NEWS
Tabor takes shot at Oaks-Derby double
Posted: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 4:12 PM
by Frank Angst
Already an owner of a Kentucky Derby (G1) winner, Michael Tabor will try to join an even more exclusive club this weekend.
Tabor will have a chance to join just two other owners in history to win both the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands in the same season when he sends out Rags to Riches as the morning-line favorite in the Oaks and Florida Derby (G1) winner Scat Daddy and Louisiana Derby (G2) winner Circular Quay in the Derby.
Col. E. R. Bradley secured the Oaks-Derby double in 1933 with Barn Swallow in the Oaks and Brokers Tip in the Derby. Calumet Farm twice accomplished the feat, taking the 1949 Oaks with Wistful and the Derby with Ponder; and sweeping the 1952 races with Real Delight in the Oaks and Hill Gail in the Derby.
Tabor, who frequently purchases and races horses in partnership with Coolmore Stud owner John Magnier, won the 1995 Kentucky Derby with Thunder Gulch.
“It doesn’t get any better than a weekend like this,” said Demi O’Byrne, bloodstock agent for Coolmore Stud.
Tabor boasts a particularly strong group of three-year-olds in North America this season.
Scat Daddy, by Johannesburg who stands at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud, won the Florida Derby and Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) this year after winning the Champagne (G1) and Sanford (G2) Stakes last season. Tabor co-owns Scat Daddy with James Scatuorchio.
Winner of the Hopeful Stakes (G1) and runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) last year, Circular Quay scored a 2 1/4-length win in the Louisiana Derby. By Thunder Gulch, homebred Circular Quay is the first American stakes winner bred by Tabor’s wife, Doreen.
Owned in partnership with Derrick Smith, Rags to Riches has won all three of her races this season by a combined 12 1/4 lengths and enters the Oaks with two straight Grade 1 wins at Santa Anita Park.
While The Green Monkey, still unraced, made headlines last year when O’Byrne purchased him for a juvenile sale world record $16-million, Tabor’s deep and talented group of North American-based three-year-olds have made headlines on the track.
Besides the starters in this weekend’s Oaks and Derby, Tabor co-owns Grade 3 winners Belgravia and Ravel. Trainer Todd Pletcher said Ravel was the top three-year-old on the West Coast this season before a left front cannon bone injury sidelined him for 60 days.
Frank Angst is senior writer of Thoroughbred Times
