The England-based trainer James Owen sent Wimbledon Hawkeye to win the Nashville Derby on Saturday, hitting the mark with his first North American starter.
Otherwise, it was a day of seconds in the richest race of the Kentucky Downs meeting.
Following Bellum Justum, Wimbledon Hawkeye became the second straight Nashville Derby winner not only to come from England but to come out of the same race, the Gordon Stakes at Goodwood. And for the second year in a row, Frankie Dettori, the former star England-based jockey, rode the winner.
It took some doing. Dettori broke his mount from the 12-hole, the widest post in a 1 5/16-mile race that began just yards before the first turn, a sharp one that can be difficult to negotiate. Wimbledon Hawkeye broke a quarter-beat slow, which forced Dettori to hustle his mount for position, and after racing four or five paths wide through the first part of the turn, Dettori plunked Wimbledon Hawkeye about three paths from the rail, getting cover behind Noble Confessor while sitting fifth.
There he stayed while 85-1 shot King of Ashes set the pace, tracked by another long price, Tomasello. Down the long backstretch, up and down a rise in the ground, turning left into the long far turn, Wimbledon Hawkeye raced in the bridle and poised, awaiting Dettori’s cue. It came surprisingly early, Dettori asking the colt for run between the 3/8 and 5/16 poles – and getting an immediate and sharp response. Wimbledon Hawkeye accelerated like a good horse, inhaling rivals in front of him and hitting the front with a full quarter-mile remaining.
Behind him, Brian Hernandez on Burnham Square had a live mount, and he steered off the fence to get into Wimbledon Hawkeye’s wake, following him into the homestretch. Wimbledon Hawkeye opened daylight to the three-sixteenths pole, whereupon Burnham Square kicked into high gear, bridging the divide, coming right alongside Wimbledon Hawkeye, perhaps even sticking his nose in front before the sixteenth pole. But under a very aggressive Dettori stick, and showing good courage, Wimbledon Hawkeye turned back Burnham Square and prevailed by a head.
Wimbledon Hawkeye had been a candidate for the Derby earlier this year, was a Group 2 winner last year at age 2, finished second two races ago to subsequent Grade 1 Sword Dancer winner El Cordobes, and probably ran even better losing the Gordon by a zot. He’s a good horse, very well spotted, and Burnham Square, rebounding from a flat fifth in the Haskell Stakes, ran huge in his turf debut.
The top two broke from the rest of the field and it was 3 3/4 lengths back to Hill Road, who came out atop a three-horse blanket finish for third, edging fourth-place Test Score and fifth-place Final Gambit. Two more horses who had run in Triple Crown races, Sandman and Tiztastic, finished, respectively, ninth and 10th.
A time of 2:03.74 was posted on the Kentucky Downs video feed, and that would have broken the course record by about two seconds, but no times, fractional or final, appeared in the initial iteration of the official chart.
What is clear: Wimbledon Hawkeye paid $6.54 to win as the favorite. Owen trains him for the Gredley Family, and Wimbledon Hawkeye is by Kameko out of Eva Maria, by Sea the Stars.
The potential purse for the Nashville Derby was $3.5 million, but $1.5 million of that came from a supplement available only to Kentucky-breds. The race’s total value was $2.78 million, and Wimbledon Hawkeye earned $1,109,800, a tidy sum for a colt who came to Kentucky with purse earnings of about $370,000.
Owen, 45, is based in Newmarket and got his training license in January 2023. He picked out the perfect spot for his first North American runner.
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