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.

"We got a lot of 3-year-olds and it's a good way to start the year. I think we have some good ones and hopefully we can keep it going all the way until the first Saturday in May and we can win the Kentucky Derby," Cox said.

Cox also won the year's first prep race for the 2024 Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve when his trainee Catching Freedom won the Smarty Jones Stakes at Oaklawn Park on New Year's Day.

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Drum Roll Please joined the stakes winners in the two-time Eclipse Award winning trainer's barn with a convincing win in the one-turn mile Jerome, the first of four monthly Road to the Kentucky Derby preps to be run at the Big A. Up next will likely be the Grade 3 Withers Stakes on Feb. 3 at Aqueduct, at the two-turn, 1 1/8-mile distance over which Drum Roll Please finished third in the Big A's Grade 2 Remsen Stakes in December.

The victory earned Drum Roll Please 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points, giving him 13 overall as he bids to become the first Jerome winner since Firenze Fire in 2018 to make it into the starting gate for the opening leg of the Triple Crown.

Smartly ridden by Castellano, Drum Roll Please ($3.20), the 3-5 Jerome favorite, raced fifth in the five-horse field on the backstretch, then rallied into third approaching the quarter pole before kicking into top gear in the final furlong. He covered the mile in a slow 1:41.91 over a fast but dull racing surface in winning for the second time in five career starts.

"I think he'll handle two turns. It's highly likely he'll stay in New York and return in the Withers," Cox said. "He's a really good-looking horse. There's plenty of him, which is encouraging when you start thinking about mile-and-an-eighth, mile-and-a-quarter races. He's improved a lot mentally since the fall with the way he handles everything. He's grown up physically and mentally and (jockey Javier Castellano) does a very good job with him."

If the son of Hard Spun passes the test in the Withers, Cox will probably target the Grade 2 Wood Memorial Stakes next, following the same path as he did a year ago with Hit Show.

"We went from the Withers to the Wood last year with Hit Show," Cox said about the graded stakes winner who has just started training for his 4-year-old campaign, "and it almost worked out. He got beat a dirty nose in the Wood."

Pacesetter El Grande O contested the opening six furlongs in a frigid 1:14.92 over a surface that was kind to early speed and settled for second for trainer Linda Rice by 7 1/2 lengths over Calumet Farm's Khanate in third place.