BackTrack: Barbaro Opens 3-Year-Old Season in Style

There's no telling these days from where the next Kentucky Derby (G1) winner may emerge. Philly Park, Hawthorne, Aqueduct's inner dirt course—all have seen Derby winners gallop over their tracks in recent years. So no one should be surprised if the 2006 Derby is captured by a horse that spent his New Year's Day at Calder Race Course in South Florida ... on the turf.

Barbaro is the horse and with each easy stride of his massive body down the stretch of the Tropical Park Derby (G3T) he was both announcing himself as one to be reckoned with and posing questions for his connections.

The win was the third effortless victory in as many tries, all on turf, and the 3 3/4-length margin has had him dominating his overmatched competition by an aggregate 20-plus lengths. The query for trainer Michael Matz and owners Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who bred the son of Dynaformer—La Ville Rouge, by Carson City, and race him under their Lael Stables, is clear and pressing. Do they risk testing a horse that has turf champion written all over him on the dirt along the Triple Crown trail?

"I would say you'd have to try the dirt now to see where he fits," said Matz after an extended and somewhat uncomfortable pause. "He has enough class no matter which direction we try, but whether it's as much on the dirt, we don't know."

The muscular bay showed that class in a handy maiden win at Delaware Park in October despite enough gate disruption that he was nearly scratched. He acted better, scoring by eight lengths in November's Laurel Futurity and had few problems, save letting his mind wander while glancing around down the backstretch.

In the Tropical Park Derby, jockey Edgar Prado let him settle behind Mr. Silver, gave him a quick shake of the reins near the quarter mile pole, and wrapped up even as Barbaro rolled through an eye-popping final furlong in :11.26 that put his final nine-furlong time at 1:46.65. It was Prado's first race on the colt and he came away impressed.

"I could have been anywhere in the race I wanted to be and still would have won," Prado said. "That's how good this horse is. He can be any kind of horse."

Prado also compared Barbaro to the 2004 Tropical Park Derby winner, a nice colt named Kitten's Joy . It is worth noting of course that Kitten's Joy never strayed from the turf course, competing exclusively on grass that season and netting and Eclipse Award as outstanding turf male for his efforts. That is a path that Gretchen Jackson, for one, wouldn't mind following.

"We've been breeding for such a long time and it's great to have a horse of this caliber regardless of where Mike decides to run him," said Jackson, who had to watch the race from the Bahamian island of Eleuthera after the Jacksons' short charter flight to Miami was canceled.

Still, she may have given away some hint of her desires when she added, "It's sure hard now to control our dreams."