LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Barbaro redux? Trainer Michael Matz, who saddled Barbaro to win the 2006 Run for the Roses by 6 ½ lengths, sent out Union Rags, his contender for Saturday’s 138th Kentucky Derby, for an eye-popping workout Saturday morning at Churchill Downs that had many observers recalling Barbaro’s sensational pre-Derby drill.
With jockey Julien Leparoux in the saddle, Union Rags powered through five furlongs in :59 4/5, galloping out a strong six furlongs in 1:13 4/5. His fractions were :12, :23 3/5 and :47 1/5.
That sent the backstretch buzzing, and now there’s a better-than-average chance that Union Rags, the future-wager favorite for the Derby all winter and spring, will go off the betting choice when the gates spring open about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.
“We wanted a strong work here,” Matz said. “That was the plan all along, to do it a week ahead of time and give him some time to recover. The gods were good. It didn’t rain on us, so it’s up to him.”
Before his last start, when Union Rags could not overcome traffic trouble and finished third in the Florida Derby at 2-5, the towering son of Dixie Union recorded slow breezes of five furlongs in 1:04 1/5 and four furlongs in :49.
That’s a sharp difference from yesterday’s :59 4/5 work, the third fastest of 53 at the distance, and his :47 2/5 breeze a week earlier at Keeneland.
“Now is the time to turn the screws a little,” Matz said. “This is it.”
A few miles away at the Churchill Downs Trackside training center, 2-year-old champion Hansen, who beat Union Rags by a head in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, breezed five furlongs in 1:01 1/5, accompanied through the end of the work by his 4-year-old stablemate Derby Kitten.
Hansen, who set the pace last out in the Blue Grass before being run down late by Dullahan, went in splits of :12 1/5, :24 3/5, :36 3/5 and :49 1/5. He galloped out six furlongs in 1:15.
“We’re trying to harness the speed,” trainer Mike Maker said. “If we put a workmate with him from the starting point of the work, he has a tendency to be very aggressive. So we just sprinkled it in the last part.
“Basically, the plan was to try to get Hansen to go soft the first three-eighths, which he did, and then just finish up his last quarter, which he did.”
Back at Churchill Saturday morning, trainer Dale Romans’ Dullahan tuned up for the Derby with a five-furlong breeze in 1:01 1/5 under exercise rider Tammy Fox. He went in fractions of :11 4/5, :23 4/5 and :36, then shut down rather quickly, just as he did after the wire in the Blue Grass, with a six-furlong gallop out in 1:15 4/5.
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Union Rags, Kentucky Derby, Michael Matz, Churchill Downs, Florida Derby, LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dixie Union, furlongs, Churchill Downs Trackside, Julien Leparoux
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