May 1–EL PASO — You won’t find any garish hats or mint julep-swilling Millionaire’s Row stiffs in top hats and tails at the Sunland
Park Racetrack & Casino’s Turf Club on Saturday — Kentucky Derby day. But you might find 200 of your newest best friends in the Turf Club (and 2,300 more milling around the facility) when the New Mexico racetrack simulcasts the 135th annual “Run for the Roses” more than 1,400 miles away at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. The Derby is one of the few horse-racing events that just about everyone’s heard of, and the first step in the sport’s high-profile Triple Crown of thoroughbred racing. “There’s always a lot of interest in it every year. It’s one of our more popular racing events,” says Dustin Dix, Sunland Park’s director of racing operations. Adding to its local luster this year is the inclusion of two horses that ran in the Sunland Derby on March 29, a first for the New Mexico track. Mine That Bird, the 3-year-old son of Belmont Stakes winner Birdstone, finished fourth in the Sunland Derby. Mine That Bird is stabled at Sunland Park. Advice, another 3-year-old colt, ran fifth at the Sunland Derby and made the Kentucky Derby field this week.
It’s the first time two Sunland Derby vets have made it to Kentucky’s Derby Day in the same year. They are only the fourth and fifth horses to go from the Sunland to the Kentucky derbies.