2024-01-08 09:02:24
Javier Castellano won his first Kentucky Derby in 2023 and that is a sensation that the exceptional 46-year-old Venezuelan jockey would undoubtedly like to experience once more.
Castellano rides Drum Roll Please to a third-place finish in the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes last month at Aqueduct and travels to ride him once more in the 3-year-old colt’s first race Saturday in New York, the Jerome Stakes.
It remains to be seen if Drum Roll Please will be Castellano’s ride in the 150th Kentucky Derby on May 4, 2024, as the colt takes the next step in his quest to get there, winning the $145,000 Jerome Stakes for 3 3/4 lengths on El Grande O, a specimen bred in New York that does its first test at 3 years old
The win earned Drum Roll Please 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points and gives him 13 total points in the system Churchill Downs uses to determine entrants if more than 20 enter the race.
Castellano broke away from the rail early, letting his horse go last, but only two lengths behind the lot, before the final turn Castellano takes Drum Roll Please to the outside, to go on the trip to win the race.
In this regard, Javier Castellano declares a DRF
“I like the way he did it because it was at a slow pace, on a deep track, he did it the right way, he was behind the horses with sand on his face, he calmly went out and finished. This is the type of preparation I like to do to horses.”
Regarding not having been nominated for the Eclipse Award, an award he has won four times, Castellano says:
“It is what it is. Thank God I have a great year, I won two Triple Crown races in the same year, the Travers, the United Nations, the Jockey Club Gold Cup. Thank God I was able to return to the general scene and to the high level, I am simply grateful” .
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