
The entries for Saturday’s $300,000, Grade 3 Indiana Derby at Horseshoe Indianapolis illustrate racing’s biggest allure: Once they get in the starting gate, horses’ purchase price takes a backseat to who is fastest.
The late Brereton C. Jones and his family’s Airdrie Stud bred, raised and sold the Indiana Derby entries’ most expensive auction purchase: $600,000 yearling Publisher, the Arkansas Derby (G1) runner-up. Brereton Jones and Airdrie also bred, raised and sold the entries’ least expensive auction purchase: $2,500 yearling Chunk of Gold, whose four seconds in stakes include the Louisiana Derby (G2). Both horses made the Kentucky Derby, with Chunk of Gold ninth and Publisher 14th, but only Publisher will run in the 1 1/16-mile Indiana Derby. Trainer Ethan West said Chunk of Gold will be scratched to give him more time after his second in the Ohio Derby.
“It’s a cliche, but the greatest part of this game is that you never know where a great one is going to come from,” Bret Jones, who took over running Airdrie Stud from his father, said in a phone interview. “From the humblest beginnings can come the best of stories. No one has been rooting harder for Chunk of Gold than our Airdrie team.”
Publisher, the Indiana Derby’s 4-1 fourth choice in the morning line, is a son of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah. The Airdrie team thought so much of the colt that after the sale they worked out a deal with new owner Gus King to stay in for 25 percent. (More on Publisher in a bit.)
The 3-year-olds contesting the Indiana Derby run the gamut of sticker prices. Coal Battle — the 7-2 favorite and earner of five races and $1.2 million — was a $70,000 Texas sale yearling.
“To me, the price of the horse is kind of like looking at the odds,” said assistant trainer Bethany Taylor, who oversees Coal Battle’s training for Lonnie Briley and also serves as the colt’s exercise rider. “They don’t know either one of those things. Sometimes you have to pay a lot of money to get a good horse, and sometimes you get lucky and barely pay anything, and sometimes you pay what they’re worth.
“Coal Battle definitely carries the presence of a millionaire. That’s definitely his attitude. He’s proud, he’s classy, he’s fun to be around. He might not know what he cost when we bought him, but he definitely knows what he’s worth now.”
The next most-expensive auction acquisition in the Indiana Derby is Grace 1-placed Big Truzz, a son of 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify who cost $300,000 at Keeneland’s massive September Yearling sale. Brotha Keny — who is 2-for-2 at Horseshoe Indy — went for $25,000 at the same sale.
New York allowance winner Tip Top Thomas cost $160,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October yearling sale. Master Controller, front-running winner of a $100,000 maiden-claiming race in his only prior race this year, was a $75,000 purchase at Fasig-Tipton’s Timonium 2-year-old sale in Maryland. Texas Derby winner Instant Replay, sold privately this week to Wathnan Racing, was a Gary and Mary West homebred whose sire, Maximum Security, stands for $5,000, a low stud fee for a Kentucky stallion.
Longshot Shan will be scratched in favor of an allowance next week, trainer Ed Moger said.
Jones calls Publisher one of the best foals Airdrie has ever raised and taken to a sale. He considers it just circumstances that the colt has yet to win a race.
But after three thirds and a second against maiden company, Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen thought the colt was so talented that he opted to jump into Kentucky Derby preps. After a fourth in Oaklawn Park’s Rebel Stakes (G2) won by Coal Battle, Publisher raced in blinkers for the first time and finished second in the Arkansas Derby (G1). Coal Battle was third. Without having his picture taken in the winner’s circle, Publisher has more than paid his freight, earning $407,756.
Jones certainly doesn’t think of Publisher as a maiden.
“Hopefully that’s a momentary condition,” he said. “He’s obviously a very talented horse, and Steve and his team thought enough of him to take a shot in the Derby. It wasn’t his day, but hopefully he’s got some fun Saturdays ahead. The first three home in the Derby are exceptional. No amount of racing luck was going to make up the distance to them.
“We’re following Steve’s lead. The colt seems to have come back (from the Kentucky Derby) well, and we’ll find out exactly where we stand July 5… There’s an unbelievably long list of poor Derby finishers who came back to be top horses. Somebody’s going to do it, and I sure hope it’s us.
“The word Derby is the sexiest word in horse racing. We let ourselves fantasize about winning one in Kentucky. But I promise you, we’d be ecstatic to win one in Indiana.”
Indiana Derby win for Master Controller would be fairytale chapter born out of tragedy
Master Controller, at 15-1 in the Indiana Derby morning line before scratches, may be the longest shot in the field now at seven. But not to trainer Brittany Vanden Berg.
After going 0 for 3 last year in maiden special-weight races, Master Controller led all the way to win a 6 1/2-furlong $100,000 maiden-claiming race at Churchill Downs May 24. Vanden Berg entered Master Controller in the Ohio Derby but scratched to get additional time between races.
“Even though he won his race going one turn, we like the way he is training for two turns,” she said. “That was our goal from the beginning, but we ran into some trouble with him as a 2-year-old and couldn’t get things right, couldn’t get things lined up. So we gave him the time off he needed and used the one-turn race over at Churchill as kind of a prep race. He jumped up and did what he was told, and we were really happy with him. Just had the perfect setup for the Indiana Derby.”
Vanden Berg, whose husband Chris Emigh rides Master Controller, said she put him in for the $100,000 claiming price because the timing and distance were good and, yes, the competition figured to be a bit lighter. She highly doubted anybody would claim him off the layoff, and she proved correct.
“I’m so glad it worked out because it could have gone really bad and made a lot of people unhappy,” she said. “We missed a lot of training last year, we had some growing issues, I’d call them. He’s a really big colt with a giant stride. We were trying to harness that and give him some prep races. We really thought he was going to be a nice, big horse for us and we just kept running into trouble with him. Finally we said, instead of trying to push this animal and run him where he’s just not happy, let’s take the time off he needs, come back and make a campaign as a 3-year-old.”
As his last race indicated, Vanden Berg suspects Master Controller might be a horse who is happy racing on the lead. “He’s probably going to be a front-running style horse,” she said. “He snaps out of the gate really good, and he’s probably going to always want to be forwardly placed.
“He’s going to be a good price. But you know what, if I didn’t have any faith in him, I wouldn’t have put him in there. We’re not the kind of people to enter a horse we don’t think has any shot. Chris rides a lot of horses, I’ve trained a lot of horses. You kind of know who’s special and who isn’t. We’re going to see if he jumps up to the plate like he does in the mornings. In the morning, it’s very hard for any other horse to keep up with his stride. He’s just got a beautiful stride length. We’re just hoping he shows that on Indiana Derby Day.”
When Vanden Berg and Emigh went to the Timonium sale, they had a long list of horses to inspect. Master Controller wasn’t on it.
By happenstance, Master Controller was taken out of his stall to be shown to someone else when Vanden Berg walked by.
“I stopped and said, ‘Who’s that?’ They said it was a Tapiture colt,” she said. Vanden Berg wasn’t enthusiastic about his pedigree but was wowed by his physical presence. “He just had this aura about him,” she said. “I said to Chris, ‘If this horse doesn’t run, I shouldn’t be a horse trainer. He has to have ability by the way he looks.’ He came into the ring and was strutting his stuff and looked unbelievable. I looked up his stride-length chart from his (timed workout) and he had a stride length of almost 26 feet, which is huge, like ranked first of a lot of the horses there.
“I said, ‘This is the one to take a shot on…. Chris and I were high-fiving after we bought him. Everyone could not believe why we were high-fiving. It was hilarious. They’re like, ‘They’re high-fiving for this Tapiture colt that wasn’t supposed to go for much?’ But we just had this feeling.”
Of his last race, she said, “Chris just said he has so much more in the tank.”
If Master Controller wins the Indiana Derby, it will be a fairytale chapter for a story born from tragedy.
Master Controller’s owners race as AJMac and Family Thoroughbreds. Alice and Randy McEwen have been in racing for years, primarily at smaller tracks. Their 26-year-old son, named Austin but known as Mac, worked as a contract driver for Amazon and was one of six people killed when the warehouse they were in was struck by a tornado on Dec. 10, 2021 in Edwardsville, Ill. The McEwens were awarded a sizable settlement in their wrongful death lawsuit.
“He loved horses, and his girlfriend loved horses and they love horses,” Vanden Berg said. “They said, ‘We’re going to take a percentage of this and put it into horses for them.’ And their silks also represent him. The reason it says AJMac and family is because Mac was his nickname.”
Pletcher goes for first Indiana Derby with Tip Top Thomas
Hall-of-Fame trainer Todd Pletcher is seeking his first Indiana Derby victory, sending out New York allowance winner Tip Top Thomas. Pletcher, North American racing’s all-time purse leaders at more than $505 million, has had two prior starters in Indiana’s biggest race, finishing fourth in 2013 with Micromanage and sixth with Pollard’s Vision in 2004 when the stakes was held at Hoosier Park
After winning his debut last summer at Saratoga, Tip Top Thomas in his second race was second in the Grade 1 Champagne at Aqueduct. He resumed racing at Keeneland in April, with a fourth in a six-furlong allowance event. Back to Aqueduct, he led all the way in an allowance race at a one-turn mile.
“We thought he ran well at a mile last time and we’re looking forward to stretching him out,” Pletcher said at Saratoga. “He’s a colt that has always shown promise and is improving.”
Pletcher said Tip Top Thomas didn’t have any particular issue after the Oct. 5 Champagne.
“Not really. We decided he wasn’t going to go to the Breeders’ Cup,” he said. “We sent him to Ocala for some time off. And next thing you know, it’s been a little while, but nothing specific.”
John Velazquez, who has never ridden at Horseshoe Indianapolis, flies in from Saratoga for the mount. “Yeah, we’re taking our best shot,” Pletcher said.