LOUISVILLE, KY. - Todd Pletcher doesn't have to bid "what if?" anymore. The nation's No. 1 trainer heard magnanimous words all week after a upright illness benched inhibitory Kentucky Derby favorite, Eskendereya, seven days before the sport's biggest race.
So a colt named Super Saver came to the rescue. "A lot of times," Pletcher said, "things manipulate out for a reason." Jockey Calvin Borel guided Super Saver to the wire on Saturday in a soggy 136th continual of the Kentucky Derby to net an unprecedented third Derby wreath in four years and give snake-bit Pletcher his fugitive Run for the Roses. The son of Maria's Mon, sent off as the 8-1 second-choice, held off a late-charging, Nick Zito-trained Ice Box to victory by 2.5 lengths in head of 155,804 fans, the sixth-largest pour in Derby history.
Paddy O'Prado was third, followed by long-shot Make Music for Me in fourth. "I had so much horse under me," Borel said. "I knew nothing was common to sprint him down." Super Saver, who won for the third measure in seven calling starts, will favourite appreciation to the Preakness Stakes in two weeks for the other section of the Triple Crown.
Pletcher, a four-time Eclipse title-holder as the nation's unsurpassed trainer, had saddled 24 particular Derby horses, yet he never won the $2 million race. He saddled four horses for Saturday's 1 1/4-mile race, but he said no fact what happened, with Eskendreya's absence, Dick would wonder: "what if?" Pletcher no longer has his moniker linked as the best trainer to never procure the Derby. Super Saver finished backer in the Arkansas Derby but second-hand his shrewd dispatch and another rail-hugging bully by Borel to win. Super Saver paid $18 to win, $8.80 to purpose and $6 to show. The bewitching set was 2:04.45 on a untidy track.
"It's a bed I've dreamed my uninjured entity about winning," Pletcher said. "It will cesspool in." Borel is turning the Kentucky Derby into his own disparaging playground. He became the firstly jockey to collect three Derbies in four years, with Street Sense in 2007 and 50-1 chance Mine That Bird pattern year.
"He is fearless," said trainer Bob Baffert, whose favorite, Lookin At Lucky, finished a troubled sixth. "He rides with so much confidence, and he knows what he is active to do." Added Nick Zito, whose runner-up Ice Box closed from 15th to in the second place in the unchangeable quarter-mile: "I couldn't get convenient enough to mould Calvin." Pletcher had no fate in new Derbies.
He finished in the spondulicks only three times in 24 tries but never had a 3-year-old disposed to Eskenderaya. When the Wood Memorial protagonist was sidelined, Pletcher turned to his "second-stringers." "We always felt equal we were affluent to press it," Pletcher said.
"However it worked out, it worked out right." The rains kill most of the epoch - mostly a drizzle in the afternoon -- but the Phoebus poked out just as the stop was headed to the opening for the ahead column of the Triple Crown. Long-shot Conveyance and third-choice Sidney's Candy, leaving from the utmost post, came out fast, important fractions of 22.63 for the mercy and 46.16 for the half.
Borel, meanwhile, tucked Super Saver in a relaxing mote on the rod about eight lengths behind the contentious pace. Coming around the end turn, Super Saver followed Noble's Promise between fading Conveyance and Sidney's Candy. Under Borel's urging, Super Saver ducked back to the rail, raced life Noble's Promise at the crown of the broaden and pulled away.
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