First Derby Spot LOCKED Up in All Saints!

All Saints Derby – Derby Lock Prep
Grade I
A mile and one sixteenth on the Fast Dirt Course
Purse – $600,000: 1st: $360,000, 2nd: $150,000, 3rd: $48,000, 4th: $30,000, 5th: $12,000
All horses, 3 years old
Stakes record – 2008 – Trading Jack(KY), 1:41-2/5, SPF 109.544

One of the spots in this year’s Bluegrass Derby is set. In this weekend’s ALL SAINT’S DERBY which was a Derby Lock race for the the Bluegrass, MARK OF DESTINY made his early mark as the one to beat in the big May race. With that win he gains an automatic berth for the Derby. Now Trainer TheLeague and the HornedFrog Stables have to find a way to keep him training and healthy and see if he can follow in the footsteps of last year’s ALL SAINTS winner, HOT AND SPICY who turned his spot in the Derby into a win in the big race.

As I had mentioned in my preview, MARK OF DESTINY needed a big race here as he had fallen out of the top twenty after a sterling two year old campaign. He started off this year in rather lackluster fashion but appears to have been saving himself for this race. He has now won five of his eight races and that includes three Graded Races. He looks like this is a perfect distance for him and he ran his fastest speed on the fast track with a 105 SPF, although it was well off of the ALL SAINTS record of 109.5 held by Trading Jack back in 2008. His pedigree is certainly interesting out of broodmare, BUSTED CONNECTION who never won a race and lightly used sire BENCHMARK who has only one other Graded winner among his offspring. Standing in California, BENCHMARK can currently be had with either credits or BPs for 37 points! MARK OF DESTINY , also overcame jockey Ham who won his very first race of the season and came into this race as the 46th and final rated jockey at the track. He ran a nice race here by leaving DESTINY mid pack until the top of the stretch where he made his move. MARK OF DESTINY with the $360k first prize, now has over $660k in earnings for trainer TheLeague and looks like he is back on track after his start to this year. He seems ready for the grueling three year old trail. He improved his rank to number one in all three of the three year old dirt classes.

As predicted, there was a race for first by the frontrunner early in the race especially between and pre race favorite BUSHWHACKED TED . Curling eventually took the early lead by a couple of lengths, but neither of these colts could hold up to the fast pace and dropped way down at the finish. JUST VENGEANCE was third and moved up to second in the stretch but was caught and finished fourth. DEPUTY HERO put up a nice move down the stretch but couldn’t quite catch get there finishing third. who I had surprisingly picked to win the race had a furious charge down the stretch but ran out of room and finished second.