Expensive Drink for a Worthy Cause

- Spirits maker Woodford Reserve will sell a $1,000 mint julep at the Derby this year.

The sweet cocktail will be made this year with one of the state's finest bourbons and served in a gold-plated cup with a silver straw to the first 50 people willing to put down the cash.

Mint from Morocco, ice from the Arctic Circle and sugar from the South Pacific are added luxuries that will put the drink in a class of its own, the distillery selling the premium drink said. [Lexington Herald-Reader]

It’s all for a great cause - proceeds will be sent by Churchill Downs to the NJ-based Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation. No word from YUM! Brands on whether they will offer a $1000 platinum bucket of KFC.

- Does Dan Hendricks sound just a little confident about Brother Derek?

"I hate to say it -- and I don't want to sound like I'm bragging -- but he seemed to handle that race like a workout….He wasn't breathing hard right after the race, and he has been bouncing around in his stall.

"Right now, this all feels good. I could not imagine having a better scenario unless we had Secretariat." [Albany Times-Union]

- Todd Pletcher has ruled out My Golden Song from the Derby; not so for Keyed Entry. "At the end of the day, I don't think he ran that bad a race…..Maybe with some adjustments -- slowing him down a little bit, a different surface -- who knows?” [Brisnet.com] I touted the colt here for the Wood, but I can no longer argue with those who say he can't get the distance. By the way, Bob and John was given a 99 Beyer for the win, which, given the fact that it was the only two-turn distance race of the day, is probably nothing more than an educated guess.

- Veteran columnist Jerry Izenberg also noticed that flood of late money that came in on Sweetnorthernsaint in the last two minutes, knocking him down from 2-1 to 6-5.

Those wagers set off more blinking lights than a corner candy store pinball machine.

Whoever dumped that money down wasn't an amateur. And they weren't wrong. [NJ Star Ledger]

I couldn’t believe it when they showed the odds on him during the race; I was thinking he'd gone off as the second choice. He earned a 109 Beyer for the race, the highest two-turn number for a three-year old this year. This is one serious Derby contender, I think. And another one from a relatively obscure sire – Sweetsouthernsaint (Saint Ballado) stands in Florida for a fee of just $3500, which I imagine will be going up. He was unbeaten in three starts at two, ran only once at three, a third to Cape Town in the Holy Bull, and twice more at four before being retired.

- David Cassidy's Mayan King, briefly on the Derby trail last year before being injured, made his first start since that time a winning one at the Big A on Saturday, paying $19.20.