Harlan's Holiday Is Lukewarm Favorite In Crowded Field Of 20 Horses
May 1, 2002

Louisville, KY (May 1, 2002) – Starlight Stable’s Harlan’s Holiday, an Ohio-bred who hopes to take the spotlight from regally-bred rivals from around the world, has been installed as a tepid favorite in a field of 20 horses entered Wednesday for the 128th running of the $1 million guaranteed Kentucky Derby (GI) on Saturday, May 4 at Churchill Downs. The 128th Kentucky Derby is considered to be among its most competitive and unpredictable renewals in recent years and oddsmaker Mike Battaglia has established a morning line that reflects that parity. Harlan’s Holiday is the 9-2 morning line favorite, with Toffan, McCaffery, Goodman & Farish’s Came Home, winner of the Santa Anita Derby (GI), and Mary and Gary West’s Buddha, winner of the Wood Memorial, listed a co-second choices at 5-1. They are followed by Edmund Gann’s Medaglia d’Oro, the Wood Memorial (GI) runner-up, and Michael Tabor and Mrs. John Magnier’s Johannesburg, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (GI) and America’s champion 2-year-old of 2001, as co-third choices at 6-1.

The morning line odds on Harlan’s Holiday are the longest for a Kentucky Derby favorite since 1949, when those odds were first printed in Churchill Downs race programs.

Derby 128 attracted a surprise late entrant in Danthebluegrassman, who was not considered a Derby candidate in the days leading up to the race. Four horses were excluded from the Derby, which is limited to the 20 entrants with the highest earnings in graded stakes races. Those excluded were Sunday Break (Jpn), Windward Passage, U S S Tinosa and Straight Gin. If all start in the 128th Derby, the field of 20 will be the largest since 1984, when Claiborne Farm’s Swale defeated 19 rivals to win the 110th “Run for the Roses.”

Post positions for the race were established Wednesday during the Kentucky Derby post selection program at the Kentucky Derby Museum. The two-stage post selection process, which was televised nationally on ESPN, included a blind draw to determine the order of selection followed by the selection of individual starting positions by representatives of each horse.

Starlight Stable’s Jack and Laurie Wolf and McPeek used the seventh overall pick to place Harlan’s Holiday in gate 14, the outside position in the main starting gate at Churchill Downs.

“Actually, it was (jockey) Edgar Prado’s selection,” said McPeek. “Whatever he was comfortable with, we picked. We wanted to have that opening (between 14 and 15 of the auxiliary gate), and I hope nobody scratches so we can maintain the 14 spot in the first gate.”

Harlan’s Holiday, winner of the Florida Derby (GI) and the Toyota Blue Grass (GI), takes a record of 6-4-0 in 10 races and earnings of $1,466,564 into the Kentucky Derby.

Co-second choice Buddha drew the opening position in the post selection process and trainer H. James Bond used it to place the son of Unbridled’s Song in post 10.

“We thought it was a good spot,” said Bond, who is participating in his first Kentucky Derby. “Lots of horses have won from there in the history of the race. And we’re the last to load. That should be an advantage.”

Buddha has won three consecutive races in his brief four-race career. He will be ridden by Pat Day, the all-time leading rider at Churchill Downs. Day won his lone Kentucky Derby in 1992 aboard W.C. Partee’s Lil E. Tee.

Came Home, a winner of six of seven career races, will break from post 15 -- the first slot in the track’s six-stall auxiliary starting gate. Trainer Paco Gonzalez selected that outside gate with the eighth pick in the post selection process. He said the post was not ideal but should not be a problem for the son of Gone West and jockey Chris McCarron, a two-time Kentucky Derby winner.

“Eight or nine would have been our first choice, but they were taken,” Gonzalez said. “ So we took 15 because we’d rather be outside than inside. Chris was happy. This horse has tactical speed, so he’ll be able to get a position into the first turn hopefully.”

Johannesburg remains one of the most intriguing members of this year’s Kentucky Derby field. Trained by Irish training sensation Aidan O’Brien, the son of Hennessy dominated America’s best 2-year-olds last fall in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Belmont Park -- a performance so spectacular that Johannesburg was awarded the Eclipse Award as America’s top 2-year-old.

He has raced only once since then -- a narrow loss to the tough 4-year-old filly Rebelline in the seven furlong Gladness Stakes on grass at Ireland’s the Curragh. The setback was the first for Johannesburg in eight career races. The Kentucky Derby will also mark the colt’s first race without jockey Mick Kinane, who will miss the race because of a suspension for a riding violation in Ireland.

Johannesburg has picked up a strong replacement rider in American star Gary Stevens, a three-time Kentucky Derby winner who had been committed to ride Sunday Break (Jpn), who was excluded from the overflow Derby field because of insufficient earnings. The Irish star will break from post one, which was selected by O’Brien adviser Demi O’Byrne as he spoke by telephone with O’Brien, who remained in Europe.

“It was a relief to get a mount like Johannesburg for the Derby after my other chances fell through,” said Stephens. “The rail (post) is part of the way Aidan wants him ridden. I can’t disclose any more without giving away our game plan.”

A victory by Johannesburg would make him the first juvenile champion to win the Derby since Spectacular Bid in 1979

. Other horses who will make bids for historic victories in Derby 128 include: