Dullahan announced himself in a big way by winning the Blue Grass Stakes
Tremendous stretch run by Dullahan in the Grade 1, $750,000 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes, who was tenth with three furlongs to go, but he pulled it together and showed that he can pack a mean punch going into the stretch, and just like Bodemeister in the Arkansas,
Dullahan showed in the Blue Grass that he was ready to go 1/8 miles further, which is a beautiful sign for his connections.
Donegal Racing owned 3-year-old colt is trained by veteran trainer Dale Romans, and the son of Even the Score ran down the 1.20 to 1 favoured Hansen in the stretch and downed him by 1 ¼ lengths at Keeneland on 14 April, 2012.
In the process Dullahan become the second colt to win the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity as a juvenile at Keeneland, and then he came back to down one of the most important prep races of the Kentucky Derby, the Blue Grass Stakes, also over the Keeneland’s synthetic
surface.
However, there was more to the race than it seemed, because it was bit of redemption for Dullahan, who was dead last in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at the top of the stretch, but made an amazing run to finish fourth in a massive line up.
Dullahan’s redemption will complete if he goes on to win the Kentucky Derby, and for that he will have to go to Churchill Downs yet again, and the half brother to the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird, will get another rematch with Hansen, and a
bulk of a seriously competitive three-year-old crop that has come forward this year.
"He did everything that a good horse has to do to win," said Romans, who had just won his first Blue Grass Stakes. "When it’s time to accelerate, (jockey Kent Desormeaux) had enough horse to split through. He gets the job done. He’s just a special horse."
Hansen took the lead right from the get go and never really looked back, and it looked as if he was going to post one of his trademark front running victories, but Dullahan, way too prominent is his stretch run put any hopes of Hansen winning to rest.
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