LEXINGTON, Ky. – No horse the first two days of this Keeneland spring meeting had made a long, sustained run from well off the pace and done more than spin his wheels. But then no horse the first two days of the Keeneland meet was Sierra Leone.
Coming from ninth of 10 with a withering, relentless run, Sierra Leone clipped past Just a Touch, a fast, promising colt in his own right, and ran out a 1 1/2-length win in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes.
With a runner-up finish in the Remsen Stakes in December, a win Feb. 17 in the Risen Star Stakes, and the 55 Kentucky Derby qualifying points earned those two starts, Sierra Leone already was all but in the Derby before Saturday’s race. Now, he goes to Louisville no worse than second favorite, the table set for an epic clash of styles with Fierceness, the front-running colt who won the Florida Derby last weekend by 13 1/2 lengths.
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It will take a very fast, determined horse to stymie Sierra Leone’s finishing kick. Sierra Leone’s lone loss, by a nose in the Remsen, is on him. Swooping past Dornoch and taking the lead in deep stretch, Sierra Leone lugged in and pulled himself up, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He tried a similar move this time, but Tyler Gaffalione, who’d ridden Sierra Leone for the first time in the Risen Star, was ready for him.
“As you can see, he made the lead leaning in, waiting around, playing,” Gaffalione said.
It’s true: Sierra Leone figured his work was done, Just a Touch having been overwhelmed.
“I haven’t even gotten close to the bottom of him. Every time I think I’ve got him at top speed, he finds more,” said Gaffalione.
Just a Touch did run a strong race in his own right while making his third start, first around two turns, and first on a fast track, following his second-place finish in the sloppy Gotham Stakes. Top Conor, a stablemate of Sierra Leone in the Chad Brown barn, was tapped for speed by Jose Ortiz breaking from post 1 and ran off strong fractions of 23.15 and 46.48 seconds. Top Conor, racing for only the second time, held gamely to nearly the furlong grounds before Just a Touch took his measure.
“He sat off a pretty demanding pace, finished up pretty well,” said trainer Brad Cox of Just a Touch. “I think he’s going to be a better horse moving forward now. I’m looking forward to trying him again in four weeks.”
Just a Touch’s connections will get that chance. The 50 points he earned, raising his total to 70, will be more than enough to make the Derby field, capped at 20 runners. Epic Ride, a 51-1 shot, stalked the pace three wide under Adam Beschizza and easily outran his odds, almost four lengths behind Just a Touch but 1 1/4 lengths better than Dornoch, the 5-2 second choice. Epic Ride, racing for the first time on dirt, has only 35 Derby points, likely leaving him outside the top 20, but the 70 points for Dornoch, the only horse to vanquish Sierra Leone, will get him into the Derby. Dornoch, the early leader his last four starts, was held up in fourth in the Blue Grass and just finished evenly.
The other points-scorer, with 10 for finishing fifth, was 181-1 shot Mugatu, the only horse Sierra Leone had beat down the backstretch. Mugatu hugged the rail, seemingly the best part of the racing surface, around the far turn and into the stretch. He was followed home by Top Conor, Seize the Grey, Be You, Lat Long, and Good Money. Encino was an early scratch, Cox redirecting him to the April 13 Lexington Stakes.
Sierra Leone was timed in 1:50.08 for 1 1/8 miles on a fast track producing final times within a standard range Saturday. Finishing into a mild headwind, Sierra Leone ran his final furlong in 13.01, faster by .68 seconds, a wide margin, than Just a Touch’s second-best closing fraction. Favored from the start of the betting, Sierra Leone paid $5.32.
Sierra Leone was given a 98 Beyer Speed Figure.
The win price would have been shorter had Sierra Leone minded his pre-race manners. Unperturbed in the paddock, the post parade, and the warm-up, Sierra Leone balked at being loaded, the last horse to be led up to the gate. It took several minutes for the gate crew, who treated the colt gently, never becoming too aggressive trying to force him into the starting stall, to get Sierra Leone snugged away. The longer the colt balked, the more the odds drifted.
“He’s never really been a problem from the gate,” said Brown. “From that 10 post, he’s the last one in. It was something with the crowd, the jockey told me afterward, spooked him a little bit, and from there on out he was more interested in the crowd than going to the gate.”
Sierre Leone broke a beat slow, which helped him, Gaffalione said. Racing at the rear, just outside and ahead of Mugatu, Sierra Leone ran unfazed through a fine spray of kickback coming at him. At the half-mile pole, Gaffalione split Lat Long and a flagging Good Money as Sierra Leone began stoking up, coming inside Seize the Grey and rolling past Mugatu, who’d made an earlier move, past the three-eighths pole. Swinging wide, Sierra Leone passed Be You at the quarter pole, ran by Dornoch at the three-sixteenths, was upon Epic Ride at the furlong grounds, and finally mowed down Just a Touch.
It was the third Blue Grass for Brown, whose two previous winners, Zandon in 2022 and Good Magic in 2018, went to Churchill and ran their race in the Derby, the former third, the latter second. Brown rates Sierra Leone his best chance at a first Derby.
“I’d have to say so, yeah,” Brown said. “This horse, he’s probably just ahead of them marching into the Derby.”
Sierra Leone, by Gun Runner out of Heavenly Love, by Malibu Moon, was bought to be this kind of colt, purchased as a yearling for $2.3 million. He’s owned by Peter Brant, Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, and Westerberg, and was bred in Kentucky by Debby Oxley.
“He’s a special horse and has been a special horse since he was born. He’s an unbelievable physical specimen,” Brown said.
Sierra Leone will remain at Keeneland, and Brown’s rough outline calls for the colt to have his first post-Blue Grass workout, which Brown termed “maintenance,” over the Keeneland surface.
“Then I will get him over to Churchill. He’ll have a minimum of one work at Churchill,” Brown said.
The Churchill homestretch is longer than Keeneland’s, the Derby a furlong longer than the Blue Grass. The longer he runs, the stronger Sierra Leone gets. It will take a fierce horse to turn him away.
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