LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Sometimes, horse racing turns out just like it was planned.
Nyquist, a horse long on ability and detractors, left few questions remaining that he is the best 3-year-old in the country.
In a performance that was cheered wildly by the 167,227 in attendance at Churchill Downs on Saturday, he won the 142nd running of the Kentucky Derby by 11/4 lengths.
It was the second Derby win for the team of trainer Doug O’Neill, owner Paul Reddam and jockey Mario Gutierrez. This group took I’ll Have Another to wins in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes four years ago. Their chance at a Triple Crown was stopped when the horse had a tendon injury the day before the Belmont Stakes.
The race was so formful that second-favorite Exaggerator was second and third-favorite Gun Runner was third.
“He’s just a remarkable athlete,” O’Neill said of Nyquist after the race. “If you work him by himself, he’ll even swish his tail a little bit as if to say, ‘What do you want from me?’ But if you put him in company, he’s just a Ferrari.”
The race started as scripted with Nyquist clearing the 20-horse field and settling near the lead. Danzing Candy, as expected, was quick to go to the front, running somewhat fast fractions of 22.58 seconds for the first quarter mile and 45.72 for the half.
Danzing Candy started to drop back on the far turn and Nyquist and Gun Runner entered the stretch side by side. But as soon as he straightened out, Nyquist, running four off the rail, started to pull away and easily held off Exaggerator, who was 15th after three-quarters of a mile.
Easily wasn’t quite how Reddam remembered it. When asked when he felt he had the race won, he had a one-word answer: “Wire.”
Gutierrez said he did not know Exaggerator was gaining on him.
Nyquist and Exaggerator are usually stabled at Santa Anita. Now, it looks as if they will be taking up residence in Baltimore to run in the Preakness in two weeks. The race is slightly shorter, by 1/16th of a mile, than the 11/4-mile Kentucky Derby.
Nyquist has been dogged by suggestions his breeding couldn’t handle the Derby distance. His sire, Uncle Mo, never won a race of more than 11/6 miles, but that horse spent a lot of his 3-year-old campaign with a liver problem.
“I feel really good for the horse,” Reddam said of Nyquist. “Along the way the last year he took a lot of shots for whatever reason, and I think he proved all his critics wrong today.”
Nyquist was named after Gustav Nyquist of the Detroit Red Wings. Reddam is a lifelong Red Wings fan and even has a business, buying yearlings and selling them as 2-year-olds, called Red Wing.
“When the Red Wings (lost in) the playoffs, I was starting to worry about our horse,” he said.
Dennis O’Neill, Doug’s brother, found the horse for Reddam at a purchase price of $400,000. Dennis also found I’ll Have Another for $35,000.
“I said to someone it felt like four years ago I had bought a lotto ticket,” Dennis O’Neill said. “And I said to buy two lotto tickets in one lifetime, I don’t think that’s ever happened. That’s how I feel about this, just an unbelievable day.”
The legend that is growing around Nyquist is his ability to engage and beat any competitor. In eight races, he has never been passed in the stretch.
“Anybody who watches Nyquist’s races, you will see that he will not allow any other horse to pass him,” Gutierrez said. “He’s the kind of horse that always has something left for whatever comes late.
“That’s how I get so much confidence from him. Because if anybody comes late, I know I’ll have something to respond to that.”’
Another shot against Nyquist is really directed at O’Neill for running Nyquist only twice as a 3-year-old before the Derby. One of the races, the San Vicente Stakes in February, was only seven furlongs. The other, the Florida Derby, where he knocked off a previously unbeaten Mohaymen, was 11/8 miles.
“When we did our Team Reddam meeting after winning the Breeders’ Cup race (last year), we talked about giving him a little break and having two races as a prep for the Kentucky Derby,” Doug O’Neill said.
“We felt pretty confident about that. I think we would all be lying [to say] if we got beat here today, we would be saying maybe we didn’t do enough with him.”
Nyquist will be heading to Baltimore as only the eighth horse to emerge from the Kentucky Derby undefeated. The last one was Big Brown in 2008.
In two weeks, we’ll know if the Triple Crown dream is still alive. Only one horse was undefeated after winning the three races: Seattle Slew.
He had his share of detractors too.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
