Rousing Sermon’s Derby plans still in the air
Twentieth on the list of 3-year-olds on the graded stakes earnings list for the 2012 Grade 1, $2million Kentucky Derby, Rousing Sermon has amassed $270,000 on the road to the Run for the Roses on 5 May, 2012, but a decision on his inclusion in the race is
still not finalised by his connections, but they insist that a possibility of a run in the Kentucky Derby is still not ruled out.
According to trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, the decision will be made after the trainer talks to the owners, Larry Williams and Dan Kiser, who manage Williams’s Farm to determine whether the California bred son of Lucky Pulpit, out of mare Rousing Again by
Awesome Again, will run in the Kentucky Derby or not.
Other than the Kentucky Derby, Jerry Hollendorfer is leaning towards a stakes race for the California breds at Hollywood Park on 28 April, 2012, the $300,000 Snow Chief Stakes.
The 3-year-old colt, Rousing Sermon has won two races out of his nine career starts so far, and he has failed to win a single Kentucky Derby prep race this season.
He downed his maiden in June last year at about 5 furlongs at Hollywood Park, and then he finished third twice at Del Mar in the Graduation Stakes and I’m Smokin Stakes, respectively, as both races were run on the synthetic surface.
Rousing Sermon at Santa Anita Park for the first time ran on dirt and won the California Cup Juvenile at about 1 1/16 miles, and then finished second in his next two starts at Hollywood Park over the venue’s cushion track.
He started the 2012 campaign with a third place finish in the Grade 2 Robert B. Lewis Stakes, and then finished fifth for the first time in the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes to winner Creative Cause.
His last prep race for the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby was the Grade 2, $1 million Louisiana Derby, where at Fair Grounds Race Course he finished third to an unexpected winner, Hero of Order, who is not nominated for the Kentucky Derby.
“Every trainer in America would want to win the Derby,” Hollendorfer said. “Rather than make a rash decision, we have to decide what we want to do. In my opinion, it’s the toughest race in the world to win. There are a lot of good purses for 3-year-olds
to run at.”
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