Jerry Hollendorfer hopes this is his year in Derby

Jerry Hollendorfer hopes this is his year in Derby

Jerry Hollendorfer’s Hall of Fame career as a thoroughbred trainer includes 7,276 wins — third most in history — and victories in many of the nation’s premier races.

[...] there is only one Kentucky Derby, and Saturday at Churchill Downs, Hollendorfer, 70, will try to win it for the first time in six tries.

“The Santa Anita Derby is a good testing race and the fact he ran so well makes us think he’ll have a good chance to run well” in the Kentucky Derby, Hollendorfer said.

Battle of Midway got a late start to his career and didn’t make his debut until Jan. 21 when he already was a 3-year-old.

“I guess you can’t forget statistics, but I don’t know anybody with a horse like Battle of Midway who wouldn’t run in the Derby,” Hollendorfer said.

Battle of Midway was purchased as a yearling for $410,000 by Fox Hill Farms’ Rick Porter, whose two-time Eclipse Award-winning filly Songbird also is trained by Hollendorfer.

“He has a reputation for buying horses that do well, so the expectation when he came to us was that he’d be a good horse,” Hollendorfer said.

There are a lot of horses that take longer to get them to do what you want them to do, and he is one of those.

Porter sold Battle of Midway after the Santa Anita Derby to the partnership of WinStar Farm and Don Alberto Stable.

Hollendorfer trains for Don Alberto, including star 3-year-old filly Unique Bella, and has known WinStar President Elliott Walden for years.

“Rick Porter is very astute at selling horses and the deal was good enough so that if the horse continues to do well, he will do very well, also,” Hollendorfer said.

With the usual full field of 20 horses in Saturday’s 1¼-mile race and Always Dreaming, Classic Empire, Irish War Cry and McCraken sure to attract much of the wagering action, Battle of Midway probably will be a longshot.

Of Hollendorfer’s previous five Kentucky Derby runners, only Chocolate Candy (2009) went off at under 25-to-1.

With all of his accomplishments, even a win in the Kentucky Derby wouldn’t necessarily represent a defining moment in Hollendorfer’s career.

“It’s not so much to me a big feather in the cap as this is America’s race,” he said.

Larry Stumes is a freelance writer.

Hollendorfer in the Derby

Jerry Hollendrofer-trained horses usually have faced

long odds in the Kentucky Derby:

Odds

Finish

Winner

Eye of the Tiger

Funny Cide

Chocolate Candy

Rousing Sermon

How he lost the eye is a mystery.

“No one really knows,” trainer Todd Pletcher said.

There was no evidence of additional trauma, suggesting the colt had fallen or run into an object.

Aggressive treatment failed and the eye was removed.

Patch, who has one win in three starts, earned his way into this race with a second-place finish in the Louisiana Derby.

Associated Press