Head starter Scott Jordan, tasked with ensuring a safe and fair start in racing at Churchill Downs, including in the May 4 Kentucky Derby (G1), does not expect Sierra Leone to pose a problem despite the colt delaying the break of the April 6 Blue Grass Stakes (G1) at Keeneland.
Reluctant to load from his outside post position closest to the fans on the track apron, Sierra Leone delayed the Blue Grass by a couple of minutes, though he was professional once inside. He broke respectably and ultimately rallied from the back of the pack, as is his custom, to storm to victory.
Since arriving at Churchill April 21, Sierra Leone has twice schooled with Jordan's crew at the gate, Jordan and trainer Chad Brown said.
"He was a little shook up the first day, and then the second day he came over, he was really good. So I think we'll be fine with him," Jordan said.
Jordan described his staff as leading Sierra Leone toward the gate with a shank, and he "finally dropped his head, and took a deep breath and walked in."
"He did great," Brown said at the Derby post-position draw April 27. "So I'm really confident that he'll be able to load and so is the crew at Churchill led by the starter Scott Jordan. I don't anticipate the gate being a determining factor. If he wins or loses, it's really going to come down to the trip and if he's good enough."
Sierra Leone, winner of the Risen Star Stakes (G2) in addition to the Blue Grass, is the expected second favorite behind the Todd Pletcher-trained Fierceness in the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby, the historic first leg of the Triple Crown. Fierceness is scheduled to gate-school April 30, Jordan said. It is typical for Derby starters to visit the starter, as do inexperienced horses and those that previously posed gate problems.
Sierra Leone, drawn in post 2, will be among the first three or four horses to load. Jordan said the field would be loaded two at a time, beginning on the inside and middle of the field and continuing outward. So, if 20 horses compete, horses in posts 1 and 11 will enter the gate first, followed by 2 and 12, and so forth.
At the post-position draw Danny Gargan, trainer of Dornoch (post 1) and Society Man (post 20), expressed concerns about how Sierra Leone would behave. He noted that a customary load would have his horse in the gate ahead of Sierra Leone, unlike most of the field, which would be more at ease waiting in space behind the gate. He said Saturday night that he wanted to load after Sierra Leone, feeling Dornoch could be at a disadvantage if Sierra Leone proves slow to enter.
"Usually when (starters) have a horse like him, they don't load the one inside him just for safety. ...If not, maybe they'll back us out and reload us if it takes forever," Gargan said Saturday night.
The inside post position, from which no horse has won since Ferdinand in 1986, is widely deemed to be an obstacle, as it is a position from which many horses can be shuffled back when the massive field begins to angle down toward the inside to secure position.
With the continuous 20-horse starting gate, first used in 2020 and which replaced a two-gate combination, there is more space for the gate's placement. This leaves the inside stall of the gate about 12 feet wider onto the main track, Jordan said. This seemingly makes it less of an intimidating position from which to begin, not being as close to the inner rail. The outside post is also not as far on the main track as before.
Watch: Go Inside the Kentucky Derby Starting Gate
Jordan said the difference in the overall width of the gate is not due to the interior of stalls being narrower but rather to the spacing between stalls and the absence of a gap between the previously used 14-horse main gate and the six-horse auxiliary gate.
When asked to review the continuous gate's performance after four years of use, the starter said, "It does exactly what we bought it for." He noted assistant starters are also more comfortable with it after modifications were made to widen areas where they stand.
Jordan said one different procedure for this year's race would be that the Japanese horses, Forever Young and T O Password, will be without assistant starters in their stalls at the time of the break, provided they behave. Assistant starters in North America typically hold horses in the standing areas along each individual stall in an effort to keep the horse attentive and looking ahead.
"They don't want anybody to handle them in there," Jordan said. "So, therefore we will lead them in, and we'll take the guy away from them. That's how they do it (in Japan)."
Should one misbehave, "Then I'll send someone," Jordan said.
A large field of Derby horses, many of them on edge in front of an excited crowd of typically more than 150,000, necessitates as much preparation as possible to put them at ease.
"Obviously, what they do here at Churchill Downs is unique," said Michael McCarthy, trainer of Kentucky Derby starter Endlessly, after he watched several of his horses school the morning of April 29. "It's the only 20-horse field in America all year. And to do it with the fluidity and the precision that they do, it is really remarkable."
He said his Derby participant, winner of the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3), would likely visit the starting gate just once this week.
Jordan, a member of the gate crew at Churchill since 1995 and head starter since 2006, said he and his staff would take notes on each Derby horse in preparation for race day.
He "knows what they need and how far to push," McCarthy said.
Jordan's usual gate crew of about 13 will grow to between 24 and 26 on Derby day, he said, with much of his additional staff coming from out of town. Returning this year is Ohio-based Cassie Dempsey, a rare female in the profession. Two years ago, she first worked for Jordan on his staff on Derby day, though she was not with a horse in the gate for the Derby itself, he said.
He said it is his standard practice to use his gate crew first-timers to work undercard races but not to have them in a stall for the Derby.
"So I didn't play it any different with her," he said of Dempsey, who could not work the 2023 Derby due to what Jordan said were staffing obligations at Thistledown. "She did not have a horse the first Derby she worked, but she's probably gonna have one this year."
