Top Kentucky Derby Prospects Face Final Tuneups

Two of Saturday’s three Kentucky Derby prep races feature heavy favorites.

Captain Bodgit in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct and Pulpit in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland will go off at short odds. But the Arkansas Derby looks like a wide-open race.

Captain Bodgit is coming off an upset conquest of previously invincible Pulpit in the Florida Derby, his most impressive performance in a nine-race career that has seen him go to the winner’s circle six times.

“Our biggest fear is that Captain Bodgit will peak too soon,” said Barry Irwin, president of the Team Valor syndicate that bought the chocolate-colored colt for $500,000 after he finished third in Gulfstream’s Jan. 18 Holy Bull Stakes. “We want to stay in a holding pattern until the Kentucky Derby.

Like the Florida Derby, Saturday’s preps are 1-1/8-mile races.

Irwin says the Kentucky Derby’s 1-1/4-mile route is tailor-made for Captain Bodgit. “Our horse looks like he can run a mile and a quarter, maybe farther,” Irwin said. “When he was third in the Fountain of Youth, he made up 19-1/2 lengths in the last half-mile.”

If Captain Bodgit is ambushed in the Wood, the most likely suspects are two other stretchrunners, Accelerator and Ordway.

Before the Florida Derby, many were proclaiming Pulpit the sport’s next superstar after the way he won the first three races of his career at Gulfstream in January and February.

On paper, the Blue Grass, which traditionally is the premier Derby prep, looks like a soft touch for the son of 1992 Belmont winner A.P. Indy.

The Arkansas Derby has accounted for two of the last five Kentucky Derby winners. In 1992, Lil E. Tee won the Kentucky Derby after placing in the Arkansas Derby, and Grindstone did the same thing last year.

Louisiana Derby winner Crypto Star is the logical favorite at Oaklawn Park, but the public may give the role to Phantom On Tour, which has won five of seven starts.