Appleby Aims for Third Straight Jockey Club Derby Win

Godolphin’s Dubai and Newmarket-based trainer Charlie Appleby will go for a third straight win in the Jockey Club Derby Invitational (G1T) Oct. 7 at the Belmont at the Big A meet with Measured Time , an undefeated Frankel  colt making his stakes debut in his first try in the United States. 

Appleby’s previous two Jockey Club Derby winners were Nations Pride , who last year also won the Saratoga Derby Invitational (G1T) and went on to become a group 1 winner in Germany this season at 4, and Yibir , who in 2021 would win the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1T) facing top older horses from around the world in his next start. 

The quality of the past winners, a half-million-dollar purse (down from $1 million in its first three runnings), and the race’s position as third in a three-race series of sophomore turf stakes, the other two of which are grade 1 events, suggest a contest worthy of higher billing than a grade 3. 

Measured Time is 2-1 on the morning line in a field of nine and gets the services of Godolphin’s top stable rider, William Buick.

The Competition

Millionaire Webslinger , a gelded son of Constitution  , led into the final strides of the Saratoga Derby Invitational but was denied by Program Trading . 

“I flirted with the idea of taking him to Kentucky Downs,”  trainer Mark Casse said of Webslinger, “but I felt like his last race was a little harder on him so we let him rebound and I think it’s paid dividends.”