There will be eight starters for Monday Night’s 74th running of the Manitoba Derby at Assiniboia Downs.
The early favourite, at 7-5 odds, is PrayForPeace, who is coming off an impressive 6 1/2 length victory in the July 11 Derby Trials race.
The three-year-old, Kentucky-bred grey/roan gelding is owned by Henry S. Witt Jr of Waco, Texas, and trained by Jerry Gourneau. Antonio Whitehall, who rode PrayForPeace to that Derby Trials victory will be back in the saddle for Monday’s marquee event of the Manitoba thoroughbred racing season.
While Witt has been the top winner among owners five times at Assiniboia Downs, and Gourneau is well on his way to finishing as the leading trainer for a third straight year, this dynamic duo is still looking for that first ever trip into the winners circle on Derby Day at ASD. But Witt believes this could be the year that happens.
“I think we’ve got a really good shot at it. This horse (PrayForPeace) is a good horse. I’ve been watching him and watching him,” said Witt via a telephone interview from his home office in Waco. “I claimed him for 80-plus taxes which works out to $86,000. Ten days later, they had a $US128,000 allowance race and the winner gets 60 per cent. I put him in that and figured if he won, we’d get $78,000, $79,000, and get most of my money back.”
Witt says PrayForPeace got hung on the rail and wound up having to go six wide at the turn, but instead of “shutting it down,” the roan/grey gelding battled his way to a third-place finish. That’s when the decision was made to bring PrayForPeace to Winnipeg for the Derby Trials, where he stormed down the stretch for that impressive victory.
“Whitehall just popped him one time and it looked like he hit another gear,” Witt recalled. “Whitehall said, ‘No no, he didn’t hit another gear.’ He hit two gears. He just took off, so I’m kind of proud of him and I hope we win the thing.”
Witt knows a thing or two about winning. He’s a “Wall of Fame” race car driver at his home track in Waco and has also coached a kids’ summer league baseball team to a pair of state championships in eight final appearances.
And it’s expected the main competition for the Witt-Gourneau tandem will come from trainer Robertino Diodoro, a former Calgarian, who will saddle up three contenders in vying for his fourth Manitoba Derby title in the last six years.
Diodoro has Great Escape at 2-1 and will be starting out of the preferable #5 position. Chestnut colt Red Knobs is listed at 5-1 and will be on the rail. And bay gelding Clancy’s Pistol checks in at 6-1 on the early tote board and is in the #4 hole.
PrayForPeace will start on the outside at #8 and Witt admits, that certainly wouldn’t have been his first, second or even third choice.
“There’s one good thing: you don’t have anybody on the outside that can bang off of you — maybe knock the breath out of him and something happens, knock him off stride. The inside, you’ve got a straighter shot and the smaller the track is, when you go around the turns and you get the rail, it’s the shortest way around the track,” explained Witt, who likened that to his strategy when he was behind the wheel as a race car driver.
On the plus side, PrayForPeace easily outdistanced the field in the Derby Trials. And Witt feels Whitehall’s familiarity with Assiniboia Downs could be an advantage with Diodoro bringing in Alberta Jockeys Rico Walcott and Rafael Zenteno Jr. to ride Great Escape and Clancy’s Pistol respectively in Monday’s feature event.
“When you ride at a track, it’s kind of like when I drove race cars. You know, the nicks and the turns. And if you can read the track, you can see where it’s faster,” Witt said, explaining home track advantage.
“Whitehall’s pretty good at that. He can see which lane is faster, and you can get in there and go. But Diodoro’s got three in there, and he’s got three shots at us. I’m sure he’s going to put one on the front for a speed horse, and he’s going to have one setting off of him and then he’ll probably have one setting back to close.”
The interesting dynamic for Witt and Gourneau is, in addition to the early favourite, they will also saddle up the longshot in Monday’s signature race with Get Witt Gone, who is listed at 40-1.
The only local entry in the eight-horse field is Strong Belief, who will start out of the #2 hole at around 25-1 odds to capture the winner’s share of the $100,000 purse.
In addition to the Manitoba Derby, which will be the sixth race on the 7:30 p.m. card Monday, there figures to be plenty of emotion for the newly named Harvey Warner Manitoba Mile Stakes in honour of the former and beloved Manitoba Jockey Club president, who passed away suddenly on March 9.
That race features a $50,000 purse, as will the Escape Clause Stakes, in recognition of Manitoba’s greatest ever racehorse. Patrons will also have opportunities for “an enrichening” experience with the $100,000 Guaranteed Pick 4 Pool and mandatory payout of the Assiniboia Downs Jackpot Pick 5, with a pool expected to surpass $1 million.
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