Drum Roll Please Doesn't Miss a Beat in Jerome
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Photo: Coglianese Photos/Walter Wlodarczyk
Drum Roll Please wins the Jerome Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack
Last year trainer Brad Cox won six races for 3-year-olds that offered qualifying points toward the Kentucky Derby (G1).
He won his first of 2024 when Catching Freedom took the Smarty Jones Stakes.
As for the second ...
Literally.
Cox made it 2-for-2 in the 3-year-old Derby preps when Gold Square's Drum Roll Please took charge leaving the eighth pole and did not miss a beat in recording a 3 3/4-length victory in the $145,500 Jerome Stakes for 3-year-olds Jan. 6 at Aqueduct Racetrack.
"We got a lot of 3-year-olds and it's a good way to start the year. I think we have some good ones and hopefully we can keep it going all the way until the first Saturday in May and we can win the Kentucky Derby the right way or at least cross the wire first," said Cox who was credited with a victory by Mandaloun in the 2021 Kentucky Derby after Medina Spirit failed a post-race drug test.
Dream Roll Please joined the stakes winners in the two-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer's barn Saturday with a convincing win in the one-turn mile Jerome, the first of four monthly Run for the Roses preps at the Big A. Up next for Drum Roll Please will likely be the Feb. 3 Withers Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct, at the same two-turn, mile-and-an-eighth distance over which he finished third in the Big A's Remsen Stakes (G2) a month ago.
"I think he'll handle two turns. It's highly likely he'll stay in New York and return in the Withers," Cox said. "He's a really good-looking horse. There's plenty of him, which is encouraging when you start thinking about mile-and-an-eighth, mile-and-a-quarter races. He's improved a lot mentally since the fall with the way he handles everything. He's grown up physically and mentally and (jockey Javier Castellano) does a very good job with him."
If the son of Hard Spun passes the test in the Withers, Cox will probably target the Wood Memorial Stakes (G2), following the same path as he did a year ago with Hit Show .
"We went from the Withers to the Wood last year with Hit Show," Cox said about the graded stakes winner who has just started training for his 4-year-old campaign, "and it almost worked out. He got beat a dirty nose in the Wood."
The victory earned Drum Roll Please 10 Kentucky Derby qualifying points and 13 overall as he bids to become the first Jerome winner since Firenze Fire in 2018 to contest the opening leg of the Triple Crown.
Breeding
Drum Roll Please was bred in Pennsylvania by Barlar out of the E Dubai mare Imply . Bought for $250,000 by Joe Hardoon, racing manager for owner Al Gold, out of the Ballysax Bloodstock consignment at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale, he is the first foal out of Imply, who also has a 2-year-old filly by Practical Joke .
Race Details
Smartly ridden by Castellano, Drum Roll Please ($3.20), the 3-5 favorite, was fifth in the small field of five on the backstretch, then rallied into third approaching the quarter pole before kicking into top gear in the final furlong. He covered the mile in a slow 1:41.91 over a fast but dull racing surface in winning for the second time in five career starts.
Pacesetter El Grande O contested the opening six furlongs in a frigid 1:14.92 over a surface that was kind to early speed.
"It was hard to read the fractions," Cox said. "No one is going to set a record today on that track."
Barry Schwartz's El Grande O was second for trainer Linda Rice by 7 1/2 lengths over Calumet Farm's Khanate .
A multiple New York-bred stakes winner, the son of Take Charge Indy received five qualifying points for his runner-up finish. Khanate, a Hightail colt trained by Todd Pletcher, picked up three.