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Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘I really feel for her': Brooke Rollins' impossible Trump administration mandate
Shortly after President Donald Trump temporarily paused immigration raids on farms last month, Brooke Rollins' team asked a well-connected D.C. lobbying firm to help defend the Agriculture secretary against an onslaught of attacks insinuating that she had betrayed America First principles. They were looking for support, such as some friendly social media posts, as she became the face of what many on the right saw as amnesty for certain undocumented workers, according to a farm lobby employee granted anonymity to speak about the outreach. At least one firm praised Rollins during meetings with political operatives and elected officials, according to a farm lobby executive granted anonymity to share details of the conversation. The request for outside help, which a department spokesperson denied was made or directed by the secretary, underscores the difficult position in which Rollins, who is thought to have political ambitions beyond this Cabinet post, finds herself. As secretary, she represents the interests of farmers and agriculture groups, who rely on immigrants to work long hours for modest pay. As a Trump official, she serves a president who has decried amnesty efforts, carveouts and open borders that he believes have ruined the country under previous administrations. It's an unenviable position as the Trump administration weighs how to square its hard-line immigration stance with a basic American need for farm labor — without which everything from fruits and vegetables to meat and milk could become more expensive. Trump has promised a solution in the coming weeks but there's no answer that won't leave a key part of the MAGA constituency infuriated — and, if the past is prologue, Rollins will bear the brunt of the fallout, possibly endangering her political future. 'I really feel for her, I just do,' said Oscar Gonzales, vice chair of the California Horse Racing Board and a top aide and adviser to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during both the Obama and Biden administrations. 'I'm on the opposite team, but I feel for the task that she's been given.' Rollins, who ran domestic policy in the White House in the last year of Trump's first term and was once thought to be in contention to be chief of staff, has spent the past several weeks trying to tame the intensifying political blowback as MAGA allies and immigration hawks blame her for what they see as the president's ever-shifting positions on undocumented farm labor. The issue flared again Monday when MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk said the 'ruling class' was pushing Trump to offer amnesty to farmworkers, forcing Rollins and other administration officials to declare that there's 'no amnesty' from mass deportations for migrant farmworkers. On Tuesday, she pledged a '100 percent American' workforce, and suggested that millions of Medicaid recipients, facing new work requirements, would fill farm jobs. 'Secretary Rollins has a strong America first background in public policy and has consistently advocated for securing the border, opposing amnesty, enforcing deportations, and supporting an all-American workforce,' said Seth Christensen, the Agriculture department spokesperson. 'Anyone suggesting otherwise either hasn't done their homework or is deliberately misleading the public." He said it was 'completely false' to suggest that she consulted or directed others to consult a lobbying firm to build support for 'her position.' 'Her only position is the President's position,' he said. 'The entire Administration is working in lockstep to carry out his America-first agenda.' Trump, who has at times appeared sympathetic to both farmers and immigration hawks,vowed on Tuesday that there would be 'no amnesty,' though he again promised to deliver a 'work program' for migrant farm laborers — two statements which appear to be at odds with one another. The solutions administration officials and Republican allies in Congress have discussed include streamlining the H-2A visa program and providing undocumented workers already in the U.S. a path to legal worker status, according to an administration official and two Republican Hill aides, granted anonymity to relay private policy discussions. A White House official insisted there would be no amnesty but said the administration is working to streamline existing visa programs to ensure they're more efficient and that farmers have what they need.' Immigration hawks warn that exceptions for one industry could become a slippery slope. 'Farmworkers are really a pretty small share of the overall illegal population, so it may seem inconsequential, but as soon as they do [amnesty] for farmers, then you're going to have how many other — construction, hospitality, restaurants — everybody's gonna want their exception,' said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. 'That's part of what makes it hard. Where are you gonna draw the line?' Expanding access to the H-2A program for non-seasonal agricultural industries, like dairy, has long received GOP support, but would fall far short of replacing the estimated 320,000 undocumented farm workers already in the U.S. Trump has publicly discussed a so-called 'touchback' program for those workers — requiring them to exit the U.S., and reenter through a legal pathway — but such an initiative already faces strong partisan winds. Inside the administration, the debate is focused on how the White House can placate farmers without a policy 'looking like executive amnesty,' said one person close to the Trump administration, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump has been so critical of programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and the Biden administration's use of humanitarian parole to admit undocumented immigrants into the country that the White House can't now risk looking like they took a similar path, the person said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the 'president's entire Cabinet, including Secretary Rollins, are following his lead.' She added that the White House and departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security and Labor are all 'working together to carry out mass deportations of illegal aliens while ensuring our farmers and other critical American industries are supported and heard.' Rollins is viewed among immigration hawks as more sympathetic to farmers' concerns, and in the days leading up to Trump's temporary pause last month, she relayed industry complaints to the president. Border czar Tom Homan, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller are opposed to giving some businesses a pass on enforcement, said Vaughan and the person close to the administration. 'I think they're sensitive to the fact that [immigration hawks] would hammer them over the fact if they just offered these people parole or some sort of deferred action that allows them to stay and work in the United States,' said the person close to the administration. Some Trump loyalists — particularly those in the nationalist-populist wing of the GOP, have long distrusted Rollins, considering her an old-guard Republican, and her perceived stance on immigration feeds into that distrust. The backlash against Rollins, who in 2021 co-founded the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, concerned top agriculture employers. They view her as a key voice in the president's inner circle on behalf of farmers and have rallied to her cause. During an Agriculture Workforce Coalition member call last month, attendees brainstormed how their groups could help 'blunt' the negative attacks on social media, according to Michael Marsh, president of the National Council of Agriculture Employers. One idea was to create accounts for the large agriculture employers on Truth Social, in order to engage directly with Trump's staunchest supporters — and Rollins' harshest critics. 'There's this false notion that there are loads of Americans that are there wanting to take these jobs, but that's just not the case,' he said. 'You can't convince some folks that the Earth isn't flat, for whatever reason. But it's not. It really isn't flat.'
Politico
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Politico
‘I really feel for her': Brooke Rollins' impossible Trump administration mandate
The request for outside help, which a department spokesperson denied was made or directed by the secretary, underscores the difficult position in which Rollins, who is thought to have political ambitions beyond this Cabinet post, finds herself. As secretary, she represents the interests of farmers and agriculture groups, who rely on immigrants to work long hours for modest pay. As a Trump official, she serves a president who has decried amnesty efforts, carveouts and open borders that he believes have ruined the country under previous administrations. It's an unenviable position as the Trump administration weighs how to square its hard-line immigration stance with a basic American need for farm labor — without which everything from fruits and vegetables to meat and milk could become more expensive. Trump has promised a solution in the coming weeks but there's no answer that won't leave a key part of the MAGA constituency infuriated — and, if the past is prologue, Rollins will bear the brunt of the fallout, possibly endangering her political future. 'I really feel for her, I just do,' said Oscar Gonzales, vice chair of the California Horse Racing Board and a top aide and adviser to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during both the Obama and Biden administrations. 'I'm on the opposite team, but I feel for the task that she's been given.' Rollins, who ran domestic policy in the White House in the last year of Trump's first term and was once thought to be in contention to be chief of staff, has spent the past several weeks trying to tame the intensifying political blowback as MAGA allies and immigration hawks blame her for what they see as the president's ever-shifting positions on undocumented farm labor. The issue flared again Monday when MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk said the 'ruling class' was pushing Trump to offer amnesty to farmworkers, forcing Rollins and other administration officials to declare that there's 'no amnesty' from mass deportations for migrant farmworkers. On Tuesday, she pledged a '100 percent American' workforce, and suggested that millions of Medicaid recipients, facing new work requirements, would fill farm jobs. 'Secretary Rollins has a strong America first background in public policy and has consistently advocated for securing the border, opposing amnesty, enforcing deportations, and supporting an all-American workforce,' said Seth Christensen, the Agriculture department spokesperson. 'Anyone suggesting otherwise either hasn't done their homework or is deliberately misleading the public.' He said it was 'completely false' to suggest that she consulted or directed others to consult a lobbying firm to build support for 'her position.' 'Her only position is the President's position,' he said. 'The entire Administration is working in lockstep to carry out his America-first agenda.' Trump, who has at times appeared sympathetic to both farmers and immigration hawks, vowed on Tuesday that there would be 'no amnesty,' though he again promised to deliver a 'work program' for migrant farm laborers — two statements which appear to be at odds with one another. The solutions administration officials and Republican allies in Congress have discussed include streamlining the H-2A visa program and providing undocumented workers already in the U.S. a path to legal worker status, according to an administration official and two Republican Hill aides, granted anonymity to relay private policy discussions. A White House official insisted there would be no amnesty but said the administration is working to streamline existing visa programs to ensure they're more efficient and that farmers have what they need.' Immigration hawks warn that exceptions for one industry could become a slippery slope. 'Farmworkers are really a pretty small share of the overall illegal population, so it may seem inconsequential, but as soon as they do [amnesty] for farmers, then you're going to have how many other — construction, hospitality, restaurants — everybody's gonna want their exception,' said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. 'That's part of what makes it hard. Where are you gonna draw the line?' Expanding access to the H-2A program for non-seasonal agricultural industries, like dairy, has long received GOP support, but would fall far short of replacing the estimated 320,000 undocumented farm workers already in the U.S. Trump has publicly discussed a so-called 'touchback' program for those workers — requiring them to exit the U.S., and reenter through a legal pathway — but such an initiative already faces strong partisan winds. Inside the administration, the debate is focused on how the White House can placate farmers without a policy 'looking like executive amnesty,' said one person close to the Trump administration, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Trump has been so critical of programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and the Biden administration's use of humanitarian parole to admit undocumented immigrants into the country that the White House can't now risk looking like they took a similar path, the person said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the 'president's entire Cabinet, including Secretary Rollins, are following his lead.' She added that the White House and departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security and Labor are all 'working together to carry out mass deportations of illegal aliens while ensuring our farmers and other critical American industries are supported and heard.' Rollins is viewed among immigration hawks as more sympathetic to farmers' concerns, and in the days leading up to Trump's temporary pause last month, she relayed industry complaints to the president. Border czar Tom Homan, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller are opposed to giving some businesses a pass on enforcement, said Vaughan and the person close to the administration. 'I think they're sensitive to the fact that [immigration hawks] would hammer them over the fact if they just offered these people parole or some sort of deferred action that allows them to stay and work in the United States,' said the person close to the administration. Some Trump loyalists — particularly those in the nationalist-populist wing of the GOP, have long distrusted Rollins, considering her an old-guard Republican, and her perceived stance on immigration feeds into that distrust. The backlash against Rollins, who in 2021 co-founded the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, concerned top agriculture employers. They view her as a key voice in the president's inner circle on behalf of farmers and have rallied to her cause. During an Agriculture Workforce Coalition member call last month, attendees brainstormed how their groups could help 'blunt' the negative attacks on social media, according to Michael Marsh, president of the National Council of Agriculture Employers. One idea was to create accounts for the large agriculture employers on Truth Social, in order to engage directly with Trump's staunchest supporters — and Rollins' harshest critics. 'There's this false notion that there are loads of Americans that are there wanting to take these jobs, but that's just not the case,' he said. 'You can't convince some folks that the Earth isn't flat, for whatever reason. But it's not. It really isn't flat.'
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
CHRB Food Fight? California's Top Horse Racing Regulators Clash After Humboldt County Fair Dates Request Is Denied
Guy Fieri tried, but even the Food Network star of 'Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives' couldn't save horse racing in his small northern California hometown of Ferndale, the site of the Humboldt County Fair since 1896. Racing has been a mainstay of the fair most of the years since, but that is coming to an end in 2025. On Thursday, for the second month in a row, the California Horse Racing Board voted against approval of the Humboldt County Fair's dates request for three consecutive weekends of racing between Aug. 13 and Sept. 1. The regularly scheduled meeting was held in Sacramento at the California Exposition and State Fair Grandstand. Technically, the April vote, 3-2 against granting the dates, meant no action was taken by the board because a majority of four of the seven CHRB seats is required. One commissioner, Damascus Castellanos was absent from the April meeting, and one board seat was open because of the resignation of John Carvelli in February. Thursday's vote was 4-3 against the request, with chairman Dr. Gregory Ferraro and commissioners Dennis Alfieri, Thomas Hudnut and Castellanos voting no. Voting in favor of the Humboldt County Fair dates request was vice chairman Oscar Gonzales, along with commissioners Brenda Davis and Peter Stern. Stern was recently appointed to fill the vacant CHRB seat by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The vote came after presentations by representatives of the Humboldt County Fair, recognition that a number of local, state and Congressional politicians had written to the CHRB in support of approving a race meet in Ferndale, and pleadings from owners, breeders, trainers and track employees who said a meet would be beneficial to California racing and breeding. One speaker read a letter from the well-known television star Fieri, who annually attends the fair and whose food career was launched as a teenager with a pretzel cart on the fair grounds. In pleading for approval of the dates, Fieri wrote in his letter, 'To put it very bluntly, taking this meet away from Ferndale would be a bullet to the heart of the fair community. There's no other way to say it.' Speaking against the request for dates was Bill Nader, president and CEO of Thoroughbred Owners of California. Nader outlined the disastrous results of the short-lived Golden State Racing meet at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton last year, which the CHRB approved over TOC protests. That meet, Nader said, required a bailout from Southern California interests and caused severe financial losses to the California Authority of Racing Fairs, which had previously operated fair meets throughout Northern California. CARF ended up selling equipment needed to operate a race meet to a track in Wyoming and has refocused its business on helping Northern California fairs operate their off-track betting facilities. "We need to be very careful with how we govern and how we go forward to protect and preserve California racing," Nader told the CHRB commissioners. The denial of the Humboldt County Fair dates mean there will be no Northern California racing this summer. Since Belinda Stronach, owner of Golden Gate Fields, closed the Bay Area track in June 2024, the only racing was the short-lived Golden State meet from mid-October through mid-December. The CHRB last month voted 4-1 against a request by newly formed Bernal Park Racing to conduct a June 10-July 6 meet at the Alameda County Fair. Bernal Park Racing, an entity started by owner-breeders George Schmitt and John Harris, was set to operate the Ferndale meet if the dates had been approved. Schmitt spoke at the meeting and said he and Harris deposited $1.5 million to help fund the Humboldt County Fair meet and had spent over $100,000 so far on fees and other fairs have applied for 2025 dates. After the dates request was voted down, vice chairman Gonzales, who has clashed with chairman Ferraro in past meetings and was particularly critical of him over the Ferndale vote in April, called it a 'serious, serious, serious mistake that this board made." Gonzales asked the CHRB's executive director, Scott Chaney, the logistics of calling for a follow-up meeting to address the request again. "Commissioner Gonzales, how many votes do you want to have on this?' Ferraro asked. 'You've lost twice. Do you not accept the vote?' 'I don't. I don't, Mr. Chairman,' Gonzales responded. 'Well, that's your problem. That's not the problem of the board,' Ferraro answered back. As chairman, Ferraro can veto calls for a special or emergency meeting and said he would do so if Gonzales tried to have one scheduled. Later, during a public comment period, Gonzales irked Ferraro again, complaining about a back-and-forth between Ferraro and a member of the public. 'Are you being particularly rude today," Ferraro asked, "or do you just have a problem?' The meeting was then adjourned. If Fieri was there to serve lunch, a food fight might have broken out between California's top two horse racing regulators.
New York Post
01-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
Notorious horse trainer Bob Baffert's rise, fall and return to the Kentucky Derby is ‘deliberate confusing of the symptom with the disease'
Bob Baffert has had at least 75 racehorses — including two just last month — die under his care since 2000, according to the California Horse Racing Board and Daily Racing Form data, but a new book asserts that the legendary 72-year-old trainer has been unfairly maligned. '[The] public pillorying [of him] for the past three years has felt more like a scapegoat for racing's biggest problems than a solution,' writes Katie Bo Lillis in 'Death of a Racehorse: An American Story' (Simon & Schuster, out Tuesday). Framing him as the sole villain for the rampant drug use in horse racing feels like 'a deliberate confusing of the symptom with the disease.' All eyes will be on Baffert this Saturday when he returns to the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs after a three-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc. for using a banned substance on a winning horse. 5 Bob Baffert is returning to the Kentucky Derby and Churchill Downs after a three-year suspension by Churchill Downs Inc. for using a banned substance with Medina Spirit (pictured). Pat McDonogh / Courier Journal via Imagn Content Services, LLC He has two horses — Citizen Bull and Rodriquez — competing in the Derby, the latter of which the Washington Post picked as the 'clear choice to win.' The Arcadia, California-based Baffert trained the famed race's 2021 winner, Medina Spirit. But afterwards, the colt tested positive for betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory drug that's commonly used in the equestrian world but can't be in a horse's bloodstream on race day. On December 6, 2021, Medina Spirit collapsed during a training run at Santa Anita in California, dying of a heart attack. Two months after his death, Baffert was officially stripped of his Derby victory. Churchill Downs also suspended Baffert for two years, and he responded with a lawsuit, insisting that he'd done nothing wrong. A federal court in Kentucky dismissed the case in 2023, and Baffert's suspension was extended for a third year because of his insistence on 'peddl[ing] a false narrative,' according to Churchill Downs. It finally ended last summer, with Baffert taking full responsibility for Medina Spirit's positive test. Though rumors had circulated for decades that 'the most dominant trainer in the country was giving his horses a little chemical help,' Lillis writes, it was a huge reckoning for the sport. Baffert has had a record-tying six Kentucky Derby wins (not counting Medina) and twice clinched the Triple Crown — with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018. 5 Baffert has had 75 horses, including Medina Spirit, die since 2000. REUTERS 'Before Baffert, no one had won the Triple Crown since 1978,' writes Lillis. Focusing solely on the tragic death of Medina Spirit is shortsighted, she asserts. '[It] wasn't the first time one of Bob Baffert's horses had dropped dead of a heart attack,' writes Lillis. 'It wasn't even the second, or the third. A decade before, seven horses in Baffert's stable had died abruptly of suspected cardiac-related causes in less than two years — nine times the rate of other trainers stabled in the state of California.' He is also hardly the only questionable trainer within the industry. In recent years, more than two dozen trainers and veterinarians have been indicted for 'juicing' horses with performance-enhancing drugs, like 'blood building drugs, which… can lead to cardiac issues or death,' according to the Department of Justice. One industry veteran told The Post that 60% of Thoroughbreds are drugged by trainers. 5 A new book asserts that Baffert isn't so much a disease as a symptom of problems in horse racing. In 2020, just a year before the scandal that briefly cost Baffert his career, 'the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing was in a moment of profound peril,' writes Lillis. Drug use was widespread, with horses receiving everything 'from sedatives to joint injections to a deeply controversial drug designed to prevent spontaneous hemorrhaging of the lungs during intense exercise, sometimes in untested combinations with unknown outcomes.' In 2024 alone, there were 161 race-related horse deaths, with 15 of them occurring on Kentucky tracks and six at Churchill Downs, according to the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority. When he was finally exposed for Medina Spirit, Baffert pushed back. He gave media interviews and press conferences insisting that his horses — particularly Medina Spirit, despite the toxicology report—had never received betamethasone. 'He was widely mocked for rambling, speculative explanations that at times bordered on the absurd,' writes Lillis. 5 Baffert has won the Kentucky Derby a record six times. Getty Images He made a brief comeback in 2023, winning the Preakness Stakes for a record-setting eighth time with a horse named National Treasure. But the victory was overshadowed by the death of another one of his horses, Havnameltdown, who'd been injected with betamethasone. 'It was an unsettling reminder that Baffert, like so many trainers who had run afoul of racing's petty regulations before, had simply gone back to business as usual,' writes Lillis. According to her, at the Preakness, Baffert had an encounter with Shaun Richards, the new director for the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit, the anti-doping authority. Baffert told the author that Richards warned him, 'I'm gonna be watching you guys, and you better not mess up because I know how to find you.' (According to Richards, Baffert's version of events 'was fabricated, other than I said 'hello.'') 5 Baffert won the Triple Crown with Justify in 2018. Getty Images Lillis is hopeful that the drug scandals of horse-racing, personified by Baffert, may be behind them. 'Some horsemen have quietly told me that they have seen attitudes toward the animal begin to shift,' she writes. 'Whether that change will happen fast enough to catch up to the outside world's expectations remains to be seen.'
Los Angeles Times
30-03-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Kentucky Derby picture remains unclear heading into major races this weekend
Hallandale Beach, Fl. — As racing heads to its final big week of qualifying for the Kentucky Derby, it's becoming clear that there is no overwhelming favorite to win the most famous horse race in the world. Saturday was supposed to help define the field but instead saw the favorites in the Florida Derby and Arkansas Derby lose. For most of the horses, it was their first time going 1 1/8 miles, a furlong short of the 1 ¼-mile Kentucky Derby. Of course, winning your last race before the Kentucky Derby is no guarantee for success as you have to go back to 2017 when Always Dreaming won both the Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby. That is if you discount Justify's performance in the Santa Anita Derby before winning the Triple Crown in 2018. Justify crossed the finish line first in the Santa Anita Derby but was disqualified six years later when it was determined that the California Horse Racing Board mishandled a contamination positive on the colt. Justify, along with six other horses among five trainers, tested positive for jimson weed, which it was believed the horses ingested in their feed. No trainer was sanctioned. This week, the Kentucky Derby field of 20 will mostly be filled barring injuries and one final small-points race at Keeneland on April 12. U.S. horses are competing for 17 of the spots with the remaining spots given to horses from Japan, Europe and the Middle East. If those spots are not filled, U.S. winning horses would complete the field. Highlighting this weekend will be the Santa Anita Derby, in which futures pool leader Journalism will try for his fourth win in a row. The Southern California-based 3-year-old is trained by Michael McCarthy and ridden by Umberto Rispoli. Other races, also worth 100 points to the winner (if the field is six or more) will be the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The first and second-place finishers in those races will most likely have enough points to qualify for the first Saturday in May. Tappan Street, running only his third race, won the Florida Derby on Saturday by 1 ¼ lengths beating favorite Sovereignty followed by Neoequos and Madaket Road. 'Anytime you have a young horse like this and you give them eight weeks between starts, it's always a concern,' said winning trainer Brad Cox. 'But this is a very smart horse. He's intelligent. I thought he would break very, very well today the way he was training, and he did. That put him in the race and put him in a great position.' Cox said if the horse comes out of the race fit, he would ship him to Churchill Downs on Monday or Tuesday. Madaket Road was the lone California-based horse in the race, running for Baffert. He came out of the gate strong, was carried wide on the first turn, led down the backstretch and gave up the lead in the stretch. 'Right now, I just felt like it was a bit far,' said jockey Mike Smith. 'It wasn't like I went overly fast. I thought we got away really well and put him in a great place to kick on. Let me tell you something, those two or three horses in front of us are serious because I was running. I could hear him and I could feel him, and it was getting to him a little bit, but it's not because of a lack of trying. He still kicked.' Madaket Road has 46 Derby qualifying points, which has him 16th in the rankings. However, it's unclear what his next race will be and if he really has a problem with distance, then he may be pointed to the 1 3/16-mile Preakness or an even shorter race. In Arkansas, Baffert had the 4-5 favorite in Cornucopian, but the colt got caught in a vicious speed duel that left he and Speed King out of gas in the stretch. The first quarter-mile went in 22.46 seconds and the half mile in 45.21 seconds. It was then easy for Sandman to win by 2 ½ lengths followed by Publisher, Coal Battle and Cornucopian. 'I couldn't believe [the early fractions],' said winning trainer Mark Casse. 'I said: 'Well, they'll have to be superstars to keep going.' The farther they went, the more confident I was. The faster they went, the more I smiled.' Sandman's stretch run was a bit erratic, lugging out as her approached the finish line. 'I think that [lugging out] just shows how good he is,' Casse said. 'He wasn't focusing and he was still able to draw away. As [jockey] Jose [Ortiz] said, he wants to get into a rhythm. And if you can get him into that rhythm, he'll just go. Jose said he didn't take a deep breath when he pulled up.' John Velazquez, Cornucopian's jockey, was succinct in his analysis. 'Nothing else you can say,' Velazquez said. 'We went fast.' Cornucopian has only 15 qualifying points, putting him in 36th place and well out of Derby contention. As a general rule, 50 points pretty much guarantees you a start in the Derby, with 40 points being near the edge of qualification.
