Saturday afternoon saw a busy hour with three prep races for the 2021 Kentucky Derby, and a new favorite emerged. Bob Baffert’s Life Is Good stamped himself the prohibitive favorite for the Derby, running away from the field at the San Felipe at Santa Anita Park. A big Beyer of 107, and an eight-length win made it an easy decision to move him to the top of our weekly three-year old rankings. If the derby was run next week, I have no idea how he gets beat. Simply the fastest horse right now, and probably by five lengths or more. He was hammered down to 2-1 in the Kentucky Derby future wager.

Essential Quality slips to number two as they flip flop spots on our Derby gate eight.

I didn’t shake up the remainder of the list at all. The Tampa Bay Derby came up light. Helium will make the derby gate, and Hidden Stash looks like a 3-year old on the rise, but I’m guessing we may see him at Keeneland and then Pimlico. The horse to watch out of Tampa is Magic Strike. Watch his trip back – pressed three-wide on the first turn, had to check lightly when the 5 horse drifts out in front of him in the final turn, bumped by the green 11 horse at the top of the stretch, then re-rallied, closing ground late. In my book, that’s a good horse. if you factor the ground loss from the trip the bump and the check, you could make a case that he’s nose to nose with the winner. Daniel Centeno rode, but if you see Irad or Jose up, you probably can move the horse way up. He’s probably a cut below the top tier of this class, but you can be darn sure he’s going to go in my watch list.

The Gotham has some interesting possibilities. Weyburn jumped way up with a front-running score, but the two I’m interested in are the Chad Brown pair of Highly Motivated and Crowded Trade. Highly Motivated got off a bit slow, and then had to check early in the race. Off the layoff he didn’t have to win, but his late run tells me next time is the time. Crowded Trade was impressive and game pressing the pace, in just his second career start. Both of those two are worth watching and will be likely favorites for the Wood Memorial. Further progression from either could put them in the Derby Gate 8, though I’m not sold that the New York contingent is strong this year – I’d like to see strong import or two in the Wood for comparison’s stake.

More notes on a busy (if not chaotic!) weekend in the next blog.