HOT SPRINGS — Jockey Calvin Borel isn’t shopping for a Kentucky Derby mount, at least in late February.
Trainer Tim Ritchey isn’t shopping for a Kentucky Derby rider, at least in late February.
Both are all in, at least in late February, on one horse - Elite Alex.
“I’m very high on him,” Borel said. “I like him a lot. He kind of reminds me of Street Sense, I’ll tell you what.”
Borel has won the Kentucky Derby three of the last four years, the first coming with Street Sense in 2007.
Borel’s latest Kentucky Derby hope, Elite Alex, makes his long-awaited stakes debut in the $250,000 Grade III Southwest today at Oaklawn Park. The Southwest Stakes in the ninth race on a 10-race card, with a scheduled post time of 5:02 p.m. Central.
Elite Alex has only started twice in his career, but his upside and connections, among other things, have landed him high on several lists of Kentucky Derby candidates.
“It’s amazing,” Ritchey said, adding he is surprised about the national buzz surrounding his colt. “He was impressive when he broke his maiden, but a big horse shouldn’t go :58 and change and he did. I guess what impressed a lot of people was his last race, the fact that he still almost overcame quite afew problems in the race.”
Ritchey was referring to a Jan. 15 entry-level allowance spot at Oaklawn in which Elite Alex, ridden for the first time by Borel, was beaten a head by Alternation, a promising Distorted Humor colt trained by Donnie K. Von Hemel.
Elite Alex spotted the field several lengths after stumbling so badly at the start that he sustained a small puncture wound on the outside of his left front foot, then was hung five-wide in the mile race.
“Very unfortunate the last time,” said Borel, a two-time Oaklawn riding champion.
Ritchey wanted Borel to ride Elite Alex in his July 3 debut at Delaware Park, but the jockey had commitments that day at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., where, about two months earlier,he won his third Kentucky Derby with a rail-skimming ride aboard Super Saver.
Ritchey, however, remained committed to arrange a marriage between Elite Alex and Borel, whose recent Kentucky Derby success is unprecedented.
“In my estimation, he’s the best rider out there right now,” Ritchey said.
“I thought he was the man. I thought if [Elite Alex] is the horse I think he is, I thought he would want to ride him.”
Elite Alex was ridden in his first start by Anna Napravnik, the country’s leading female jockey.
A towering son of champion Afleet Alex - Ritchey’s 2005 Preakness and Belmont winner - Elite Alex broke his maiden by three-quarters of a length, covering five-eighths of a mile in a lively :58.63.
Ritchey planned to send Elite Alex straight into stakes company at historic Saratoga in upstate New York - a path Afleet Alex blazed six years earlier - but pulled the plug because of physical concerns.
“He just was too big and kind of out of proportion,” said Ritchey, who also coowns Elite Alex. “He was a little higher behind than he was in front and of out of balance. I just decided to give him some time.”
Elite Alex is already taller than his famous father and will be at least 17 hands, roughly the same height as 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta, by the time he stops growing, Ritchey said.
Now, Elite Alex can begin growing his Kentucky Derby resume in the 1-mile Southwest.
“He’s got to live up to his hype,” Ritchey said. “I look for him to run a good race. I think his best is in front of him.”
Sports, Pages 13 on 02/21/2011