Chief Wallabee Turns Heads with Spectacular Churchill Downs Work
Monday morning at Churchill Downs, Chief Wallabee delivered the kind of move that shifts the entire complexion of the Derby picture.
The son of Justify blazed through five furlongs in 1:00.01 in his first work over the Churchill main track, but it was what happened after the wire that had veteran clocker Mike Welsch reaching for superlatives. This wasn’t just a good work—it was a statement.
Breaking it down by the numbers tells only part of the story. Chief Wallabee sat behind stablemate Gilded Bandit—a recent maiden winner at Keeneland on April 4—through a deliberately measured opening quarter in :25.07. Then came the fireworks. The final three furlongs flew by in :34.94, with the colt continuing strongly through six furlongs in 1:12 and seven furlongs in 1:26.93.
Bill Mott, who knows a thing or two about Derby winners after taking last year’s Run for the Roses with Sovereignty, couldn’t hide his satisfaction. “I thought it was very good, extremely good. Looked like a Sovereignty work to me when he worked two weeks before the Derby,” the Hall of Fame trainer observed. When Mott makes that comparison, people listen.
The equipment change adds another layer of intrigue. For the second consecutive week, Chief Wallabee worked in blinkers—gear he’ll sport for the first time in competition when he enters the Derby starting gate. Both Mott and jockey Junior Alvarado felt the colt lost focus in the Florida Derby, where he finished a close third, beaten just a half-length by dead-heaters Commandment and The Puma.
The decision to add blinkers revealed the kind of trainer-jockey synergy that wins big races. Alvarado admitted he waited four or five days after the Florida Derby before broaching the subject with Mott. “I said, ‘I’m calling you to see if you had any thought about blinkers with him,'” Alvarado recalled Monday. “He said, ‘I just galloped him with blinkers for the second day.’ I was like ‘Okay, good, so it’s going to be your idea.’ We were laughing.”
The equipment’s effect was immediate and dramatic. Alvarado, who hadn’t worked the colt since before his January 10 debut, noticed a transformed horse when he asked for run passing Gilded Bandit. “When I asked him past the wire, he normally puts his head high up,” Alvarado explained. “He actually lowered himself, leveled off, was reaching forward. I was as happy as I could be. That was the result I was looking for. Feeling him doing it and seeing him do it, that was pretty good.”
Chief Wallabee’s form line reads like a horse on the improve: a maiden victory, followed by a neck second to Commandment in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth, then that game third in the Florida Derby. With just three lifetime starts under his belt, he fits the profile of a lightly raced colt peaking at the right time.
When pressed about whether Monday’s drill elevated his confidence, Mott offered his typically understated assessment: “I liked what I saw.”
In this game, that’s about as close to a ringing endorsement as you’ll get from the taciturn conditioner. With the 152nd Kentucky Derby just 11 days away, Chief Wallabee has served notice that he’s ready to run the race of his life.
