While Santa Anita Derby (G1) winner Justify (7-2) and UAE Derby (G2) winner Mendelssohn (4-1) are getting most of the attention in the betting for the 144th Kentucky Derby, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) champ is getting overlooked.
Good Magic won the Juvenile last fall at Del Mar while still a maiden, pulling off the upset at 11-1. The Chad Brown trainee became the early betting favorite for the Run for the Roses.
Bolt d’Oro overtook him as the betting favorite in January, and we saw his odds drift upward after he was a disappointing third in his three-year-old debut in the Fountain of Youth (G2) at Gulfstream Park.
His early Kentucky Derby odds drifted up to 16-1 a week before he made his final Derby prep in the Blue Grass (G2) at Keeneland.
The colt bounced back with a much better effort in the Blue Grass, tracking the early pace and finishing gamely to win by 1 ½ lengths while running not quite as fast as he did in his Juvenile win last fall.
The race should set him up for a top effort on Derby Day and he is in a good barn with Chad Brown.
Brown has not won a Derby yet, sending out four runners with his best finish a fourth by Normandy Invasion in 2013. Last year he saddled Practical Joke, who checked in fifth.
Good Magic is the best contender he has had of date pointing toward the first Saturday of May. Brown has won the Eclipse Award for the top trainer in each of the past two years, his reputation mainly as one of the top turf trainers in the U.S.
However, in recent years he has begun to develop more dirt runners, and it is just a matter of time before he wins the Kentucky Derby.
Good Magic has a solid pedigree. He was purchased for $1 million and his sire Curlin was a two-time Horse of the Year who ran third in the 2007 Kentucky Derby, won the Preakness and was second in the Belmont Stakes.
The mare is stakes winner Glinda the Good, who is by Hard Spun, who was second in the 2007 Derby.
Good Magic is a generous 12-1 on the morning line and figures to go off somewhere around 8-1 to 10-1.
With Justify and Magnum Moon having to overcome the Apollo Curse and Mendelssohn exiting a race that has not produced any Derby in the money finishes, Good Magic may be a good option and should be a fair price.