Mage’s Derby win sets up potential for more magic at 2023 Preakness Stakes

It’s Triple Crown season, and the horses we are dealing with are three-year-olds. With this group of thoroughbred racehorses, sometimes promise leads to greatness, and sometimes it leads to disappointment and a failure to move forward in their growth. We entered Kentucky Derby week feeling that Forte was a deserving favorite who would deliver his usual solid performance. Instead, he didn’t even make it to the starting gate, as Kentucky state veterinarians felt that a bruise to his right front hoof was serious enough to order him scratched.

Then, there was the pace issue, with so many experts saying there was no speed in the race. Instead, we got a sub-46 second half mile that set the race up for closers and cooked most of those who were on the pace. How about the disappointment factor? Some of the perceived best horses in the race simply did not move forward. To name a few of them, Tapit Trice, Derma Sotogake and Verifying were all beaten by eight lengths or more.

Who was left to deliver a strong performance? How about Mage, who was an X-factor horse in the race – He entered the Kentucky Derby with only three starts in his career, and his final prep in the Florida Derby was a second-place finish to Forte where he only lost by one length. That race was a big improvement over his second start in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, where Forte beat him by nearly seven lengths. Also, he had shown progressively better speed figures in those three starts, a pattern which indicated that improvement was a strong possibility in Louisville. He ran a great race under the guidance of veteran jockey Javier Castellano, and he was a deserving winner. Praise should also go out to the second-place finisher, Two Phil’s, who was the only horse