Juddmonte Farms' Empire Maker confirmed his credentials as this year's Kentucky Derby (gr. I) consensus choice with a calculated half-length victory in Saturday's $750,000 Wood Memorial (gr. I) in the mud at Aqueduct Park.
The son of Unbridled, under a hand ride from jockey Jerry Bailey, took the lead from Funny Cide near the eighth pole and appeared to be cruising to the wire when the dark bay colt unexpectedly switched leads and drifted in bit. Funny Cide, down on the inside with Jose Santos riding, came back on as they neared the wire, forcing Bailey to nudge Empire Maker with his whip close to home.
Kissin Saint was 7 1/2 lengths farther back in third, with pace setter New York Hero fourth. The time for the 1 1/8-mile Wood was 1:48 3/5 on a muddy track.
Bailey said he could have won with more ease.
"That is exactly what we wanted to get out of this race. I knew as soon as we broke that he would handle the surface. I didn't want to get into any trouble, and being in the outside post, we didn't.
"He always has a tendency to get distracted. If I hit him, he would have gotten back into it, but I let him goof off a little bit. If I had really gotten into him, and we would have won by more, it would have defeated the purpose of saving something for the Kentucky Derby (May 3 at Churchill Downs)."
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