This is the second story in a three-part series following the difficult path along the 2019 Kentucky Derby Trail of three hopeful trainers, jockeys and horses — Knicks Go, Well Defined and Win Win Win. Join the journey of relative outsiders making a run for the roses. View the first story here and the final story here.

TAMPA, Fla. – Reed Patterson’s accent gave him away.

From near Buffalo, New York, he’d traveled to Tampa Bay Downs for a marquee racing day. A follower of the sport since he was about 10 years old, the now middle-aged Patterson was certain about the day’s showcase event.

“As sure a thing as I’ve ever seen,” Patterson told trainer Michael Trombetta about his prized 3-year-old colt.

Win Win Win was the morning-line favorite for that afternoon’s Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby, one of three Kentucky Derby prep races taking place nationwide that day.

It didn't hurt that his jockey would be Irad Ortiz Jr., red-hot at Gulfstream Park's meet and at the time the nation's top-ranked jockey in 2019 earnings. Julian Pimentel, who had been on for the colt’s first four races, winning three, was off for the Tampa Bay Derby.

Such a big-timing move is common at this level. Lesser-known jockeys at smaller circuits not only have to be on the right horse to have an opportunity to reach the Kentucky Derby, they also have to be kept on by trainers and owners once the horse becomes successful.

Trombetta's move wasn't simple, but it made sense. At that moment, there wasn't a hotter jockey in the country than Ortiz.

“A lot of thought goes into those decisions,” Trombetta said. “That’s one of those things we decided that we were going to try to align ourselves with one of those kind of riders. … (Ortiz) is just riding at the top of his game right now. When it turned out that I had an opportunity to grab him, that’s what we did.”

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Pimentel, a 38-year-old from Colombia, had never ridden in the Kentucky Derby among more than 10,000 starts in his career. He frequently rides for Trombetta at Laurel Park in Maryland.

"(Trombetta) tried for Julian not to be taken off the horse, but it's part of the business," said Ronnie Gerardo, Pimentel's agent. "... It was disappointing, because when you win three out of four races and break the track record in the last race that Julian rode him in Tampa, he knows he has a good horse. But when the owners see that they've got a good horse and this horse can go to the Derby, they want the top riders in the country."

Trombetta’s horse had been given 5-to-2 odds in the Tampa Bay Derby over some strong Kentucky Derby contenders — including second-choice Well Defined (7-2) — for the 1 1/16-mile race despite the fact he had not run a Derby points race in his four starts, none of which was longer than seven furlongs.

Most recently, though, he'd set a Tampa track record at seven furlongs to win January’s Pasco Stakes.

The horse racing community was buzzing.

“The way that he did it, the time he did it in, the way that he finished out," said Richard Grunder, track announcer at Tampa Bay Downs, "and then the clockers — who are both good friends of mine — they said in the morning it’s just been breathtaking what he’s been doing.”

Making an appearance on Grunder’s Saturday morning clubhouse show, Trombetta politely fielded audience questions with calm, cautious optimism about his horse’s chances to seize the winner’s 50 Kentucky Derby points and lock up a spot at Churchill Downs in one warm, sunny race in Florida.

“It turns up the heat as far as the decision-making process and trying to get things right. You’ve got to watch and see what other people are doing,” Trombetta said of being on the Derby Trail. “Right now, it doesn’t matter so much to me, being he ran so well here. I knew this is where I wanted to run, and whoever I had to face, I’d have to face.”

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'I hope they did the right thing'

Pablo Morales had wondered if he'd face the same fate as Pimentel.

Well Defined had been ridden by Mike Smith (Justify’s Triple Crown jockey) in last fall's Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

But that was at Churchill Downs. Morales got the mount for February’s Sam F. Davis Stakes in Tampa, his home track and the home track for Well Defined’s trainer, Kathleen O’Connell. He made it look easy in his first try with the gelding, reaching the lead early on a speed-favoring track and cruising to victory.

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That was worth 10 Derby points, putting Well Defined in range of qualifying with a similar showing on the same track in the Tampa Bay Derby.

“I had a question of whether I stayed on or not,” Morales said. “But they never really seemed to attempt to make a switch, and I was really thankful for that. Because I know the game. I’ve been around long enough that I know that when you are not a big-time, multiple Grade 1 (stakes) winner, of course, they’re going to prefer somebody with that kind of experience in that race.

“I don’t agree with it, but I know how the business goes. Thank God they never even mentioned or attempted to make a switch. I’m really thankful for that. I hope they did the right thing.”

O’Connell’s rationale was simple.

“Why would you change off a win?” she said. “I thought Pablo rode him as good as any. To me, there was no sense switching. … Pablo has got a good set of hands. He listens to instructions usually pretty well. He’s a young, upcoming rider, I think, and he’s going to try hard. Not that they all aren’t going to try hard at that level, but there’s a little more meat on the bone to attack there.”

Morales looks about 18 years old but is actually 30, with a wife and two children in elementary school in the Tampa area.

He’s from Peru and speaks English fluently, having run his first race in the United States at age 16. He said he has known since age 12 he wanted to seriously pursue a career as a jockey.

“My whole life, I’ve been involved in the racetrack,” he said. “Back home, my family have been jockeys and trainers. I was pretty much born into it, always been at the track since I was born.”

Morales has started more than 10,000 races and bounced between minor tracks for most of his career. Like so many in his profession, he’s still working for his big break.

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Perhaps Well Defined, and a first Kentucky Derby, could be just that.

“Oh man, just being in (the Kentucky Derby), of course, it’s everybody’s dream,” Morales said. “The opportunities are not much there for me for the circuits that I’m riding at, obviously. When you’re in places like New York, there’s always the opportunity of finding one, a good, special 2-year-old. …

“It’s definitely really exciting to go out there in a race of that caliber and having a legitimate shot at winning. It’s pretty cool. It doesn’t happen every day. The circuits that I’m at don’t really fire those monster horses. Even when we have big racing, the out-of-town people come and take over.”

The out-of-towners arrive

Tampa Bay Downs has an intimate, minor-league feel, but this Saturday would be a rare instance it got a taste of big-league racing.

The 12-race card featured five stakes races and purses that had lured some of the sport's top trainers and jockeys for the afternoon.

Counting Ortiz on Win Win Win, seven of the 11 horses drawn into Race 11 — the Tampa Bay Derby — had jockeys who had been in a Kentucky Derby the past five years.

Much like the trainers, Triple Crown jockeys tend to be a small, elite club. Of 97 starts in the Kentucky Derby the past five years, 56 of them were shared by a group of only 14 jockeys, five of whom were riding in this Tampa Bay Derby.

Joel Rosario, a former Kentucky Derby winner who’d also won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Classic on consecutive days last fall at Churchill Downs, would be riding trainer Todd Pletcher’s Outshine, a horse who had sold for $625,000 as a yearling (that’s more than American Pharoah or Justify).

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Irad Ortiz’s brother Jose Ortiz — with four Kentucky Derby starts in the past five years — would be on trainer Bill Mott’s Tacitus, who was a son of Tapit, arguably the most-respected recent sire in the sport.

Jockey Florent Geroux would be riding trainer Mark Casse’s Dream Maker, another Tapit horse who had won his previous race by 8 1/2 lengths at the same distance. Julien Leparoux was riding another Casse entrant, Sir Winston. Trainer Dale Romans was on hand to watch his trainee Admire, who’d be ridden by Robby Albarado.

"I’ve ridden against all of them, pretty sure I’ve beat them before," Morales said. "They’re all good jockeys. I consider myself a good jockey. I know what I have to do to win it."

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Another of those out-of-town jockeys was Albin Jimenez, up from Gulfstream Park. But while Jimenez was in Tampa, his lone Grade 1 stakes winner — Knicks Go — was not.

After a disappointing fifth-place showing in the Sam F. Davis, connections had changed plans for Knicks Go, who’d resided in Tampa for a while and was originally pointed to the Tampa Bay Derby. Instead, Knicks Go was shipped north to trainer Ben Colebrook's barn at Keeneland and from there to the Gotham Stakes taking place at Aqueduct the same afternoon.

From there, Colebrook was eyeing April’s Lexington Stakes at Keeneland, where Knicks Go won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity in a massive upset in October.

“When he gets a racetrack he likes he’s very good,” Colebrook said. “And when he gets a racetrack that he doesn’t care for he’s not the same horse. … When he didn’t really handle the track on Sam Davis day, that put us in definitely a little bit of a scrambling mode to find the right race. But that’s why the Triple Crown races are so tough. Everything changes from day to day.”

Colebrook preferred the 1-mile, one-turn setup for the Gotham Stakes rather than two turns in the longer Tampa Bay Derby. A new track was a gamble, but as Knicks Go had moved into his 3-year-old campaign, it was becoming clear that distance was not going to be his ally.

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Heading to Aqueduct seemed an out-of-the-box idea, if not a Hail Mary. But making a Kentucky Derby would obviously be a major breakthrough for Knicks Go’s owners, the Korean Racing Authority, and the horse still had 18 Derby points. Third place in the Gotham would get 10 points, while second place earned 20 and the winner got 50.

“With two subpar races,” Colebrook said, “maybe people don’t give us any respect and we can kind of go back to what we did at Keeneland, getting loose on the lead and them just leaving us alone.”

Jimenez had ridden Knicks Go’s previous four races, including the Futurity at Keeneland, but the switch to Aqueduct caused Colebrook to seek out Jose Lezcano, a local jockey who knew the track. Colebrook had told Jimenez, however, that he’d be back on Knicks Go in the future.

A native of Panama, the 27-year-old Jimenez was schooled as a jockey in his home country before launching a riding career in the United States. Like Morales, he is an up-and-coming jockey looking for a break and perhaps getting one with a horse on the Derby Trail.

“It’s hard for me to see him with another jockey,” Jimenez said, “but to me, I’ll cheer fine. You get the points and you’ll be in the Derby. … We don’t know if he’ll be able, but we’re almost there. I always dreamed to be in the Derby.”

Ready to run

At 5:04 p.m., two minutes before final call for Race 11, O’Connell looked down a row of horses and called out, “All right, you guys,” the go-ahead to bring out Well Defined from his stall.

He appeared sharp and ready to run, heading into a grassy field near O'Connell's barn.

This seemed typical. O’Connell had referred to Well Defined as “the class clown” or “Dennis The Menace." Her decision to add blinkers for the Sam F. Davis had made a world of difference for a talented, inconsistent horse who had performed very well at times and poorly at others.

Unlike all but one other horse in the Tampa Bay Derby field, Well Defined was a gelding.

“He’s kind of a tough horse. He’s kind of a precocious horse,” said Larry King, manager at Florida’s Stonehedge Farm, where Well Defined had been raised. "That’s the reason we had to geld him. He was a little bit overprecocious. He’s always been a little bit of a handful, which a lot of times the good ones are. They have to have that extra in them.”

On the racetrack, King said, Well Defined “likes to be left alone,” meaning he wants the lead and he wants space to run his best. That happened in the Sam F. Davis, when he sprinted ahead of Knicks Go early and wired the field.

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That would be the plan again in the Tampa Bay Derby, though another horse — Zenden in post No. 11 — had shown early speed before, too. Trained by Victor Barbora, Zenden would be ridden by well-respected local jockey Samy Camacho, the leading rider at Tampa Bay Downs.

“I’m just guessing Samy is going to load late and leave early and knuckle on that horse pretty good,” Grunder had predicted. “He might not make the lead, but he’s going to try. I just think it’ll be a very lively early pace.”

As Well Defined walked over from the backside of Tampa Bay Downs, O’Connell hopped in a car for a short ride from her barn to the paddock on the other side of the track. Once there and parked, the car's windows were left down.

“We’re trusting people,” she joked.

The grandstand remained crowded, and prior to the Tampa Bay Derby, a large group had built around the small paddock.

Well Defined was still raring to go. He’d been near a big paddock crowd before in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, but with tighter quarters for the horses in Tampa, he grew agitated. At one point, he raised up suddenly on his hind legs near a fence that separated the public. He didn’t flip over, but it wasn’t far off that, drawing a collective gasp from racegoers.

O’Connell would learn later that Well Defined had tweaked a muscle in his back, likely as a result.

Moments before, Trombetta had been concerned with a similarly agitated and geared-up Win Win Win, who’d also reared up on his hind legs, at one point jumping and kicking away from his handlers.

“Well, he gets to feeling good,” Trombetta said with a smile when asked in the paddock if it was normal. “It’s not normal for me.”

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Too fast, too furious

Grunder’s prediction proved dead-on. With immediate urging from Camacho, Zenden tore out of the gate from the outside post, cutting ahead of Well Defined to seize the early lead.

Well Defined took notice and took off, and Morales couldn’t slow him down to conserve energy.

“Definitely a king horse,” Morales said later. “He wants to kind of go, go, go, and once he gets in front by himself, he settles a little bit. With that horse right next to him, he was going after him the whole way.”

It was a pace duel, and speedy fractions of 22.79 and 45.85 seconds ultimately killed each horse’s chances to win. Neither had enough left in the stretch, with Zenden finishing fourth and Well Defined fading to eighth.

“Pablo was trying to save him,” O’Connell said. “And any time you have to take a hold or fight a horse a little, you’re taking something out of him. I mean, they’d have to be a superstar.”

O’Connell would later wonder what Camacho was doing by asking so much so soon of Zenden, calling it “probably the worst race I’ve ever seen him ride as the leading rider (in Tampa).”

Read more:Tacitus rallies up the rail to win the Tampa Bay Derby

Camacho said he was following instructions by Barboza — “I want to see you in front” — to take the lead out of the gate with Zenden no matter what. Camacho, for what it's worth, didn’t agree with the strategy.

“I was thinking before the race the best plan is follow the No. 5 (Well Defined),” Camacho said, “but I have to follow instructions.”

“For him to gun that horse out of the gate and whip him like a quarter-horse leaving there,” O’Connell said. “If Camacho would have rode a smarter race, he could have probably got a piece of it.”

The fast pace allowed multiple horses to make late runs from the pack. Jose Ortiz —Irad Ortiz's brother — took Tacitus through a seam near the rail and got to the wire first, followed by Pletcher’s Outshine and a fast-closing Win Win Win, who ran past Zenden to finish third.

Not a Win, but not a loss

“I want to watch the replay,” said Trombetta, immediately running to the lower level of a crowded clubhouse to search of a television.

Win Win Win, who'd been a slow starter before, was this time as well. Trombetta saw what he suspected: Irad Ortiz had to check up soon out of the gate when two other horses crossed in front of him.

“Look, that happens every day in horse racing,” Trombetta said. “You just hope it doesn’t happen now.”

Ortiz also had to go very wide on the final turn to find ample space to make a late rally as the pack caught up to Zenden. The track's stats had Win Win Win running an additional 28 feet — “considerably farther than most of them,” Trombetta said — after also breaking slowly from the gate.

“No excuse. He ran a good race,” Ortiz said. “But I did have to check a little bit on the break. … I had to something I didn’t want to do, but I have to ride the way the race comes up.”

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For Trombetta, the result didn’t change anything in the big picture. Win Win Win had proven he could handle the added distance, earning 10 Derby points for third place and finishing within 2 ½ lengths of the lead despite a troubled trip.

“Considering the ground lost and the first time with two turns, I still feel like I’m a player here. I really do,” Trombetta said. “Would have liked a little bit of a better outcome, but this was OK. … I’m confident that he belongs, that he should do it. But until you see it put to work you always have a little doubt. I feel better about this now than earlier.”

There would be another Derby prep race for Win Win Win, with April’s Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland the next destination.

The next step on the Derby Trail wasn’t so clear for Well Defined, and even less so for Knicks Go.

Things hadn't gone well at Aqueduct.

Knicks Go aimed for the lead and got into a pace duel with Bob Baffert’s Much Better that was even faster than what Well Defined experienced in Tampa (fractions of 22.36 and 44.42 seconds). Knicks Go simply couldn’t handle it. He was spent early and finished 51 lengths behind Kiaran McLaughlin’s Haikal, who used the fast pace to go from last to first in the Gotham Stakes’ seven-horse field.

Knicks Go’s Equibase speed figure for the Gotham was a paltry 19. He had not surpassed 76 in three Derby points races since his 96 while finishing second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

Derby aspirations, at this point, seemed on life support as he and Colebrook returned to Keeneland, looking to regroup again while still on 18 Derby points. Win Win Win now had 10 points. Well Defined hadn't added to his 10.

So it was to be continued for all three as the calendar turned to April and a final round of prep races, leaving perhaps one final shot for each.

Gentry Estes: 502-582-4205; gestes@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @Gentry_Estes. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/gentrye.