Out of the Bargain Basement, The $2,500 Yearling Who Is On His Way to the Kentucky Derby

[Wandering Eyes]

For those willing to lay out seven figures for a horse at the sales there are no guarantees. Some turn out to be very good horses and some can't run a step. The same goes for horses bought for a few thousand dollars. That doesn't mean they can't run.

Case in point: Chunk of Gold (Preservationist). He's now run second in both the GII Risen Star Stakes and the GII Louisiana Derby. That gives him 75 points, more than enough to qualify for the race. That couldn't have been anything anyone expected when he was purchased for $2,500 at the 2023 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky October Yearlings sale.

“This is a once-in-a-million thing or a case of catching lightening in a bottle or whatever you want to say about it,” said Larry Holt, the racing manager for owner Terry Stephens. “You know how many horses are born every year and everybody has the same dream. I trained for 50 years and never had a Derby horse. I have one now, but it's on the other side. Did I think he was a Derby horse? No. Did I think he'd be a nice, nice horse? I hoped so.”

Chunk of Gold was bred by the late Brereton C. Jones and landed in a sale where the average sale price was just $48,045. He was purchased by Chris Melton, a trainer and pinhooker. Rather than resell the horse at auction he offered to sell half of him to Holt, a long-time friend.

“Chris bought the horse,” Holt explained. “He approached me and said that he had a colt and that he'd like to sell a part of him. I went to look at him and liked what I saw.”

Chunk of Gold was sent to trainer Anthony Farrior in Maryland to begin his career, but Farrior ran out of patience when the horse wasn't training forwardly, so Holt sent him to his current trainer, Ethan West.

“Obviously, after I got him I looked up how much he sold for, but it was nothing that we discussed beforehand,” said West, who has been training only since 2018. “They told me they had a 2-year-old they liked a little bit and they wanted to run him at Turfway, where I was stabled. Why he chose me? I don't know. I've known Larry for a long, long time but this is he first horse I've ever had for him.”

Chunk of Gold debuted on Dec. 19 at Turfway, winning a restricted maiden race. After that race, Holt bought out Melton's share in the horse.

West decided to be aggressive and ran the colt back in the Leonatus S., also at Turfway. He finished second.

“We didn't expect him to run at this level, but we knew when he started working that he had some talent,” said West, who doubles as Chunk of Gold's exercise rider. “He ran a real impressive first race. When he stepped up to that first overnight stakes, the Leonatus at Turfway, he was stretching out and had missed some training because of bad weather but still ran a respectable second that day. That's when we started getting pretty high on him.”

He picked up his first Derby points when he finished second, beaten 9 3/4 lengths, in the Risen Star behind runaway winner Magnitude (Not This Time).

“People say he was 43-1 in the Risen Star,” Holt said. “He can't read. He didn't know he was 43-1. How much did Mine That Bird cost ($9,500)? How much did Canonero cost ($1,200)? It's what's in their heart. If you could watch this horse walk and see what's in his heart you'd think differently. He's an athlete. He likes to run. He's a pleasure to be around.”

Chunk of Gold showed improvement in the Louisiana Derby, again finishing second, but this time losing by just 2 1/4 lengths. The race was won by the Steve Asmussen-trained Tiztastick, a $335,000 Keeneland September purchase. Yinzer (Twirling Candy), a $1 million purchase at Fasig-Tipton Saratoga, was last.

“I thought his race was fantastic,” West said. “It set up just as we thought. (Jockey) Jareth Loveberry is a very studious rider and he knew where everybody was going before the gate opened. Or, I should say, he knew where they were supposed to go. He knew how the race would set up and he had his game plan mapped out. We were on the same page with it. The only thing that didn't go according to plan, and it's not such a bad thing, is that he was a lot more forwardly placed than we imagined. Jareth said he put himself there naturally and he wasn't going to take himself out of the race.  At the top of the stretch I thought he was going to keep on going . He got a little tired but that was the most he had ever had to work that early on in a race. Usually, he makes that half-mile run and tries to mow 'em down. On Saturday, he had to work a little harder earlier and that was something he hadn't had to do before.”

West sees a horse that has improved a lot and has done so over a short period of time.

“He's gotten a lot stronger over the last six to eight weeks,” he said. “Between these last two races he really took a step forward size-wise and maturity-wise in his body. He didn't necessarily get taller, but he really started to fill out. He really started to muscle up. A lot of people who saw him before the Risen Star and then before the Louisiana Derby commented to me how much he had changed. I thought he took a big step forward physically and mentally. He was putting more into his training, getting more out of it. That was all on his own, he wanted to get more out of it.”

The perfect ending to the story is that the $2,500 horse wins the Kentucky Derby. That's not impossible, but it is highly unlikely. He'll probably be about 50-1 and will be overshadowed by the horses who won the major preps. But Chunk of Gold keeps overcoming the odds, and West doesn't see why he can't do it one more time.

“We'll need a lot of luck,” he said. “With 20 horses in the Derby, I don't think the best horse wins all the time. To get the best trip and to stay out of trouble means everything. As long as we can keep him healthy and happy I think we have as good a shot as anyone. That's what I believe.”

The post Out of the Bargain Basement, The $2,500 Yearling Who Is On His Way to the Kentucky Derby appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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