Wests Back in KY Derby After Maximum Security DQ

There is some unfinished Kentucky Derby (G1) business for a half-dozen of the connections whose 3-year-old Thoroughbreds race in the legendary horse race May 6 at Churchill Downs.

Some have seen their horses run first in the coveted first leg of the Triple Crown, only to be disqualified, while others have a degree of incomplete satisfaction after winning the Derby via disqualification, thereby not being able to experience the elation of a first-across-the-wire finish.

In the demoted-in-the-Derby category are jockey Luis Saez and owners Gary and Mary West, whose horse Maximum Security   was relegated from first to 17th for interference in the 2019 Derby. Conversely, in the promoted camp are trainers Bill Mott and Brad Cox and jockeys Flavien Prat and Florent Geroux. Mott trained and Prat rode Country House   in 2019 when stewards elevated the colt to first with Maximum Security's disqualification, while Cox trained and Geroux rode Mandaloun   was promoted from second to first in the 2021 Derby in February 2022 following Medina Spirit 's formal disqualification for a medication violation.

John Velazquez, who rode Medina Spirit, also rides Saturday's race on Reincarnate , but even with Medina Spirit's disqualification has three other Derby victories.

All are back this year, seeking a more satisfying conclusion, and in the case of the Wests, for the first time in the Derby since the stewards' 2019 ruling, which they challenged in court without success. An appeals court ruled that "Neither Kentucky law nor the Fourteenth Amendment allows for judicial second-guessing of the stewards' call."

West declined to be interviewed—saying he no longer comments on his racing stable, referring questions to either Cox and racing manager Ben Glass—but on the day of the 2019 Derby disqualification said, "That's horse racing. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you win and lose in the same race."

Hit Show will be their sixth starter, 30 years after Rockamundo gave them their first Kentucky Derby experience when 17th in 1993.  A decade later, Dollar Bill ran 15th in 2001 and High Limit 20th in 2005. Then came a 14-year break before Maximum Security and Game Winner   raced for the Wests in the 2019 race, with the latter, their champion 2-year-old male of the previous year, moved up to fifth.

Bob Baffert trained Game Winner for them, while trainer Jason Servis, who would later be disgraced in a horse-doping scheme involving his stable, started the Wests' Maximum Security in the Derby. Later, the Wests and then co-owners Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith replaced Servis with Baffert as the colt's trainer over the second half of 2020 following Servis' indictment and suspension by racing authorities. Servis pled guilty late last year.

Like Maximum Security, Hit Show is a product of their breeding operation. Cox has trained the gray throughout the Candy Ride   colt's five-race career, highlighted this year by a win in the Withers Stakes (G3) and a runner-up finish in the Wood Memorial Stakes (G2), both at Aqueduct Racetrack.

The Wests, who reside in San Diego, Calif., are scheduled to travel to Kentucky for the Derby, Cox said last week.

Manny Franco rides the rail-drawn Hit Show for the trainer, who has three other Derby entrants. For different owners, he also starts Angel of Empire , the Arkansas Derby (G1) and Risen Star Stakes (G2) winner; Verifying , runner-up in the Blue Grass Stakes (G1) and last year's Champagne Stakes (G1); and Jace's Road , a minor stakes winner who was third in the Louisiana Derby (G2) in his last start.

Geroux is aboard Jace's Road, while Cox has given the mount on Angel of Empire to Prat and the ride on Verifying to Tyler Gaffalione.

Cox expects the Derby-winning experience would be more satisfying if one of his runners were to finish on top.

"Listen, winning the Derby is not about the money really, the purse or anything. It's the thrill of the victory that you're wanting to experience," he said. "There is no thrill in saying you won the Derby through a phone call that you were placed first through DQ. That's not something to get excited about, the way I see it. There's no celebration. There is no post-race win picture."

Hall of Famer Bill Mott and Prat at least got to experience a winner's circle celebration in 2019 when Mrs. Joseph V. Shields Jr., E.J.M. McFadden Jr., and LNJ Foxwoods' Country House   was declared the winner of the Derby after nearly a 22-minute stewards' inquiry.

"Country House really stepped forward on Derby Day. It was a huge race that he ran—he finished second," Mott told Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protection Association publicist Jennie Rees. "In all reality, the horse that crossed the finish line first was probably the best horse in the race. There was probably no doubt about that, but he creamed three other horses in the race and they had to take him down. I mean, we were unaffected by the foul. We didn't get bothered. But the horse that Maximum Security bothered—three other horses—(he did so) quite severely."

Asked if he felt as if he had won the Kentucky Derby, Mott paused, shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yeah, yeah we did, but I'd love to run a horse and cross the finish line first, and we're going to keep trying 'til that happens."

He does that this year with Frank Fletcher Racing Operations' Holy Bull Stakes (G3) winner and Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) runner-up Rocket Can . The Mott trainee will add blinkers for the Derby, in which regular rider Junior Alvarado will ride.

Prat shares Mott's sentiments. Besides Country House, three of the rider's four other Derby mounts have threatened, with Battle of Midway  (2017) and Zandon  (2022) showing, and Hot Rod Charlie  (2021) promoted from third to second.

"I would love to win it, crossing the line first, obviously," he said. "But I'm grateful to have won (by DQ). You just hope for success in the Derby, and hopefully we can get (another) one."

Saez, aboard this year on second favorite Tapit Trice  for Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher, is 0-0-1 in the Derby from nine rides, a record that takes into account Maximum Security's disqualification. Since 2013, he has ridden every year in the Derby except in 2020, when the race was postponed until September due to the onset of COVID-19.

"The Derby is a race that everybody wants to win," he said.

Saez, who served a 15-day suspension for what stewards characterized as careless riding in the Derby, chose not to speak about Maximum Security and the 2019 race.

Maximum Security led for much of the 2019 Derby, but was ruled to have impeded a few rivals, including Long Range Toddy , the original 17th-place finisher, when, nearing the stretch, he ducked out into their racing paths. Video replays and photographs show Saez correcting his mount after the incident by pulling on Maximum Security's left rein, after which the horse returned to a position more toward the inside.

Saez bounced back from the Derby setback to maintain his standing as one of the top riders in the country, with Pletcher being one of his principal supporters. Riding full-time at Churchill Downs last fall, Saez dethroned Gaffalione as the meet's leading jockey.

The Derby is arguably the most difficult race in America to win, owing to the strength of the competition and depth of the field with up to 20 participants. The most successful people in the industry consider themselves lucky to get multiple cracks at it.

"Hey, it's one of the toughest races to win. Everybody will tell you that," Mott told Rees.

And you can win it? 

"In some unusual ways," Mott said, laughing.