Brad Cox previews the Indiana Derby

123. You're listening to Dan Issel

and Louie Ribeau on ESPN 680 and 105.7.

Now here's Dan and Louie. And welcome back the last

segment of the show for this week.

And of course the second hour is brought to you by our friends at

Delta Dental deltadentalk-y.com. And we're happy to welcome in

friend of the show, Mr. Brad Cox.

Brad, how are you this morning? Great, Dan, how you?

Doing I'm doing terrific before we talk about the the horses

this weekend. Congratulations on the foster

that that horse W wheel part just seems to get better and

better. Yeah, I know he's definitely hit

his best ride at the age of 6 and you know was doing really

well leading up to the race and and ran it had a big effort on

Saturday. Hey, Brad, Louie or Beau here.

How was the how was the transition?

I know is kind of abrupt in the move to to Ellis Park for a lot

of those races. How did how did that transition

go? How did your team adjust?

It was fine. We're we were already set up

there at Ellis. It's somewhere we're pretty much

stabled May through November. So it was an easy adjustment for

us and you know, I think at the end of the day it worked out

well. Brad, you, you and your barn are

hitting at 28% for the year, even better at at Horseshoe

Indiana 42%. But there's a trainer that's

really out doing you. Jeff Mulcahy is hitting at 67%.

What? What can you tell us about?

Actually, Jeff had she. There's the devil that won the

Kentucky Oaks. In 2020 he he pretrained her.

So we get horses from Jeff. He does a lot of pretraining and

training of his own as well. So I know Jeff, he does a great

job. He's based at the Thoroughbrook

Training Center. I know he has a good few horses

for good off and and pretraining and does a really good job.

Is any part of you? You don't.

Remember. Go ahead, go, go, go.

Yeah, I know you don't remember this, but you, you were actually

the one who introduced me to Jeff when, when, when we had

Waters of Maroon. Oh, that's right.

Yeah, I do remember that now. Yeah, he broke.

He broke and got going. That's exactly right.

Yeah, he did. He's a he's a great hand.

He knows what he's doing. Yeah, for sure.

Is any part of Brad Cox jealous of a guy like like Jeff, who has

one horse in training? Someday.

Some days, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

There's days where I wish I was the guy with the one horse.

Oh bad Brad Cox with us. Let's, let's, yeah, let's talk

about the Indiana Derby. Verifying of course, 8 to 5 on

the morning line. Brad looks like there's an awful

lot of speed inside of you. Can can he lay off that that

pace? Yeah, I believe so.

You know, he he's had enough runs under his belt now and I I

feel like he's kind enough. Listen, in the Derby I think

it's a complete throw out. We just kind of got caught up in

the pace. Tyler guy was just a touch

aggressive and we were drawn down inside.

He drew the two hole that day. We wanted to be aggressive.

It ended up not working out at all.

He did a good job wrapping up on him that day and just, you know,

let him get something out of it from a fitness standpoint.

But he rebounded really well last time out at at, at or I'm

sorry, at Ellis, big run, probably just a touch.

Further than he wants to go the mile and an eighth.

We're backing him up to mom 16th and hopefully that'll that'll

get him there. I do think he's a you know

listen he's running well enough in some grade ones and grade

threes to to you know he's a graded horse you know he's yet

to win a grade graded stake and I'm hoping tomorrow he can cross

that off his list. Brad Cox with us.

You know this is a weekend that you have started to.

In the last couple of years at least, really target with some

of your better horses you want to the last three Indiana Oaks,

for example. What it What is it about

horseshoe that is so appealing to a guy like you?

Is it is it geography? Is it the people?

Is it the setup? What what is it about horseshoe?

Well, it's just, you know, we come to the end of the meet at

Churchill, obviously the main meets over slash Ellis and just

where they have their Derby and their Oaks position, it really

works out well with. You know some of these Phillies

that were either on the Oaks trail, obviously Melissa was not

on the Kentucky Oaks Trail which ran in the Black Eyed Susan.

So it gives these Phillies an opportunity to run in a great

stake and increase their value. And obviously something with the

boys, the Colts and the geldings with, you know, post Kentucky

Derby, you know, you get an opportunity to to run, you know,

maybe not horses ready to quite make that leap to Saratoga.

But you know you need somewhere to run them and they offer good

pots, good purses and and an opportunity to run in great

stakes. So it's positioned very well in

the calendar for us. It always seems to match up with

something in our barn and we like going up there.

Brad, let's talk about the Merlasa, the three horse in the

In the Oaks tomorrow. It looked like, I mean, she'd

weren't won three in a row and was really on the uptake and

then in the Black Eyed Susan. Kind of came with a dull effort.

Was was that a a case of a mile in an eighth being too far?

Maybe that just doing too much with her too quick.

I had a kind of on a schedule where she was running every four

weeks. She's a really good workhorse.

I think she's going to appreciate this little break

between the blackout. Susan and Indiana Oaks.

She's training well. It's a good race.

She's a very, very good addition of Indiana Oaks.

She's got to step up and run the best race she's had.

I think she can. I thought a lot of her, like you

said, she broke her. She broke her maid.

She went allowance to ship her back to Oakland for a steak.

So I did a lot of shipping and moving around with her.

Then took her to prayer. Then took her to the blackout.

Susan at Pimlico. And I think I just threw a lot

at her over short period of time.

She's had time to recover from all of that.

And once again, I'm I'm hopeful with the time she'll take that

step for and if she doesn't know, she'll be competitive.

How do you keep track of of all of the different jockeys in

different places? So you have Marcelina Pedrosa on

in both the Oaks in the Derby tomorrow in Indiana or outside

of Indianapolis? You know, what kind of rider is

Marcelino and how do you keep track of all these guys at these

different places? Yeah, the riders can get a

little tricky at times, especially once like a

Churchill's over when you start going so many different

directions like Florence and Delaware riding idiomatic force.

We have Ricardo Santana riding one tonight, 2:00 tomorrow at

Prairie Meadows. We've sent affiliate to Belmont

Flavy and Pratt Rod and her there we have Ellis Park running

tomorrow and then obviously we fell into the Indiana thing.

So Marcelino. Rides there, he, he's, he's been

there for several, several years.

He's one of the top riders there.

We use him there. We use him at the fairgrounds in

the winter. He works a lot of horses for us,

so it's not like he's a guy that we don't know.

We're very, very comfortable with him.

He's a very good judge of pace. He puts horses in a good

position, which is ultimately the best and most important

thing you can ask from a jock. And he, he's a very, very good

rider. He is a guy that you know and

he, he rides Churchill here and there and he's able to win races

at Churchill. But that's his main, that's his

bread and Butters, Indiana. Brad, catch us up on some of

your other three-year olds. Of course you started four

horses in the Derby. Angel of Empire had the best

finish there. Catch us up on on what we can

see. Expect to see the second-half

with those 3 year olds. He's doing well.

He had to work this morning at Churchill was 102102 and one's

what I had on him. Just an easy maintenance 5/8 and

he's being targeted for the Jim Dandy the 29th of this month.

He's doing well. Hit show's doing well.

He worked this morning 101 and change at Churchill not unsure

exactly where he'll land be something like the Jim Dandy

West Virginia Derby. Something along those lines.

Chase's Rd. He got some time off.

He's going to resume training in about a month and verifying

obviously is in tomorrow in Indiana.

So those are the four that run in the Kentucky Derby and and

and three of them are active and running and ones on the shelf

and hopefully be back this fall. Brad Cox with us.

You do have Dazzling Blue in. You mentioned her with Flavian

Pratt in the. The Victory ride tomorrow at

Belmont and you mentioned a good Oaks field in Indianapolis.

Holy moly, is this a great field at Belmont?

Tell us about Dazzling Blue, why you chose to head to Belmont for

that race. You know, I want to keep her

around one turn. She's 3 for three.

We love what we've seen from her.

Her figures are not quite as fast as I would say.

It looks like she's running on the television like she's passed

the eye test, but the figures come back like I would say

average. So when we will, we'll need her

to step up because that is a very, very good race there at

Belmont. It's probably the best edition

of the victory ride I've ever seen.

It's basically going to be what you're going to see in the test

later this summer. Saratoga.

So you know, we're hopeful. She's got a lot of early speed.

Flavin's a good front end rider. Hopefully he can break, get her

involved and we'll she'll get a, you know, a big test tomorrow

and then she's up for it. I think she's got a big future.

Brad, you know we're big fans of yours.

I I think at the at the end of June, you were leading the

nation in purses, one, as far as trainers are concerned, on track

to win another Eclipse award hopefully.

When you were growing up a few blocks from Churchill, did you

ever envision having this kind of success?

I dreamed about it, to be honest.

I mean, when I decided to, you know.

I was going to try to make a living in the horse business.

It wasn't, you know, my my dream was to to do as well as we could

and have good horses and be competitive in the Kentucky

Derby, the Kentucky Oaks and Breeders' Cup.

And you know, look, we've got a great, great staff, great owners

and that's what and great horses, that's what you got to

have. And you know, we, we've worked

very hard, our staff, our teams worked very, very hard to put

ourselves in this position. And now that you're here, I

don't really know if I think back too much about like what my

dream was it right now it's about keeping it.

Going and you know moments like last weekend with with W

willpower or you know make it make all the hours, the time,

the dedication, the hard work well worth it.

And you know, looking forward to hopefully having another big

weekend that this week. I'd be remiss if I didn't ask

you and you don't have to give us your opinion on on the

decision or anything like that, but just sort of the reaction

that you had when you heard that, that Bob Baffert was not

going to be involved. In Derby 150 next year, what is?

What happened? What comes to Brad Cox's mind

immediately when you hear that news?

You know, I guess maybe just a little surprised, but you know,

listen, there may be a little bit more going on than than than

I know and need to know. And obviously or honestly not

obviously, but honestly. I just focus on our horses, my

business and keeping our stable rolling and that that's really

all I focus on. You know, I know there's a lot

going on in the horse racing media and you just try to, you

know, win races and be a part of it that way.

Brad, we're looking forward to seeing you tomorrow and wishing

you the best of luck. Last one for me, Have you gotten

your Derby money yet? I was going to ask that dude.

No. You're kidding.

Oh my goodness. What are they waiting for?

Your good question. If you find out let me know.

All right, so last year with the ownership group of the Indiana

Derby winner, we we ended up at B Dubs.

How does Brad Cox plan to celebrate a win if if verifying

gets it done tomorrow? Oh, wow.

Probably a quick, quick drive back to Louisville, so I'll be

ready to get up Sunday morning for workers for breezes at 5:30.

And honestly, that's probably what what'll happen.

So you know what? We'll see.

Hopefully that that it's a good drive home is what I'm hoping.

For last question, and this is purely selfish, how is the track

looking at Churchill since you are there watching horses work?

I'm very happy with the track. We we knock wood, have had no

issues. We we ran 21 horses Derby week

and we our horses ran well. Most of them ran well, come out

of it in good order and it's it's been good.

I've been very happy with the track.

I'm happy with the Ellis Park as well.

Like I said, we're stable there, we're racing there.

Both tracks are in good shape as far as I'm concerned.

There you go, He's Brad Cox. You can follow him wherever

they're running horses. He'll have one in verifying in

the in the Derby tomorrow, and of course, Marlasa in the Oaks.

In Indiana. And then of course, I mean

cripes, as part of that cross country, pick five if you're a

degen like us, Brad, these things matter.

He will have dazzling blue running at Belmont as well.

Hey, safe trips for everybody this weekend.

Brad, thanks for joining us. Thanks Cath.

See you soon. Thanks Brad all.

Right. We'll catch up with him tomorrow

up in. Shelbyville IN There You Go.

I had to ask the baffer question.

You gotta. Do it.

No, no, I'm glad. I'm glad you did, because it's

Segway right into my question about if he'd gotten his, his

Derby money for for the disqualification.

Well, that's the other part of this is that that decision does

actually personally affect him. Because the lawsuit's holding up

that money, right? I mean, it's.

Absolutely. What do you get for winning?

What do you get for winning the Derby?

A million, a million, 2,000,000. So I mean these, you know, is it

that? Much.

It's at least a million and a half.

Yeah. And we're talking about 10% for

Brad in the barn. Yes, yes.

No, no, no. You and I could not agree more.

On that I don't know what Churchill's doing.

I I if I was Brad course Brad's winning he he's Brad's horses

have won $15 million in the first six months of this year.

Brad Brad's doing just fine. But I I if I had 100,000 sitting

in the horseman's account at Churchill Downs I might be I

might be paying more attention. I yes, that, yes, the very few.

People in the world where access to $100,000 doesn't matter.

Very few people. So now I'm with you again.

Just wanted to thank George and the Bear Nose team bringing

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Yeah, it's that good. It's Bearnos Pizza.

There you go. I just saw Phil walk.

One more thing. Yeah, one more thing about Brad

and I know we sound like cheerleaders or I.

Do. Oh yeah, we're getting killed on

the text line for for kissing up to Brad.

Yeah, don't worry. Yeah, no.

And I'll kiss up to Brad for the rest of my life because, I mean,

you can listen to that interview and know how well grounded he is

and his family. What are you going to do to

celebrate if you win the end and drive right back to Louisville

so I can get up early Sunday and work some more horses, but.

But I was trying to get you to. Eat some chicken wings with Brad

Cox. I tried.

I tried.