Brilliant Speed Rallies From Last To First To Upset The Blue Grass Stakes

By Author: Lee Lane-Edgar
Total Articles: 365
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The 2011 Kentucky Derby picture became no clearer as 20-1 Brilliant Speed came from last to first to get up in the final stride to nose out Twinspired in Saturday's Grade 1, $750,000 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

It didn’t appear at first as though jockey Joel Rosario purposely elected to take him back, but Brilliant Speed simply found himself at the back of a compact field as they made their way into the first turn. The pace was very slow, with the opening quarter going in 25:14, a pace that would be almost impossible to close into if this were run on regular dirt. But on polytrack, it is easier for horses to win from behind even when the pace is dawdling.

Even so, Rosario was surely breathing a sigh of relief as he timed it just perfectly, so perfectly in fact, that if he had hesitated even a moment longer nearing the turn into the stretch to make his move, he likely would have missed. At the sixteenth pole, it was down to the gray Twinspired, King Congie, and Brilliant Speed closing fast on the outside. It took several minutes to resolve the photo finish but it did show that Brilliant Speed prevailed, ...
... but by no more than an inch.

The winning time over Keeneland’s synthetic surface was 150.92. The winner is a three-year-old son of Dynaformer. The winner’s share of $450,000 qualifies him for a spot in the Kentucky Derby lineup on May 7th.
Coming off a nice second place finish in the G2 Risen Star, Santiva went off as the 2-1 favorite, but could manage no better than ninth place.

Santiva was in traffic much of the race and never threatened, but he shouldn’t be dismissed so easily on the basis of this one race. After all, he does have a G2 win in the Kentucky Jockey Club, which he won at Churchill as a two-year-old, and the Kentucky Derby isn’t going to be run on a synthetic track as it was today.

Many horseplayers will tell you to simply disregard the results of the Blue Grass Stakes because of the enormous contrast between running on polytrack vs. natural dirt, and just judge the entrants based on how they have done on the natural dirt.

Following Brilliant Speed and Twinspired were long shots King Congie and Newsdad. The odds of these horses were 19-1, 24-1, 13-1, and 18-1. None of the top seven betting choices could manage to finish in the top four spots. As a result, the $1 superfecta paid $64,546, and the dime superfecta paid $6,454!