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Airdrie Stud's duo and Godolphin's battler have owners dreaming of roses at Churchill Downs
Derby fever is gripping the Jones family of Airdrie Stud as they prepare to saddle two homebreds in Saturday's US$5 million Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, whilst Godolphin's homebred East Avenue is looking to become a classic winner for global operation.
During Airdrie Stud founder and former Kentucky Gov. Brereton Jones's lengthy illness, his son Bret Jones said they would share joy riding across the farm.
"When he was going through the memory issues that he had, one of the great things that we could always still do together was me driving through the farm and (to) show him the foals," Bret Jones said of his father who died in September 2023.
Two of those foals ,in one of the last crops Jones would see ,will give the Jones family a chance at adding to one of the most consequential biographies in Kentucky history: becoming the breeder of a Kentucky Derby winner.
"I guarantee you Pop had a good look at Publisher and a good look at Chunk of Gold and had a big smile on his face at the time," said Bret Jones, who is Airdrie's president.
"Dad doesn't need anything else on his résumé," Jones said. "He lived one of the most incredible lives of any human I've ever known, but if we could get lucky enough to be able to celebrate him as the breeder of a Kentucky Derby winner, that would obviously be very, very special for the Jones family."
Chunk of Gold, owned by Terry Stephens and runner-up in the Gr.1 Louisiana Derby, is a son of Preservationist out of the Cairo Prince mare Play for Gold. He sold for just US$2,500 at the 2023 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearling Sale.
Publisher, although still a maiden, enters as the runner-up in the Gr.1 Arkansas Derby. The son of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah is out of the Proud Citizen mare Indian Pride. He sold for US$600,000 at Fasig-Tipton's 2023 The Saratoga Sale.
Publisher would add the words "Kentucky Derby owner" to the governor's résumé as Airdrie still owns part of the colt. Jones had hoped that, as Kentucky's chief executive from 1991-1995, he'd have the conundrum of presenting the Derby trophy to himself repeatedly saying he would have handed the trophy to his wife, Libby Jones.
"He didn't get a chance to do that, but I think in the back of his mind, he believed that it would happen, and we'll see if this is that opportunity," Bret Jones said.
Both Joneses always maintained that Airdrie's chief role is as a commercial seller and that owning racehorses comes after. But the odds of having two horses bred by one farm among the 17,146 foals from 2022 to reach the Derby starting gate isn't lost on Airdrie's team.
"Breeding a Kentucky Derby starter is always the goal, of course, but it's a pretty unlikely goal to achieve, obviously," Jones said. "We are very fortunate. There's about 10,000 things that can go wrong from the time a foal is born to them being in the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby."
Publisher is the farm's second Derby starter as an owner.King Russell, 15th in 2023, was the other.
"Honestly, when King Russell ran poorly, we all sort of said to each other, we are never going to run in this race again unless we really believe we have a chance," Jones said. "And now here we are back with a horse that's never actually won a horse race. But I can promise you we would not be running in this race if we didn't think that Publisher had the talent to run a competitive race."
In the meantime, East Avenue has taken a more circuitous route to the Derby. The Godolphin homebred, trained by Brendan Walsh, showcased his talent early, winning his debut at Ellis Park by eight lengths before replicating that performance to win the Gr.1 Breeders' Futurity by 5¼ lengths.
However, the son of Medaglia d'Oro then stumbled badly at the start of the Gr.1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile before finishing ninth. His 3YO debut resulted in a disappointing 10th in the Gr.2 Risen Star Stakes.
That all led to the Gr.1 Blue Grass Stakes where East Avenue battled gamely in the stretch before Burnham Square prevailed by a nose. Walsh believes the experience was invaluable.
"I think he got an awful lot out of that," Walsh said. "He knuckled down, he fought hard. He ran a good race. He set really good, strong fractions and at the end of it he still found some more. He wasn't dead at the wire either."
Walsh noted the educational value of the Blue Grass: "Sometimes these horses have to get in a fight, and they have to get beat a time or two to be seasoned horses for the Derby. I feel that's very important."
"You look back at previous winners, a lot of those horses were beat one, two, or three times before they won a Derby," Walsh said. "But at the end of the day, they got seasoning. You need to be tough out there with all those horses around you and everything that's going on. You have to have a horse that hardened to a point."
East Avenue is the first top-level winner for his dam, Dance Music, who is a half-sister to 2023 Horse of the Year Cody's Wish. He will start from stall 12 under Manny Franco.
As for the Airdrie team, Jones confessed: "I don't think there's anybody that's owned a racehorse who hasn't practiced their acceptance speech while accepting the Kentucky Derby trophy. We're all optimists, and we're all about halfway nuts, and that lends itself, well, to dreaming big."