The landmark 150th Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve on Saturday, May 4 will be the richest in history as the purse for America’s greatest race has been elevated to a guaranteed $5 million.
A few days after the third-place finisher in the Remsen Stakes posted an initial stakes victory, the highly regarded winner of that mile-and-an-eighth Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve prep is taking his first steps toward matching his full brother’s magical accomplishment.
Barry Irwin, now the head of Team Valor International, was entering his teenage years in Southern California when Swaps burst onto the scene in 1955.
“He just really excited me and caught my imagination,” Irwin recalled.
Irwin was hardly alone. Swaps’ popularity became so enormous that Union 76 gas stations began distributing posters of him. “I kept pushing my father to get gas there so I could get more pictures,” Irwin said.
Trainer Brad Cox made it 2-for-2 in the first two 3-year-old Kentucky Derby prep races of 2024 when Drum Roll Please took charge leaving the eighth pole and did not miss a beat in recording a 3 3/4-length victory in the $145,500 Jerome Stakes Jan. 6 at Aqueduct Racetrack.
