Kentucky Derby Results 2016: Winners and Losers from the Run for the Roses
Nyquist proved he was the best by winning the 142nd Kentucky Derby in a swift time of two minutes, 1.31 seconds.
He got the perfect trip from the perfect ride. Mario Gutierrez piloted Nyquist to perfection, and the connections for Nyquist campaigned him perfectly so far.
The race set up just right, and great horses know when to pick it up. That's what Nyquist did, but so too did Exaggerator, the Curlin colt who charged up to meet Nyquist near the wire.
Gun Runner finished third and Mohaymen in fourth. Suddenbreakingnews took fifth.
That was a pressure-packed two minutes, but we have more than two minutes here. Read on for the winners and losers from this latest Run for the Roses.
Loser: Gun Runner
1 of 10
Gun Runner finished third, which by all accounts is a win. It's a nice paycheck for the connections, but finishing third when a horse had the trip of trips means he straight-up lost.
He broke out of Post 5 and had the luxury of skimming the rail without the lead. Turning for home, it was all Gun Runner, all by himself…for a moment.
"When I hit the top of the stretch, the horse was just coasting along," jockey Florent Geroux said. "He broke very nice, clear. I thought I had it for a minute. He started pricking his ears back and forth at the top of the stretch."
Nyquist came up to Gun Runner and put him away within a few strides. Gun Runner tired as Exaggerator flew past for second.
Third in the Kentucky Derby is nice, but you want to earn third and see upside, not settle for it, and Gun Runner didn't have the stamina. Nine furlongs may be his distance. No excuses, and the Louisiana Derby route to the Kentucky Derby is still a winless one.
Winner: Short Memories
2 of 10
OK, so let's not project a long memory on Mohaymen, but for the sake of this slider, let's say Mohaymen remembered what happened in the Grade 1 Florida Derby.
He was unbeaten. So too was Nyquist.
It was muddy. Nyquist buried Mohaymen as Mohaymen plodded home fourth. At the time, Mohaymen was at the top of all Derby contender boards. After? Not so much.
Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin told everyone to draw a line through that Florida Derby. Mohaymen vindicated his trainer's opinion of him by storming down the center of the track to pick up fourth.
It was a spirited effort that spoke to the short memory of Mohaymen.
What will likely happen now? McLaughlin will rest his horse and bring him back to his home base at Belmont Park and gear him up five weeks later in the Belmont Stakes.
McLaughlin won the Belmont 10 years ago with Jazil.
Loser: Chad Brown
3 of 10
Chad Brown saddled two horses in the Derby, and he was noticeably bullish on Shagaf, his Grade 3 Gotham Stakes winner. To which Jerry Bailey, NBC's horse racing analyst, said, "What trainer is not bullish on their horse coming into the Derby?"
Shagaf then had the three most dreaded letters follow his line: No. 20 with a DNF. His jockey had no choice but to pull him up.
Brown said: "Shagaf was a huge disappointment. He got up there in the race, attending pretty hot pace, but I liked the fact that he was out of trouble. Then he just completely spit the bit. I'm not sure what exactly happened. We'll have to go back to the drawing board. He trained so well leading up to it, that's a surprise to me, a disappointment."
Joel Rosario, his jockey, added: "I was in a good position in the first turn and on the backside but when I passed the three-eighths pole he was getting a little weak, a little tired. Turning for home, I just had to pull him up because he was so tired. He was running really nice and was in the bridle. After he ran so far he just kind of gave it up and slowed down. Everyone was kind of passing me and I just had to pull him up."
Shagaf saved a little bit of energy, as My Man Sam, Brown's other horse, closed to finish 11th.
Irad Ortiz, his jockey, said, "I had a good trip. No excuses today."
Brown's Derby hopes will be an uphill battle. He dominates on grass, but dirt is a surface he has yet to master on a similar level. He'll get there, but Derby 142 means he needs to find better dirt colts.
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Winner: Todd Pletcher's Handling of Destin
4 of 10
Todd Pletcher saddled his 46th and 47th Derby horses, both long shots, but it was his handling of Destin that was questionable—but mostly interesting.
It sort of worked.
Destin finished sixth, this after having not raced since March 12 in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby. A layoff that long is unheard of, but these horses race less and less. Once Destin secured the points, Pletcher decided to let the horse train up to the race and not risk him peaking before the Derby.
"He didn't break real sharp, got shuffled back a little further back than we wanted to and flattened out the last eighth of a mile," Pletcher said.
That must have been the most disappointing part to watch. No horse was fresher than Destin coming into this race, and he flattened out? Still, he managed to finish sixth, which means he may be a threat to win races of nine furlongs or shorter.
It may also mean he needs more seasoning. In any case, I applaud Pletcher for trying something new and the owners for letting him do it.
Loser: Ken Ramsey Is 'Nominated' Late
5 of 10
As much as I was wrong about Nyquist (or just skeptical), I was vehemently against Oscar Nominated entering this race, so at least that was somehow vindicated.
The Kentucky Derby, the world's most famous dirt race, was ON's first race on dirt. You see, Oscar Nominated is a turf horse. His win in the Spiral Stakes on Polytrack qualified him for the Derby.
His owner, Ken Ramsey, ponied up $200,000 to nominate him for the Triple Crown after that win and granted him clearance to the Derby. He never thought anything of him by the first two deadlines to nominate.
That's $200,000 he'll want back. As a result, Oscar Nominated clopped home 17th for trainer Mike Maker.
"When the running started, they went one way, we went the other," Maker said. "Obviously, we'll take him back to the grass probably and go from there."
Yeah, if this race didn't break his spirit. No more non-dirt races to qualify for the Kentucky Derby. Horses that excel on dirt should be the ones who get to run on it.
I know people will point to 2011's Animal Kingdom, a horse with a turfiness about him, a Spiral winner, who then won the Derby. He's the exception, not the rule.
Winner: Uncle Mo
6 of 10
There were always questions about Uncle Mo as a router, namely because of his pedigree. He would have been the 2011 Kentucky Derby favorite, but an illness sidelined him the day before the big race.
Uncle Mo returned to the winner's circle only one more time in his three-year-old year, but he can boast that he sired three 2016 Derby starters, none bigger than Nyquist, the winner of the race.
Uncle Mo also sired Outwork (14th)—owned by Mike Repole—and Mo Tom, who finished eighth.
It validated Uncle Mo's capacity to get horses to travel two turns. Maybe that took the sting off Repole's Outwork spitting the bit.
Loser: The Maiden
7 of 10
Maidens should avoid the Kentucky Derby.
If a maiden can't win in a field of 10 or fewer worse horses, how could a trainer think his horse could then compete in the Kentucky Derby?
Trojan Nation was that maiden, and he finished 16th.
"We got squeezed a little going out of the gate, but you expect that in a 20-horse field," his jockey, Aaron T. Gryder, said. "He settled and did the best he could from there. He didn't fire on, but he's going to be a nice colt on down the line."
Trojan Nation took advantage of a painfully slow Wood Memorial where he finished second behind Outwork. His defense team will say that's why he deserved a trip to Kentucky. I'm not so sure.
"He passed four or five of them late," trainer Patrick Gallagher said. "As long as he comes back fine, I'm good with it."
We won't know until he drops into a maiden race and gets some confidence if he's going to be OK. Some horses are never the same after the Derby crushes them. I get stabbing at the Derby, but it's hard to endorse horses that have won, let alone horses with no victories at all.
Winner: Exaggerator
8 of 10
Exaggerator was on the throttle in the final quarter-mile in the Kentucky Derby, and it almost won him the race. Kent Desormeaux, who won the Derby three times, threaded Exaggerator with aplomb and nearly caught Nyquist, ultimately finishing second.
Jerry Bailey, NBC's racing analyst said of Desormeaux's ride: "He had only four horses beat down the backside, but Kent Desormeaux actually gave him a good ride. He made a slight, slight steady for a hole, but then he got the hole. He dove inside saving all the ground around the far turn as he leaves the 5/16ths pole. He goes around that gap and angles him out in the stretch."
Amazingly, Exaggerator lost to Nyquist for the fourth time. Trainer Keith Desormeaux was all praise.
He said: "He had clear running room the entire one-quarter mile stretch. I thought for sure we would catch him. He did kind of level off the last sixteenth of a mile. Maybe he ran out of the training. I didn't see where Nyquist was during the race until after it was over and he was right there on the pace. What a horse. I can't respect that horse enough.
Will Exaggerator take on Nyquist in the Preakness? Maybe it's time to steer clear of Nyquist until they are forced together in a race like the Travers or the Breeders' Cup Classic.
"No excuses for Exaggerator," Randy Moss, NBC's racing analyst, said. "He had a pretty swift pace, and Nyquist was a lot closer, so when we get to the Preakness and play out this drama, if Exaggerator goes as well. That will be the talks. The trip they had in the Derby and how that plays out in the Preakness."
Maybe he'll wait for the Belmont or take him headlong to Baltimore where his sire, Curlin, swiped the Preakness away from Street Sense.
Loser: Whitmore
9 of 10
Ever since Whitmore wilted in the Arkansas Derby and Creator stared him down, his chances at performing well in the Kentucky Derby were slim at best.
He finished 19th.
"The jock [Victor Espinoza] said he didn't know if it was the rain or what, but he started stumbling around the half-mile mark," trainer Ron Moquett said. "He decided to take care of him from there, and we appreciate that. He looks OK. He's walking around the barn fine. We'll live to fight another day."
Up to that point, Espinoza had won—take a deep breath—five of the last six Triple Crown races. He won the Derby and Preakness aboard California Chrome and the Triple Crown with American Pharoah.
Whitmore failed to make it four TC races in a row for Espinoza.
Espinoza said: "I had a great trip around the first turn, but it felt like he was just spinning his wheels. I felt like he was uncomfortable the entire race. He never picked up the bridle. It's just how it goes sometimes. Sometimes they like the track and sometimes they're picky. He's one of those. It was a great, great race. The winner, I knew he was the one to beat and he got the perfect trip."
He did the right thing by taking care of the horse. The hope, as with all these horses that get crushed by the Derby, is they surface from it with a will to keep running and soon find the winner's circle again.
Winner: The Undefeated
10 of 10
"He doesn't know anything but the winner's circle," NBC's Randy Moss said during the broadcast.
That's 8-of-8 for Nyquist, the unquestionable, the unbeatable, the undefeated winner of the Kentucky Derby.
He put to bed all questions about stamina, about being a two-year-old champion, about the light prep schedule.
"We were all feeding off him," trainer Doug O'Neill said during the NBC broadcast. "There was no way we could be nervous. You just felt you were going into the gym with Kobe Bryant."
Gutierrez made it 2-of-2 in the Derby with yet another perfect ride. He piloted Nyquist right behind the speed and timed his one shot at Gun Runner and pulled away much the best.
"If you sat down and drew this race up on a chalkboard, this is how it would play out," NBC's Jerry Bailey said on the broadcast.
Does Nyquist have Triple Crown written on him? We don't know yet, but he's unbeaten, and he has that one thing each Triple Crown winner has after the first Saturday in May: a win at the Kentucky Derby.
"He won't have Danzing Candy in the Preakness, probably, so the pace should be more reasonable," Randy Moss said on the broadcast. "Nyquist might set the pace, but as we said, he can do that just as well as coming off the pace."
And now we wait, but first we savor.
All quotes came via post-race releases received by the author from the Churchill Downs media department.
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