Sid and Jenny Craig's homebred, Chocolate Candy, winner of the California Derby as well as the Real Quiet Stakes, is my current very early favorite to watch for the Kentucky Derby. I love his breeding - he's by first year sire Candy Ride out of the Seattle Slew mare Crownette - and the look of him in full flight is riveting. Each stride seems to float him in the air a beat longer than the other horses. His high front leg action gives him the look of a turf horse, but Barbaro and Secretariat, for two, ran the same way. His front leg action is wide as well, a worry in some people's eyes, but his way of going looks all of a piece. He reaches out to the very full exent of his front legs, and the length of that reach is especially eye-catching.
The Kentucky Derby is often won by a precocious horse, and Chocolate Candy has not been that. He wanted no part of sprinting, finishing off the board his early times out. He ambles along in back and appears to access those afterburners only after he's warmed himself up. While this kind of mover is vulnerable to traffic trouble, the relaxation Chocolate Candy shows in the early going, followed by the tremendous turn of foot in the lane, is the sort of style that helped make Afleet Alex the Preakness and Belmont Stakes champion back in 2005. Chocolate Candy needs an intuitive and smart jockey. I hope Russell Baze, who had the call on Chocolate Candy for the California Derby, will be that for him.
Keywords: California Derby, Chocolate Candy, Horse racing, Kentucky Derby preps, Thoroughbred horse racing
