The Derby Break: The 87th Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park on April 01, 2023 in Hot Springs. (Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
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The aptly named Speed King, dueling with the more substantial Bob-Baffert-trained Cornucopian cracked open a bracing eight-plus-length lead on the pack, led by Coal Battle, up the backstretch. For his part, and for most of that way, Sandman was biding his time in the back of the nine-horse field. “In the back” means just that: At one point, he was thirteen-plus lengths behind the frontrunners. But at the top of the backstretch, it was clear that the duel was beginning to etch at the pair. Their splits had been blazing: 0:22.46, 0:45.21, and 1:10.37.
Sandman’s delighted trainer Mark Casse said this after the race: “The farther they went, the more confident I was.”
In the far turn, Jockey Jose Ortiz wheeled Sandman swiftly past the pack and, heading a bit wide at the top of the stretch with not a little dirt covering them from all that time in the rear, Ortiz and Sandman switched on the afterburners. Speed King was entirely out of fuel, but his dueling partner, the Baffert-trained and highly touted Cornucopian, though fading, stuck to his run with a certain grit.
Coming out of the clubhouse turn, Ortiz and Sandman blew past them and hit the line two-and-a-half lengths in front of Publisher, who showed admirable kick in clawing out of the pack to place. The tough Coal Battle got around Cornucopian to show. For his part, Cornucopian managed to retain his grip on fourth, earning himself and Baffert a modest 15 points toward a stall in the Kentucky gate.
Although Sandman was a known talent, hence his 3-1 odds, and will now be put under every possible analyst’s microscope prior to the Kentucky Derby, in a sense he pulled off a minor sort of upset. The extremely lightly-raced Cornucopian had gone off — to some, quite mysteriously, with one lone previous outing — garlanded as the strong 8-5 favorite, with Baffert and the connections hoping for the hundred-point hit. The far more experienced Sandman simply did what he thought he should do — break, tuck into a good position, and strike hard down the lane. Put a different way, Sandman looked like he was ready for the one-and-a-quarter miles in Kentucky a month from now. For the moment, the race puts him at the top of the Kentucky Derby leaderboard with 129 points.
Trainer Casse acknowledged that there was a bobble of a stride in the lane, as the stewards quickly investigated and then as quickly dismissed post-race, but he extolled the strength of the tactical run. Sandman was 13-plus lengths behind the speed duel up the backstretch.
About the weaving out in the last furlongs, Casse said: “He wasn’t focusing, and he was still able to draw away. As (jockey Ortiz) José said, he wants to get into a rhythm, and if you can get him into that rhythm, he’ll just go. Jose said he didn’t take a deep breath when he pulled up.”
Adding to the fun, Sandman paid $9.40, Publisher paid $6.20, and Coal Battle paid a predictable $3.00 in show. The athleticism was, as it is in in all of racing, breathtaking, but more impressive was the tactical prowess of the victor.
