Derby Post #17: K’s Rumor Has It Goes For Glory

K’s Rumor Has It Goes For Glory

Last February, the expansive Ledwith estate became home to a new 2-year-old son of the great Sadler’s Wells, thrown by a daughter of the even greater Seattle Slew. The brown colt was named K’s Rumor Has It, after a “running joke” in trainer Kronus’ family regarding his soon-to-be-born first child.

There were some worries about the young colt’s apparent frail nature early on, and he was brought along very carefully by wise trainer Kronus. “Every race and workout seemed to take a lot out of him”, he said recently. His exposures to competition were spaced far apart, to give the promising colt plenty of time to recover from his efforts. The colt’s highly competitive nature caused him to close stoutly in his first two sprint efforts, despite the fact the rider was told to keep K’s Rumor under wraps.

Despite the fact that K’s Rumor was bred with long turf races in mind, he showed enough promise in those two sprints that Kronus had him shipped across the pond to Kentucky for a mile dirt allowance race against winners. “We’ll take a shot here and see what we’ve got”, Kronus said. “Even if Rumor doesn’t ‘have it’ in this race, there are plenty of turf opportunities in the States for him.”

K’s Rumor Has It ran strongly in that race, getting his first win with a solid 90 speed figure. This put turf plans on hold indefinitely. Seven weeks later, the little brown colt was entered in the 8.5-panel Gr. II End Of The Line Futurity at historic Churchill Downs. He tracked the leaders nicely and finished strong, taking the race by almost 4 lengths, earning a 92 speed fig. Now, Kronus knew he was training something special.

The colt closed his 2yo campaign with another solid victory, this time in the Gr. II Club Stakes at Nebraska, another race at 8.5 furlongs. He improved his career-best speed fig again, with a 97.

Thus far, Kronus’ only regret about K’s Rumor Has It’s career was the fact he’d been forced to skip the Breeders’ Bowl Futurity despite a #9 ranking at the time. “He just was a bit off his feed that week”, Kronus said.

K’s Rumor Has It was sent back to Europe to prepare for his 3yo campaign, where he ran in the Gr. III Giant Slayer Classic at Denmark. “He got a bit of a rough trip that day, and my rider wisely didn’t abuse him in the stretch”, Kronus said after his disappointing 6th-place effort.

Plans were made to ship the colt back to the USA for a Gr. II at Maryland, but the weather intervened, so Kronus entered K’s Rumor in a smaller stakes at Portugal. He decided to “shake the colt up a little”, instructing the jock to go for the lead out of the gate. “Rumor” did as asked, grabbing the lead out of the gate, winning comfortably. His speed fig was 101, another career best.

Now, there was only one question… What to do about a somewhat awkward 8-week gap before the First Saturday in May? Kronus decided he needed to get a race into his colt or risk “staleness”. Therefore, he entered him in the Gr. II Wooden Indian at New York, instructing the rider not to “use up” the colt. “Rumor” raced evenly, finishing a non-threatening 5th, but the experiment worked. For the first time in his short career, K’s Rumor Has It came back to the stall after a race in “RTG” condition, and Kronus declared things were “all systems go”.

It looks like K’s Rumor Has It could be sitting on a top effort at the right time. Now, all he has to do is deliver…