had the seat on the winner, which paid $9.20 to win.
Celebrity chef Bobby Flay got a black-type win in Sunday’s Grade 3 Senorita Stakes at Hollywood Park with Irish-bred Mrs Kipling. The 3-year-old filly, trained by Neil Drysdale and ridden by David Flores, came from well off the pace in her second stateside venture and wrested the lead in midstretch to go on and put slightly more than two lengths between her and her nearest chaser at the wire. Flay’s filly paid $6.00 as the choice.