2026 Kentucky Derby and Oaks Trail Begins: Spice Runner, Taken by the Wind Strike First in Points Races

The Road to the 2026 Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks kicked off on Saturday with two point qualifying races at Churchill Downs. 

Florida-bred Taken by the Wind scooped up the first ten points on the Road to the Kentucky Oaks with her dominant win in the Grade 3 Pocahontas Stakes. The win marked sire Rock Your World’s first graded stakes winner. Kenny McPeek trains the two year old filly and is no stranger to the Derby and Oaks trail. In 2024, McPeek accomplished the rare feat of capturing the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby and the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks in the same year with Mystik Dan and Thorpedo Anna. 

Taken by the Wind tracked pacesetter, Embrace the Moment until turning from home where she took the lead and began opening up on the field of fillies. She crossed the wire over five lengths over the rest with Irad Ortiz, Jr. in the irons. 

The current leader of the Oaks leaderboard broke her maiden last month at Saratoga at 13-1 to win going away. 

On the Derby trail, Spice Runner became the first leader of the Derby points leaderboard with a win in the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes. 

The son of red-hot sire Gun Runner turned the tables on favorite Comport who beat Spice Runner last meeting in the Ellis Park Juvenile Stakes. 

Spice Runner is a homebred for Ron Winchell’s Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC. Spice Runner is also a full brother to multiple Grade 1 winner, Gunite. Spice Runner is trained by Steve Asmussen. 

Asmussen is the winningest thoroughbred trainer in North America and while he has won a great deal of graded stakes over the course of his career, there’s one missing from his resume—the Kentucky Derby. Asmussen has campaigned a great deal of horses across the Derby trail but none have crossed the wire first under the Twin Spires on the first Saturday of May. In 2022, Epicenter was strides away from accomplishing the feat when longshot Rich Strike snatched victory in an upset for the ages. 

This is just the beginning for qualifying points on the Derby and Oaks trail. While a bulk of these points will be earned in 2026, more point races will be run this year with the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Fillies offering 30 points to the winners. While 30 points is typically not enough to make it into the starting gate of the Kentucky Derby or Kentucky Oaks, it’s a start that many connections look to achieve. 

The starting gate of the Kentucky Oaks is capped at 14 fillies while the starting gate for the Kentucky Derby is capped at 20 colts. 

The Kentucky Oaks will take place in primetime on May 1 while the Kentucky Derby will run May 2. 

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