Ky. Derby trail: Raise Cain may be pointed to Wood, Blue Grass
Raise Cain earned a career-best 90 Beyer Speed Figure for his authoritative score in Saturday’s Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham at Aqueduct. The son of Violence earned 50 points toward Kentucky Derby 2023 with his 7 1/2-length conquest and is now fifth on the leaderboard with 54 total points.
Trainer Ben Colebrook said Raise Cain could return to New York for the Wood Memorial (G2), which is the final local qualifier for the Kentucky Derby. The bay colt also could remain at his Keeneland base for the Blue Grass (G1). Both races are slated for April 8 and award the top five finishers points on a 100-40-30-20-10 scale.
“We’re based at Keeneland and if it wasn’t for that, the Wood would be circled. I guess we’ll just sit back and see how the nominations are,” Colebrook said. “If one is significantly easier than the other, that would change our thinking. If you don’t have to ship, why do it? But the Blue Grass could come up significantly tougher, in which case, we would go to the Wood.”
Raise Cain, owned by Andrew N. Warren and Rainia Warren, entered the Gotham as a long shot in a full field of 14 entrants and went to post at 23-1 odds. Colebrook said the swelled field was more to the horse’s benefit.
“When I really handicapped it, I liked it. I like the cutback angle in horse racing in general, especially this time of year when a lot of horses don’t have much two-turn experience,” Colebrook said. “I thought it was a wide open race. It was definitely tough, but I thought a big field would help him, to be honest. He’s so laid back and he’ll do whatever a rider asks him. He’ll fit through gaps and find holes. I kind of thought that would be a good thing, especially with all the pace. I would have rather had that than some monster in a short field.”
Colebrook attempted to pull off an unusual double of saddling horses to victory in two different Kentucky Derby prep races in two different states. The Gotham field left the gate at 5:01 p.m. EST and Colebrook was back in Kentucky in time to saddle Scoobie Quando – owned by the same connections - in the John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park, which went off at 9:29 p.m. Read how he did it here.
Scoobie Quando, a son of Uncle Mo, was behind a wall of horses late in the turn before angling out and rallying to finish second in the 1 1/16-mile test. He earned eight points on the Derby trail.
Scoobie Quando's -up effort in the John Battaglia makes him a likely candidate for the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) on March 25 at Turfway Park. The nine-furlong synthetic test is a 100-40-30-20-10 Kentucky Derby qualifier.
“The timing isn’t great but he didn’t really get to run last night. I don’t think it was a tough race, so I’m leaning towards the Jeff Ruby,” Colebrook said. “If the race took a lot out of him, we would probably skip it and look for something on the dirt or the turf with him, eventually. When I had him on the main track at Keeneland, he worked really well on it. I still think the dirt is within his wheelhouse. But if not, we have synthetic and turf to fall back on. The way he ran last night, we have to at least consider the Ruby.”
Scoobie Quando, a $160,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale purchase, is out of the multiple graded-stakes winning turfer Daveron, making him a half-brother to multiple graded-stakes winning millionaire March to the Arch and multiple graded-stakes winner Global Access.
Colebrook credited veterinarian and former trainer Dr. Gregory Fox for his recent success on the Derby trail. As a trainer, Fox conditioned graded-stakes winners Slew’s Tizzy, Tizdejavu and Battle of Hastings.
“He’s actually how I got together with the owners,” Colebrook said. “He helps selects the horses and he’s at the barn a lot. He’s big into the E-tracker saddle towels that monitor the horses’ works. It’s been exciting because not a lot of owners have two good 3-year-olds at the same time. Raise Cain was the owners’ first graded-stakes winner and Scoobie was his first stakes winner. There’s a lot to look forward to.”
