Pin Oak Stud’s Incredibolt earned redemption March 14, spurting away from his competition to win the Virginia Derby at Colonial Downs by 4 lengths. It was a successful rebound after a disappointing last-of-six finish in the Jan. 31 Holy Bull Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park.
The victory earned him 50 Kentucky Derby (G1) qualifying points which, when added to 10 points earned from winning the Street Sense Stakes (G3) in October, should clinch him a spot in the Derby starting gate.
READ: Incredibolt Surges Late To Capture Virginia Derby
With the Kentucky Derby set seven weeks after the Virginia Derby on May 2, trainer Riley Mott confirmed on the March 16 episode of BloodHorse Monday that the plan will be to train up to the 1 1/4-mile classic.
“At this time, our plan is to train up to the Kentucky Derby,” Mott said. “While he now looks like he’s doing fine, you could always run the horse back on short rest and him kind of throw another clunker. Based on the horse as an individual, I feel extremely comfortable training him up to the Derby with the spacing we have.”
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Riley Mott celebrates winning the Virginia Derby
Incredibolt arrived back at Mott’s Palm Meadows Training Center barn in South Florida early Monday morning in great shape, according to Mott. Mott is confident that the son of Bolt d’Oro ‘s physical attributes and strong work ethic in the mornings will have him primed for a top performance at Churchill Downs.
“He’s a very athletic and handy horse. He doesn’t carry a lot of extra unnecessary weight. He’s pretty lean-muscled and just a very athletic type,” Mott said. “He gets a lot out of his training. His breezes are very strong; he does everything very easily.”
Among the attributes that Mott praised was the horse’s strong gallop outs at the end of his breezes.
“I think those latter parts of the works and the gallop outs are ultra important and tell you a lot of the story,” Mott said. “From what I see from him in the morning in those work outs and gallop outs, he just goes and goes and goes and he’ll just tick off 14 seconds down the backside galloping out. He can get a lot out of his works.
“It will be up to me to try and train the horse the way he needs to be trained leading into the Derby off of some space in between the race.”
As for where that training takes place, Mott said the bulk of the workload will be at Palm Meadows. Should everything go well, Incredibolt would ship to Mott’s Churchill Downs barn about two weeks in advance of the Derby, spend a week jogging over the surface, and perform his final breeze over the surface he trained on throughout his 2-year-old season.
“The month of April down here in South Florida is exceptional,” Mott said. “We get a very consistent track down here at Palm Meadows. The horse does very well down here, we’ve got him in a very good routine, familiar surroundings.”
During the 22-minute interview on BloodHorse Monday, Mott also discussed the decision to run in the Virginia Derby after Incredibolt’s Holy Bull clunker, the atmosphere at Colonial Downs for their special weekend of racing, seeing his father (Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott) win the 2025 Derby, how Incredibolt defeated a potential superstition Saturday, and more.
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