Derby All About Opportunity for Bolo, Gaines

Carla Gaines' position on Bolo is an understandable one.



It's really a simple decision for the trainer and Bolo's owners, Golden Pegasus Racing and Earle Mack—the Temple City   colt has enough points to get into the gate for the May 2 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), so that's where he'll be.



"That's it," Gaines said April 24 at Santa Anita Park, the location of Bolo's final workout in preparation for the Derby.



BALAN: Bolo Records Final Breeze for Kentucky Derby



Bolo is the first Derby starter for the Alabama transplant, who still has the slightest of accents and began training at Northern California tracks in 1987.

She still remembers her first acquisition, a claimer named Glory Quest who anchored her one-horse barn during her earliest days in racing.



"I was so proud of that horse and he was this beautiful chestnut—an old claimer," Gaines remembered. "I worked on him and worked on him, then ran him for the first time at Vallejo. They grow corn on the track there in the winter."



In a $4,000 claiming race, the California-bred won at the Solano County Fair in his first start for Gaines.



"I thought I was Charlie Wittingham," Gaines recalled with a smile.



Gaines has had plenty of success—25 graded stakes wins, including four grade I scores—but a win from Bolo in the Derby, albeit a significant longshot, would be the first victory for a female trainer in the 140-year history of the classic.



"That's a tough step, isn't it?" Gaines said of Bolo's chances at a Derby upset. "We think the distance is not going to be an issue for him, but all the other good horses in there is a concern."



Bolo was third behind Dortmund in both the San Felipe (gr. II) and Santa Anita Derby (gr. I) this year, but was wide throughout both, something Gaines acknowledges with perspective.

"I don't know, if he had a shorter trip around, if he would have ever got by Dortmund," Gaines said. "Dortmund is a pretty game horse. Hopefully with a couple races on the dirt, that'll improve."



A winner on turf to break his maiden at Del Mar in November, Bolo won the Eddie Logan Stakes over the Santa Anita grass in December before switching to dirt for the San Felipe.



Likely a quality turf horse in the future, it still comes back to opportunity in the Derby—a first chance might just be the last, as well.



"I mostly get long grass horses," Gaines said. "It's not like I get a zillion 2-year-olds to get ready for the Derby every year. In the past, there's like 40,000 foals and 20 it make this race. You can see why it's difficult."