Interview with jockey Luan Machado, Kentucky’s winningest jockey in 2024 and who will ride Final Gambit in the Derby, was aboard as Turfway Park’s Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) winner worked five-eighths of a mile in 1:01 with a strong gallop-out. It will be Final Gambit’s first race on dirt. Machado has worked the colt over Turfway’s synthetic surface and now on dirt, and the jockey thinks Final Gambit has big chance to improve on dirt.
“The way I think, what if he likes it better?” jockey Luan Machado explained. “… He’s working a little bit better than he was working at Turfway, and his family can do anything. He feels more comfortable on dirt. But he’s also growing, too.”
Check out Rich Nilsen’s Pace Predictions for the 27 races over KY Oaks and Derby weekend.
Ian Wilkes, the exercise rider when Unbridled won the 1990 Kentucky Derby and Carl Nafzger’s training associate when Street Sense won in 2007, loved Blue Grass winner Ian Wilkes’ five-eighths of a mile in 59.20 seconds (after splits of 12.20, 24.20 and 36) galloping out in a strong 1:12 for six furlongs in 1:26 for seven-eighths.
Wilkes blames himself for Burnham Square’s fourth in Gulfstream Park’s Fountain of Youth after winning the Holy Bull. “I played around with him. I let him float into the race instead of training him,” he said. “Now I’m letting him train (and) I think we’ll be fine.”
More Kentucky Derby Interviews 2025
Catch up with Turfway Park-based trainer Ethan West, in his first Kentucky Derby with owner Terry Stephens’ $2,500 yearling purchase Chunk of Gold, who secured his Derby spot by finishing second in the Louisiana Derby.