Express Kid Pulls 34-1 Upset in Wire-to-Wire Springboard Mile Victory

Описание: The big victory earned Express Kid 10 qualifying points for the 2026 Kentucky Derby, while winning his second consecutive race this season at Remington Park.

The 2-year-old California-bred colt by Bodexpress, out of the Street Sense mare Sensationalize, cruised wire-to-wire under jockey Jose Alvarez in the Springboard Mile. The race that offered scaled points of 10 to the winner, five for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth for Kentucky Derby qualifying for next year.

The Springboard winner has come a long way from being an afterthought at the Arizona Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association Fall Mixed Sale of October 2024. That’s where owner Steve Haahr of Puyallup, Wash., picked him up for the pittance of two grand. It was practically a buy-one-get-one free price. Express Kid was put into the Fasig-Tipton California Fall Yearlings Sale last year, but the reserve price of $12,000 for the colt was not met. No one wanted him.

Even trainer Wade Rarick had his doubts about Express Kid at one point. You don’t start a horse that’s going to get Kentucky Derby points in a 4-1/2 furlong race at Canterbury Park in Minnesota if you think the colt is going to amount to much. That’s what Rarick eventually did with Express Kid against maidens going the short distance. That was the first start of his career on July 3 this summer. He only won by a neck at 7-1 odds. Rarick had tried blinkers on him right from the start and Express Kid’s reaction to them surprised the trainer.

“He broke so sharp in them, I was like, ‘Wow!’ “ Rarick said. “I don’t have a lot of these kind (that win $300,000 races). He is eligible for a lot of things in Arizona (where Rarick stables), but I think we might go a different direction with him now.”

Rarick has had his eye on moving toward Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., with some horses after training at Turf Paradise in Arizona around this time of year. Oaklawn boasts one of the top Kentucky Derby trail series of races starting with the $250,000 Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 3. It concludes with the Grade 1 $1,500,000 Arkansas Derby on March 28.

There was a logical reason Express Kid went off at the second-longest odds of any winners of the Springboard Mile. The longest winner was Texas Bling in 2012, who paid $259.60 to win. Express Kid returned $71 to win to his backers.

The long odds on Express Kid were a product of all his races coming into the Springboard. Following his maiden win at a distance that can best be described as a workout, he did not impress. Express Kid was shipped from Canterbury to Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Iowa, where he faced winners for the first time in the $100,000 Prairie Meadows Freshman Stakes, and it was a non-descript second place finish, three lengths behind the winner.

Things were even worse when Express Kid was moved to Remington Park, running a dismal sixth in the $150,000 Clever Trevor Stakes on Sept. 28. He was 12-3/4 lengths behind winner Essential Time but the results were flipped massively in the Springboard. Essential Time finished seventh, 12-3/4 lengths behind Express Kid. That’s a difference of 25-1/2 lengths from the last time the two horses faced each other on the Remington Park main track.

“He broke good,” Alvarez said of the winner. “I just let him go a little bit (on the lead) and when I asked him to run at the quarter pole (near the top of the stretch), he gave me everything he had.”

The previous win for Express Kid came on the grass at Remington Park when he dropped in class to the allowance non-winners of two career races level. He won by a head going 7-1/2 furlongs.

If you think the sale world was indifferent to him, check out the jockeys that have ridden him. In his five starts, Express Kid has had five different riders. This was the first time Alvarez had been on him in an official race. Walter De La Cruz won with him in the grass race here on Nov. 6.

When Alvarez let out a notch in the early going of the race, Express Kid extended his lead from two lengths after a half-mile to 6-1/4 lengths at the finish. Jockey Ricardo Santana, who thought enough of 4-5 odds-on undefeated favorite Arctic Beast, to come to Remington Park with this horse as his only mount of the night. The favorite made his move turning for home, but the gap between him and the winner kept growing. Arctic Beast did finish 2-1/4 lengths ahead of third-place finisher Royalamerican (9-1).

The remaining Springboard order of finish was Western Man (30-1) fourth, Way Beyond (53-1) fifth, Big Apple Patrick (17-1) sixth, Essential Time (15-1) seventh, Jets Rio (81-1) eighth, Time for Music (6-1) ninth, Supreme Good (7-1) 10th, and Spice Runner (6-1) 11th. The original field of 12 became 11 when My Dream Zapper scratched.

Express Kid set fractions of :23.54 for the first quarter-mile, :47.58 for the half-mile, 1:12.83 for three-quarters of a mile and 1:25.84 for seven furlongs. His winning time was 1:38.99 on the fast surface.