Dornoch began his 3-year-old season successfully by scoring a workmanlike victory against a depleted field in the $400,000 Grade 2 Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes March 2 at Gulfstream Park.
In his first race in nearly seven months, Deterministic overcame a difficult one-turn mile challenge on a sloppy track on a rain-swept afternoon at Aqueduct to win the $300,000 Grade 3 Gotham Stakes.
Track owner 1/ST will increase the purse of this year’s Preakness Stakes to $2 million and offer a $25 million racing and incentive series connecting a trio of Grade 1 races: this year’s Preakness and California Crown (formerly the Awesome Again Stakes), as well as the 2025 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes.
The Gotham Stakes may not be an ideal Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve prep race. It is, after all, contested at a one-turn mile in early March. Yet it terms of betting value, it’s hard to top the $300,000 Gotham Saturday at Aqueduct.
The $300,000, Grade 2 DK Horse San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita Park has traditionally been an important prep race on the Southern California road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve, but it appears this year will be different.
