Keep It Easy will take the baton on the Kentucky Derby trail for West Point Thoroughbreds on Saturday in the $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) at Gulfstream Park.
The 3-year-old colt will be racing for the first time since he rumbled to a 5 1/4-length win in the Ed Brown Stakes on November 30 at Churchill Downs. Notably, the runner-up in that race, Tough Catch, came back to win the Sugar Bowl Stakes at Fair Grounds.
The Fountain of Youth offers 50-25-15-10-5 in qualifying points for the Derby.
Campaigned in a racing partnership by West Point Thoroughbreds, St. Elias Stable and CJ Thoroughbreds, Keep It Easy will have jockey Corey Lanerie back in the irons.
West Point and St. Elias also are partners in Sandman, who delivered a long, long drive from far back to finish third in the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes on Sunday at Oaklawn Park. Sandman earned 15 more qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby to push his total to 29, which ranks sixth in the standings.
Unlike in the Southwest Stakes (G3), Sandman broke cleanly in the Rebel but he got shuffled back and wound up some 13 lengths off the lead before launching his rally on the backstretch. In the end, he was beaten a length and three-quarters for everything.
Jockey Cristian Torres said, “They were definitely flying around. They were rolling. He’s an easy horse to ride. I just put my hands down and let him do his thing. When I asked him, he was there for me. We had to go wide on the (second) turn because when we started making our move, the horses in front of me were just stopping. I had to go wide, but he made his move. He shows up every time. Definitely, the longer the better for him.”
Trainer Mark Casse told Daily Racing Form, “About 100 yards out of the gate [a rival] came over and kind of got in our way and made us have to kind of settle and we ended up like 12, 15 lengths back. We wanted to be about five. I think his performance, only getting beat a couple of lengths, I came out of it feeling as good, if not better, than from his last start. He closed on a track that wasn’t easy to close on. So, I thought there were big positives. I think anybody would say that he probably should improve with more ground and that’s what we’re looking for at this time of year.”
