Making the Grade: Divining Rod

Divining Rod wins the Lexington Stakes in April at Keeneland. (Photos by Eclipse Sportswire)
Making the Grade, which will run through the 2015 Belmont Stakes, focuses on the winners of the big races, usually from the previous weekend, who could impact the Triple Crown. We’ll be taking a close look at impressive winners and evaluating their chances to win important races based upon ability, running style, connections (owner, trainer, jockey) and pedigree. 
This week we take a closer look at Divining Rod, winner of the $250,000 Coolmore Lexington Stakes on April 11 at Keeneland Race Course. 

Divining Rod does not boast the résumé of Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah or runner-up Firing Line or third-place finisher Dortmund, but he has been very consistent throughout his career and is improving at the ideal time. His victory in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland on April 11 was a career-best performance in which he showed a new dimension. The Kentucky Derby was an option, but there were a couple of reasons owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson and trainer Arnaud Delacour opted instead for the Preakness.
“We weren’t sure we had enough points,” Delacour said. “It’s very hard to train a horse to a race like the Derby not knowing if you’re going to get in. That puts some pressure on. Also, we would have been coming back in three weeks after a good effort in the Lexington and shipping. We thought that maybe it was coming back a little bit too quick. And also, the Jacksons saw statistics that showed horses that won the Lexington and came back in the Derby ran a little flat.         
“They were the first ones to say that if we didn’t think that the horse was really going to be at his best that they would rather wait another two weeks. I was completely fine with that.”
Of the horses targeting the Preakness who did not compete in the Derby (often called new shooters), Divining Rod appears to be the most dangerous.

Divining Rod
Dark Bay or Brown Colt
Sire (Father): Tapit
Dam (Mother): Precious Kitten, by Catienus
Owner: Lael Stables (Roy and Gretchen Jackson)
Breeder: Roy and Gretchen Jackson (Ky.)
Trainer: Arnaud Delacour

Ability: Divining Rod has never finished worse than third in five career races. He led every step of the way in his debut going one mile in November 2014 at Laurel Park before a third-place finish on the grass in his second start on Dec. 26 at Tampa Bay Downs. Trainer Arnaud Delacour returned him to the main track for the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs on Jan. 31 in his 3-year-old bow, and he responded with a game, front-running runner-up finish by a head at 28.50-to-1 odds. The Sam F. Davis earned Divining Rod a new career-best Equibase Speed Figure of 102. He set the pace again in the Tampa Bay Derby five weeks later before fading to third, beaten by 7 ½ lengths by highly regarded 3-year-old Carpe Diem.
From there, Delacour and owner Lael Stables opted to target the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland. Divining Rod showed a new dimension in the Lexington by winning from off the pace. He rated within a few lengths of pacesetter Fame and Power through three-quarters of a mile before pouring it on in the stretch for a visually impressive three-length score and a new career-top 105 Equibase Speed Figure.
Divining Rod covered the final five-sixteenths of a mile in just over 30 seconds, so he was moving very well at the finish. All signs point to a 3-year-old on the rise heading into his toughest test to date.
DIVINING ROD IN THE LEXINGTON WINNER'S CIRCLE

Running style: In his three previous races on dirt before the Lexington Stakes, Divining Rod set the pace. He has a nice cruising speed that he’s used throughout his career early in races, but in the Lexington he showed an ability to ration his speed and the result was a career-best performance.
“The transition that was made in the Lexington was that he didn't come out of the gate and have to be on the front end, streaking around the racetrack,” Gretchen Jackson said.  “He was able to be brought back and kept close to the pace, but then he ran on and he showed tactical speed. He showed relaxation and a certain maturity. He stunned us all.”
If Divining Rod can settle into a comfortable position just off the pace, probably very close to Kentucky Derby winner American Pharoah, he should be ideal position at the top of the stretch. At that point, he will be able to answer the question of whether he is good enough to match strides with the best runners of this crop.
Tactical speed has been especially important 1 3/16-mile Preakness in recent years. Nine of the last 15 Preakness Stakes winners were in front or within a length of the lead after three-quarters of a mile. Eleven of 15 winners were less than three lengths back after three-quarters of a mile and 14 of the 15 winners were four lengths or less back after six furlongs.
Connections: Roy and Gretchen Jackson have been racing and breeding Thoroughbreds for nearly 40 years. The couple purchased privately and won a Grade 1 with Divining Rod’s dam, Precious Kitten.
The Jacksons own a 190-acre farm in West Grove, Pa. They met at a high school dance in the 11th grade, maintained a relationship through college (both graduated from the University of Pennsylvania), and married in 1959.

Previous Making the Grades

Competitive Edge
American Pharoah
Carpe Diem
Daredevil
Texas Red
Ocho Ocho Ocho
El Kabeir
Leave the Light On
Nasa
Dortmund
Calculator
International Star
Upstart
Ocean Knight
Far From Over
Metaboss
Far Right
Materiality
Firing Line
Frosted
Mubtaahij
Danzig Moon
American Pharoah

Roy Jackson started out as a stockbroker before joining a business management program with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Jacksons owned a couple of minor league baseball teams and Roy went on to serve as president of three different leagues in minor league baseball, including the International League and Pacific Coast League.
Without a doubt, the Jacksons are best know in horse racing circles as the owners-breeders of 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, who broke down in the 2006 Preakness Stakes and was euthanized in January 2007 because of complications from laminitis. Nine years later after that race, the Jacksons return to the Preakness with another talented homebred 3-year-old.
“Barbaro was deeply loved,” Gretchen Jackson said. “I’ll never go through a day probably when I don’t think about him, but this is a new horse, new chapter, new everything. So, I don’t approach it with worry.”
The Jacksons in 2006 became the first owners in the history of the Kentucky Derby ever to start two undefeated horses in the first jewel of the Triple Crown. That year’s Lexington Stakes winner Showing Up, who made up the unbeaten tandem with Barbaro, finished sixth. Earlier the same day, a colt the Jacksons bred named George Washington won the English Two Thousand Guineas.
Based at Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., Arnaud Delacour took out his trainer's license in 2013 after working as an assistant to Alain de Royer-Dupre in France and Christophe Clement in California. He picked up his first stakes win that year at Delaware Park with Margano.
Delacour made Breeders’ Cup debut in 2014 with Ageless - his first career graded stakes winner – who finished fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Divining Rod would be Delacour's first starter in a Triple Crown race in the Preakness.
Javier Castellano won the Eclipse Award as outstanding jockey in 2013 and 2014 to cement his place among the elite riders in North America. He accepted the mount on Divining Rod for the Preakness because regular rider Julien Leparoux had committed to Kentucky Derby fifth-place finisher Danzig Moon.
Pedigree: Divining Rod boasts a pedigree with an abundance of class on the top half from leading sire Tapit and bottom half from a phenomenal female family.
Tapit, who stands at Gainesway in Lexington, is arguably the top commercial sire in the marketplace and the most productive on the racetrack in North America.
Tapit won three of six starts, including the 2004 Wood Memorial, during his racing career and was the 2014 leading general sire in North America.
Tapit’s top runners to date include U.S. champions Untapable, Stardom Bound and Hansen as well as 2015 Belmont Stakes winner Tonalist among 39 graded stakes winners on all surfaces — turf, dirt and synthetic.
UNTAPABLE WINS THE 2014 KENTUCKY OAKS

Tapit, by Pulpit, started out his career standing for a fee of $15,000 but phenomenal results both at auction and on the racetrack have led to his stud fee ballooning to $300,000 for 2015.
Divining Rod is the first starter out of the Jackson’s Precious Kitten, by Catienus.  Precious Kitten won three Grade 1 races during her racing career and earned $1,912,543 with eight wins, 10 seconds and one third in 25 starts. Her eight wins came at distances ranging from one mile to 1 1/8 miles.
Precious Kitten is a half-sister (same dam [mother], different sire [father]) to 2004 champion turf male and elite sire Kitten’s Joy and multiple stakes winner Justenuffheart, the dam of champion Dreaming of Anna and graded stakes winners Lewis Michael and Justenuffhumor.
Divining Rod’s grandam, Kitten’s First, by Lear Fan, won one of two career starts and is a half-sister to Grade 1 winner Down the Aisle.
Divining Rod is a 3-year-old on the rise with solid connections and a robust pedigree behind him. The Preakness will be a tall order with the top three from the Kentucky Derby set for another showdown, but there is a lot to like on Saturday and for the rest of Divining Rod’s career.