Big who?

No sooner had the Big Brown bandwagon started rolling than along came Colonel John with “The Move,” an eye-popping stretch run that carried him to victory in the Santa Anita Derby. That has some racing fans who only a week ago were sure they had their Derby horse picked out reconsidering whether their enthusiasm was misplaced.

And we haven’t even witnessed Pyro’s final tune-up for the Kentucky Derby or seen if some mystery steed steps up big to win the Arkansas Derby.

In other words, it must be spring, ‘cause Derby fever is running rampant.

If you were to look only at the paper, you might assume that Recapturetheglory’s gate-to-wire victory in the Illinois Derby (Gr. 2), which earned him a solid Beyer Speed Figure of 102, was the race of the weekend. But with a quirky new artificial racing surface on the Left Coast and a peanut-butter strip in the Big Apple, speed figures probably don’t tell the whole story.

Colonel John earned a 95 Beyer figure in winning the $750,000 Santa Anita Derby (Gr. 1). But if you watched the son of Tiznow explode through the stretch to run down the surprising Bob Black Jack and and Coast Guard, it was hard not to put him among the top echelon of contenders in Louisville.

The long-striding Eoin Harty-trained colt was running ninth, nearly 6 ½ lengths behind the leader Coast Guard at the 3/8ths pole, when jockey Corey Nakatani moved him out for room. It looked like the winner of the Sham Stakes was going nowhere until midstretch, when Nakatani went to a right-handed whip. As soon as he did, Colonel John shifted to another gear and inhaled the leaders.

Colonel John only beat Bob Black Jack by a half length, but I liked the strong gallop out that Nakatani gave him, including the “reminder” on the right shoulder to keep his focus. That had “next stop, Louisville” written all over it.

Video   Preparing for the Derby April 5: Taking the results of the Santa Anita Derby into account, Gary Stevens and Tom Hammond preview the Kentucky Derby field. NBC Sports

Much will be written between now and May 3 about Colonel John’s lack of experience on a dirt track, and that is something each handicapper will have to consider as they try to figure out how the leader of what figures to be a slim California contingent stacks up against the opposition in Kentucky. Colonel John's lone planned workout over the Churchill Downs strip probably will be the most closely watched event in the commonwealth since Daniel Boone’s funeral.

For my part, having seen California horses such as Sierra Sunset and Yankee Bravo ship and run at Oaklawn and the Fair Grounds as well as they did in California, I’m inclined to view it as a non-factor. Of course, I’ll be hoping Colonel John isn’t a Coast Guard, who ran horribly when he tried the dirt at Bay Meadows.

Of the other weekend preps, the hardest to decipher is the $750,000 Wood Memorial (Gr. 1), which saw Tale of Ekati wear down a resurgent War Pass to win by half a length.

Video   Nakatani and Colonel John make it happen April 5: Corey Nakatani talks to NBC after racing Colonel John at the Santa Anita Derby NBC Sports

There is no question that War Pass regained much of the luster he lost in his dismal effort in the Tampa Bay Derby, setting fast fractions over a tiring, drying out racetrack while under pressure from “rabbit” Inner Light. He even did it after suffering a cut chin on the flight north from Florida that required three staples to close.

War Pass ran much faster than solid older horses did a half hour earlier in the $200,000 Excelsior Handicap, but fought all the way to the wire. It took all the wiles that Edgar Prado brings to the saddle to get Tale of Ekati past the front-runner in the shadow of the wire.

Tale of Ekati earned a paltry Beyer figure of 93 in winning the Wood for trainer Barclay Tagg, in what was the slowest running of the race in decades. But drying tracks are just as likely as synthetic surfaces to produce abnormally low speed figures, so I’m not willing to throw out any of the top three finishers, including late-running Court Vision.

Video   Race replay: Santa Anita Derby April 5: Check out a replay of Colonel John's winning ride. NBC Sports

I am, however, highly suspicious of the $500,000 Illinois Derby (Gr. 2), which was a “boat race” in every sense of the word. Recapturetheglory is undoubtedly a nice horse, and anything that brings trainer Louis Roussel and Ronnie Lemarque — the connections of Risen Star — back to Louisville can only be a good thing. But I can’t like a front-runner’s chances of prevailing against the likes of speed horses like War Pass, Big Brown and possibly Bob Black Jack.

The rest of the major players in Kentucky will be decided this weekend in the Blue Grass Stakes and the Arkansas Derby.

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The $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes (Gr. 1) boasts the better field of the two on paper, led by leading Derby contender Pyro. Others expected to face the starter include Cool Coal Man, Visionaire, Cowboy Cal, Halo Najib and Medjool.

Tampa Bay Derby winner Big Truck and Todd Pletcher’s Monba are both listed as possible.

The $1 million Arkansas Derby (Gr. 1) appears to have a full field of 14 signed on, including Blackberry Road, Gayego, Indian Sun, King's Silver Son, Liberty Bull and Z Fortune.

One other race to keep an eye on is the $150,000 Holy Bull Stakes (Gr. 3) at Gulfstream. Hey Byrn is likely to go to post favored and could sneak into the Derby with a winning effort.

Big Brown may not win the Kentucky Derby, or any other Triple Crown race for that matter, he certainly has galvanized racing fans like no other horse this year. My appeal last week for comments on whether he might be the second coming of Secretariat or just another horse who ran a huge race early in spring stirred a record number of Hoofbeat readers to respond.

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