LEXINGTON, Ky. – Burnham Square looks like an overgrown greyhound – long legs and a narrow barrel topped by a surprisingly large head, a gelding who’d never catch the eye in a crowd of exercising animals.
East Avenue is a Godolphin homebred of royal lineage. He’s like a Zeus of Thoroughbreds, taller even than the tall Burnham Square but cut like a god, a magnificent route horse with the speed of a sprinter.
Yet as two-time Derby-winning trainer and Hall of Famer Woody Stephens once famously declared, “This ain’t no beauty contest." And on a rare Tuesday of important racing at Keeneland, commoner bested aristocrat, with Burnham Square going last to first to run down pacesetting East Avenue by a nose in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Blue Grass Stakes.
Burnham Square’s tally puts trainer Ian Wilkes in the Kentucky Derby for the second time. His lone starter, McCraken, finished eighth in 2017. And it will take something like a Derby win to top the day Wilkes had at Keeneland, where he saddled Positano Sunset to capture the Grade 1 Madison Stakes earlier on the card.
Burnham Square’s jockey, Brian Hernandez, seeks a Derby repeat; he rode Mystik Dan to victory last May. Hernandez snuck Mystik Dan up the Churchill Downs rail. Burnham Square rallied wide, at least four paths off the fence around the entire far turn.
“He’s a little bit of a quirky horse, and he wasn’t taking to the kickback too well going around the first turn and onto the back side, and I decided I kind of needed to get him out of there,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez rode Burnham Square for the first time Tuesday. Wilkes said he replaced Edgard Zayas, who rode Burnham Square this winter, because Zayas is a Florida-based jockey who only occasionally forays to Kentucky. Moreover, Wilkes and Burnham Square’s owner and breeder, Janis Whitham, have a long relationship with Hernandez, the regular rider of the Whitham homebred Fort Larned, who won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Wilkes served as a key assistant to trainer Carl Nafzger starting in 1993, celebrating the Nafzger-trained Street Sense’s 2007 Kentucky Derby win. Before returning for a spell to his native Australia, Wilkes was the exercise rider for the Nafzger-trained Unbridled, who won the 1990 Derby.
McCraken didn’t look especially well-suited to the Derby, and while Wilkes readily conceded that Burnham Square needs to improve again to serious contend at Churchill, the horse’s strength lies in his stamina.
“Distance is his friend,” said Wilkes.
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Burnham Square needed every inch of his first start over 1 1/8 miles in a race delayed three days because of historically voluminous rainfall here last week.
East Avenue returned to the site of his last and only major win in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity, where he went to the lead, set a fast pace, and never was challenged. A stumbling start contributed to East Avenue’s dud in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but the colt faded badly after stalking the pace while making his 3-year-old debut Feb. 15 in the Risen Star at Fair Grounds.
Two things came of that: the addition of blinkers and an intent to put East Avenue on the lead Tuesday. Owen Almighty broke on top and briefly led, but Luan Machado – a replacement for injured jockey Tyler Gaffalione – sent East Avenue hard, crossing to the rail just before hitting the first turn. The pace came up sizzling, with East Avenue going his first quarter mile, much of it into the wind, in 22.95 seconds and the half in 46.95.
Owen Almighty held second, a couple lengths behind East Avenue, with Irad Ortiz on River Thames biding his time a few lengths farther back in third, racing in the clear. Ortiz said after the race that he wanted to wait longer to ask his mount, but when Burnham Square on the far outside triggered a move from Chancer McPatrick inside him partway around the far turn, Ortiz had to push the button. Owen Almighty switched outside to make his run at East Avenue and drew abreast at the quarter pole, but he soon faltered as River Thames made progress and, outside him, Burnham Square kept coming. East Avenue switched to his wrong lead at the sixteenth pole yet still beat back River Thames before Burnham Square got him by a nose.
“It looked at the head of the straight like he was going to fold, and he didn’t fold,” East Avenue’s trainer, Brendan Walsh, said. “I think it’s a good sign for the future. I think he’s a horse that can still improve.”
River Thames, second in the Fountain of Youth last out, more than two lengths ahead of fourth-place Burnham Square, ran his race, too, and fell short while making his fourth start.
"For a lightly raced horse, first time at a mile and an eighth, it seemed like he stuck it out pretty well,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He’s come a long way in a short period of time."
Fourth, 2 3/4 lengths back, came 16-1 shot Admiral Dennis, with 30-1 chance Render Judgement one length behind him and a head in front of Owen Almighty and Chancer McPatrick, who dead-heated for sixth.
Burnham Square, who paid $10.48, ran 1 1/8 miles over a fast track in 1:51.33 in a race that was fast early and slow late. After the robust early tempo, the fourth quarter-mile went in 25.93, the final three furlongs in a leaden 39.37. Burnham Square, preliminarily, earned a career-best 96 Beyer Speed Figure.
Immediately after the race, East Avenue’s connections said they were inclined to push on to the Kentucky Derby, with the 50 qualifying points East Avenue earned giving him 60, the 13th-highest total on Churchill Downs Inc.’s Road to the Kentucky Derby that determines the 20 Derby runners.
River Thames’s 25 points pushed his total to 50, 16th in the standings. Pletcher said he’d “let the dust settle” and talk to the colt’s owners before deciding on a Derby start. Render Judgement has 39 points, including his 10 from the Blue Grass, the 26th highest total, while Admiral Dennis, who earned 15 points, has just 17. Owen Almighty, by virtue of winning the Tampa Bay Derby, has 65 points, but trainer Brian Lynch ruled out a Derby run.
Burnham Square is by Liam’s Map out of Linda, by Scat Daddy, and his morning training before his debut last October at Keeneland was pedestrian enough that Wilkes ran him for a $150,000 claiming tag. Burnham Square improved when Wilkes ran him two turns, improved again when Wilkes added blinkers four races ago, and improved Tuesday after Wilkes began training him more aggressively following the Fountain of Youth.
“I felt I was a little too soft on him after the fact, and I learned something from that, you know?” Wilkes said.
Tuesday, Wilkes learned he’d return to the Kentucky Derby. He exercised one Derby winner and helped train another. Now, he can train one himself. Burnham Square might not catch the eye, but he ran just fast enough in the Blue Grass to catch East Avenue.
- additional reporting by Nicole Russo
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