ROAD TO THE DERBY

The Wood Memorial and the Santa Anita Derby are two of the bigger prep races for The Derby. The Wood Memorial being run at Aqueduct in NYC and the Santa Anita being run at the Great Race Place.

The Wood Memorial has Todd Pletcher's trained horse Verrazano, who is going off as the 4-5 favorite. This three year old has been touted as the big name in The Derby. If he performs well in The Wood, he will definitely be the odds on favorite come May 4th.

Verrazano has had three starts as a three year old and he has gone 3 for 3. He has won all three races by a combined 27 lengths. I believe that his biggest competition in this race is going to be Vyjack, who has won his last four starts. I liked the move of putting Joel Rosario on this horse. Rosario is a great rider and he has a way of calming the horses down in big situation. Vyjack is 4-1 on the morning line. Post time is approximately 3:30 PM (PT).

Going across the country to the Great Race Place, a big scratch came in. Jerry Hollendorfer's trained Hear the Ghost has been scratched and will be out for at least four months. This means that Hear the Ghost will miss The Derby. Hear the Ghost was supposed to give Bob Baffert's trained Flashback some good competition. Besides Flashback, Bob Baffert has two other horses entered into this race, Power Broker and Super Ninety Nine. This is definitely going to fuel the feud between Baffert and Drug, I mean, Doug O'Neill.  Goldencents has been entered for the Santa Anita and let's see if O'Neill complains that Baffert is having his horses gang up on his one. This makes for an interesting side bar now that Hear the Ghost has been scratched. Depending on how this race plays out, all four of these horses can win this race. The Santa Anita Derby goes off at approximately 4:00 PM (PT)

NBS Sports Network is going to have these races live, they should be good races to watch, especially if you have interest in The Derby on May 4th.