PARIS, Ky. (LEX 18) — The runner-up in the Kentucky Derby, Two Phil's, will reportedly skip the Preakness Stakes.
So what about the winner, Mage? That's still to be determined. En route to the Winner's Circle at Churchill Downs on Saturday, Mage had only raced three times in his young career.
Early on with a foal, you can't always predict where the road might take them. Even with a promising pedigree, nothing is certain. Even those who helped raise Mage at Runnymede Farm in Bourbon County, it takes an entire team to produce a Derby winner. Malhouitre credits every person who helped raise Mage to success.
"He was not a horse that we would have to worry about every day," said Romain Malhouitre, the president at Runnymede Farm. "He would take care of himself, very much so."
Mage could teach 3-year-olds a lesson — play nice and you could be a winner.
"He was the horse who would never get in trouble in many different ways," he said. "Colts especially can play in the fields and get in trouble and you see some of them try and bully others as a competitive spirit."
"He's certainly got the pedigree," said Robert Clay with Grandview Equine, who bred Mage. "Good Magic and Puca qualify him to be a prospect to win the Derby."
Good Magic finished second in the 2018 Kentucky Derby to Justify, who later won the Triple Crown.
"I think when any foal is born, you don't have the expectation that this one is going to win the Derby," Clay said. "You always have the hope."
"It's everything," Malhouitre said. "I don't think I know a horseman or horsewoman in America or even in Central Kentucky who doesn't dream of what we completed this year. And you never know when it's going to happen."
Mage was sold at the Keeneland Yearling Sale in September 2021.
