Read the bolded quote from Noseda.


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Awesome Act - Kentucky still the plan
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AWESOME Act remains bound for the Kentucky Derby, trainer Jeremy Noseda indicated this afternoon.

The son of Awesome Again followed last month’s Gotham Stakes win with a third-placed effort in the Grade 1 Wood Memorial behind Churchill Downs favourite Eskenderaya.



Noseda’s charge found the lack of early pace to his disadvantage and wasn’t able to deliver a challenge to the eventual winner, who had 10 lengths in hand at the line.



Noseda said: “I don’t want to take anything away from the winner’s spectacular performance. He looks an absolutely top-class horse.



“But from Awesome Act’s perspective, everything went wrong on the day. He stumbled coming out of the gate and pulled much too hard in what was a slowly run race.



“So, when the sprint came at the finish, he was lacking the reserves to pick up.



“I also felt, going into the race, that he could possibly ‘bounce’ and I do think there was an element of that in that he definitely regressed from his first start of the year.



“The hope is that he has got that out of the way and can move forward again as, at this moment, we are on course to run him in the Kentucky Derby.



“Touch wood, he has come out of his latest race in good order and he ships down to Churchill Downs on Thursday.



“The other question-mark – and it will only be answered on May 1 – is if he is capable of staying a mile and a quarter. He could just be an ideal American one-turn dirt miler.



“So we are going to head to Kentucky and if he does stay a mile and a quarter then we still have a realistic chance of getting a piece of it.”

Interesting that Noseda would say that, but the Gotham was round around two turns, and he's clearly bred to run long with the Arc winner Bago on his female side, not to the mention BC Classic winner (at Churchill, btw) Awesome Again as his sire.

maybe trying to build a excuse here.....but i like him and think he will run huge but you dont know if he can run with the top few....consider.