HENDERSON, Ky. (WDRB) – There may or may not be fans at the Sept. 5 edition of the Kentucky Derby. But we will have some major storylines and a regional rivalry made possible only by this crazy COVID season.
One day after Tiz the Law stamped himself as the Kentucky Derby favorite with a resounding victory in the Travers Stakes in Saratoga Springs, New York, Tommy Drury’s Art Collector kept strumming heartstrings, easily besting a field of 12 in the $200,000 Runhappy Ellis Park Derby to deal himself in as a legitimate alternate contender.
Drury, who got the colt from owner Bruce Lunsford in March after another trainer was suspended for administering a banned substance to him, wound up keeping Art Collector in his Skylight Stables in Goshen, Ky. The colt has responded by going 4-for-4 since the move, including an impressive win in the Blue Grass Stakes, and a 3 1/4-length win over Dale Romans' Attachment Rate on Sunday.
"It’s a storybook thing, really," said Drury, who in 29 years of training had not won a graded stakes until the Blue Grass, and now has a legitimate Kentucky Derby contender.
How will he handle the nerves?
"I was staring at the ceiling before the Ellis Park Derby," Drury said. "The Kentucky Derby?"
A Louisville native who lives in Prospect, Drury was just looking to keep his colt sharp and healthy in the historic Henderson race, the first in the track’s 98-year history to have direct Kentucky Derby implications.
He got every bit of that.
"He’s just really professional," jockey Brian Hernandez said. "This is huge," jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. "We're going into the Derby now with a legitimate horse. Like we said after the Blue Grass, he's proven he's getting better and better with each race. He showed it again today. He put everyone away. He did it all on his own and ran away from there"
Art Collector led at every call. He's by Bernardini, out of the Distorted Humor mare Distorted legacy.
For runner-up Attachment Rate, the second-place allotment and his 35 total points should get him into the Derby field, which will make Romans take a hard look.
"I think we saw his best effort, the type of race we were looking for,” Romans said.
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