Was This a Preview of Next Year’s Derby?

The Television Stakes
Grade III
Five furlongs on Fast Dirt
$125,000
All horses, 2 years old

Most of the crowd was either barely sat down or standing in line for their Mint Juleps for the first race of the Derby Day card. For those that didn’t make to their seats for the Television Grade III race, they missed quite a performance by BLACK JACK BLUES who made it look easy in his wire-to-wire win. These young two year olds may be the horses that these same folks come out to watch next year in the Derby and our winner looks like he has a great chance to be there.

This Came Home x Alydar x Northern Dancer homebred has trainer Blackswan with his head in the clouds after his dominating race today. It would be easy to dream about what may come with this beautiful chestnut colt with the black flowing mane. He is now two for two after previously winning his maiden race and has over $100,000 in earnings. That moves him to number one in the early rankings of two year old dirt colts. Both races he got out front and stayed there, a tough thing to do in Stakes races. He is also a home bred which seems to be becoming more and more rare lately as so many are bred from retired Broodmares.

BLACK JACK BLUES jumped right to the front from the gate and built up a two and a half length lead at the half. He was never really challenged, but DIXIELAND WELLS did come from way back and close to within a bit less than a length for second. I think it was more a case of the winner breezing at the end than a serious charge from DIXIELAND WELLS . STORMY GALLUP moved up from 13th place to capture third but was a couple of lengths back.

You can bet that trainer BlackSwan stuck around to watch the feature and wondered to himself what his prized colt would look like with roses draped across his withers. We will have to wait a year from now to see if that actually happens.

Good luck to all runners!

Paz