The long and winding road to the roses
It’s a long and winding road to Churchill Downs and the first Saturday in May, but the Thoroughbred bunch is talking on Twitter about Breeders’ Cup junior champion Stevie Wonderboy, who is scheduled to make his 3-year-old debut on Saturday in the $150,000 San Rafael Stakes. in Santa Anita.
No junior champion has managed to capture the Kentucky Derby.
The road to Louisville is as fraught with danger as a championship golf course, from untimely injuries to missteps on the fairway.
Some people forget the fact that fillies and colts go through many major physical changes between the two- and three-year-old seasons; it is simply the maturation process.
Many among the horse group, however, claim that Wonderboy is their best hope yet.
“It’s certainly one to watch,” said John Avello, who oversees racing operations at Wynn Las Vegas.
“Bluegrass Cat and First Samurai are two others.”
Wonderboy came from behind to unseat favorite First Samurai in the Juniors, one of his four wins in five starts.
“For me, it’s any of the top three Juvenile finishers: Stevie Wonderboy, First Samurai and Henny Hughes,” added Gordon Jones, a former turf editor at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner who now gives racing seminars in Sam’s Town.
“I haven’t seen anyone out there even up close. No one that caught my eye, anyway.”
Owned by television businessman Merv Grffin and named after his father, Stephen Got Even, as well as singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, Wonderboy is considered racing royalty when it comes to bloodlines.
“We’ve had three interesting stories with Triple Crown races in the last three years and this could be a successful fourth,” Jones said.
“Funny Cide was a good story, Smarty Jones was a good story and Afleet Alex was a good story.
“If Stevie Wonderboy wins, the media will go crazy with all the Hollywood connections to that horse.”
Stephen Got Even is the son of AP Indy and Summer Squall is his grandfather.
Wonderboy racked up more than $1 million in his two-year campaign and is one of the favorites to capture an Eclipse award later this month.
Early winter racing will focus on Santa Anita in Southern California and Gulfstream Park in Florida, with other tracks gradually coming on the scene.
“All roads to Churchill will go through Oaklawn Park this year,” Jones predicted. “With Hurricane Katrina closing Fairgrounds (in New Orleans), Oaklawn will have better jockeys, trainers and horses than ever before,” Jones said.
The San Rafael, one of the first rungs of the Race for the Roses, will be run at one mile, two furlongs short of the Derby’s distance of one mile and a quarter.