Desert Gate Storms the Ohio Derby This Saturday

Buckeye Showdown: Desert Gate Headlines a Loaded Ohio Derby Weekend

The Triple Crown trail has gone quiet, with Golden Tempo's Belmont coronation already two weeks in the books, but do not mistake silence for stillness. This Saturday the post-classic three-year-old division roars back to life in the heart of Ohio, where Thistledown rolls out its biggest day of the year for the 92nd running of the $500,000, Grade 3 Ohio Derby. Ten sophomores go nine furlongs over the North Randall dirt, and the script could not be juicier: a runaway West Coast favorite against a posse of battle-tested Preakness alumni looking to spring an ambush.

The horse everyone is chasing is Desert Gate. Bob Baffert's colt has turned into a different animal since blinkers went on, romping in the Hot Springs Stakes by nearly ten lengths and then drawing off to win the Texas Derby by six and a quarter. He gets Flavien Prat back in the saddle for the first time since that Oaklawn demolition. The angle that should make bettors sit up: for all his Triple Crown glory, Baffert has never won the Ohio Derby, a gap on his Hall of Fame résumé. A trophy at 5-2 on the morning line would be a fitting reward for a colt stretching out to a mile and an eighth with the pedigree, by Omaha Beach and out of a Curlin mare, to relish every yard of it.

Standing in his way is a wave of horses who tasted the Triple Crown grind. Chip Honcho, third in the Preakness for Steve Asmussen, gets Jose Ortiz, who skipped his Churchill Downs mounts to make the trip. Ocelli ran third in the Kentucky Derby and fourth in the Preakness, and remarkably remains a maiden, with Tyler Gaffalione sticking aboard to try to break that duck in a graded stakes. Trendsetter, the Lexington Stakes winner, and Wood Memorial hero Albus round out a field deep enough to make Desert Gate earn it. Sharp-eyed value hunters should glance at Zihnal at 30-1, a lightly raced colt with the field's best late-pace rating and a trainer who hits hard off short rest. The Ohio Derby goes as the nightcap of a twelve-race program with a scheduled post of 6:20 p.m. Eastern and it is one of four other stakes salting the Thistledown card, including the $250,000 Lady Jacqueline for older fillies and mares at the same mile and an eighth.

Louisville offers the day's class counterpoint, and it comes after dark. Churchill Downs runs the 36th edition of the $300,000, Grade 2 Chicago Stakes on Saturday night as the featured race of a Downs After Dark program, seven furlongs for older fillies and mares carded as Race 9 near 10:14 p.m. Eastern. The draw is a genuine duel between two Grade 1 winners. Eclatant, the 6-5 morning-line favorite for Brad Cox with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard, arrives off a nose victory in the Madison Stakes at Keeneland and looks tough to pass. She will have to hold off Usha, the speedy daughter of Tiz the Law who won the Winning Colors Stakes last out for Bob Baffert. Here is the thread tying the night together: Usha races for Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman, the very same ownership group that sends out Desert Gate hours earlier in Ohio, giving that partnership a live shot at a coast-to-coast double on the same Saturday.

The Spring Meet at Churchill is racing toward its June 28 finish, with the Grade 1 Stephen Foster headlining the closing Saturday a week from now, so the action only intensifies from here. Pour something cold, fire up the past performances, and settle in. The Triple Crown may be history, but Saturday the season's next chapter starts writing itself, in Ohio by daylight and under the Twin Spires by dark.