PHOENIX − They departed for their three-city, two-country, 5,400-mile, no day-off, bee-hived road trip with anxieties, questions and fears about whether this international star-studded team may be nothing more than a tease.

Well, 11 days later, the Los Angeles Dodgers returned home early Thursday morning proving once again they are the class of the National League West, and perhaps the most dangerous team in the land.

The Dodgers, after losing three consecutive series to sub-.500 teams in their last homestand, lived up to every bit of their preseason hype. They stopped in the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., grabbed their passports for Toronto and returned to Phoenix where their season died a year ago. They not only won seven of nine games, but pummeled the opposition by a combined score of 53-19.

So, what’s wrong with the Dodgers?

Absolutely nothing.

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“People expect us to win every game,’’ Dodgers sensation Mookie Betts told USA TODAY Sports. “They expect us to hit homers every at-bat. It’s like we’re not humans.

“It’s a silly game. You’re going to have ups and downs no matter who you are. It’s inevitable. Remember, this game is based off failure, not success. It’s good to have those expectations though. The guys we have in here, the coaches, we have a lot of confidence.

“But we got to go play.’’

The Dodgers were relentless on their magical mystery tour where Shohei Ohtani was booed for snubbing Toronto, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was questioned whether he seriously considered signing in New York, and a beehive relentlessly awaited to attack their mojo until a Phoenix beekeeper came to the rescue.

The Dodgers’ bats exploded at the top of the order, while the middle and even the bottom of the order proved to be just as lethal. Rookie outfielder Andy Pages, starting every game of the trip, hit .364 with five extra-base hits and seven RBI in his last eight games. He was joined by Miguel Rojas and Enrique Hernandez, who started six of the nine games, with the bottom-of-the-order trio hitting .333 with a .386 on-base percentage.

“The whole lineup,’’ said catcher Austin Barnes, “just kind of took off.’’

The Dodgers scored at least eight runs in four of their games, and for the first time in 18 years went one entire game without striking out.

“Andy’s a big part of that [success],’’ Roberts said. “Once he got called up, the bottom part of the order solidified and became more productive. I think you look at these nine games and the production the bottom half of the lineup has given us, that narrative should be silenced a little bit. It’s been big, really big for us.’’

The Dodgers rotation yielded a 2.45 ERA on the trip, including the resurgence of Yamamoto. The same guy who was hammered for five earned runs in one inning in his major league debut in South Korea against the San Diego Padres pitched six shutout innings Wednesday and is now 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA and 0.97 WHIP since his debut.

“I think I’m being able to keep myself very calm,’’ Yamamoto said, “and that’s one of the biggest reasons I’m being able to execute my pitches. There are some differences between here and Japan such as the PitchCom, pitch clock. I think I’m getting myself used to it, and I’m feeling more comfortable.’’

The bullpen, which lost setup man Ryan Brasier with a strained calf Monday, was lights out on the trip, yielding a 1.11 ERA.

And of course, there is Betts, who had five multiple-hit games on the trip with a .512 on-base percentage. He’s the runaway MVP one month into the season, hitting a league-leading .377 with a .481 on-base percentage, 1.104 OPS, 49 hits, 29 runs and 26 walks.

“He just conducts professional at-bats,’’ Roberts says, “and that’s a perfect recipe for an MVP-type season.’’

Oh, and about all the concern and apprehension whether he could handle being an everyday shortstop after not playing the position regularly since high school?

The dude looks like he’s played there his whole life, and will continue being their everyday shortstop for the foreseeable future while Rojas slides to second base along with Gavin Lux.

“To his credit,’’ Roberts says, “he really raised his level of play. Certainly, right now, he’s an above-average shortstop. I grade him out as a solid B-plus. It’s hard to imagine that given where he started. It’s really, really impressive.’

When the Dodgers step on the field to play Atlanta for a three-game series Friday at Dodger Stadium, their fans may not even recognize this juggernaut.

Certainly, it hardly resembles the team that stunk up the joint up the last time they were in town.

“There’s an expectation when you come to the Dodgers,’’ veteran reliever Daniel Hudson says, “that you should win 60 to 70 percent of your games. The boo-birds come out, and it’s justified. I’d probably boo if I were a fan, too. We lost three straight series at home, seven of 10 games, and we played like [expletive].

“The expectations this organization has brought upon a good fan base. They expect us to win almost every game. When we don’t, we go on a little run where we lose seven of 10 games, everyone is surprised by it, including us.

“But this group is just so professional that we all knew we would turn it around at some point.’’

And somewhere along the way, on a road trip they thought would never end, it happened.

They jelled into the team they envisioned all along.

“You look back 11 days ago and we’re in a tough spot,’’ Roberts said. “We weren’t playing good baseball. To go on the road with an East Coast trip, to go north of the border, and then come back here and play a divisional rival and end up 7-2, it was a nice feat. Offensively, we were really good the entire road trip, and then the pitching, the defense, has been the best we’ve had all year. …

“Everybody likes playing at home, but sometimes it’s nice to get on the road, and it’s just the guys coming together.’’

The Dodgers, 20-13, suddenly have a bulging 4 ½-game lead in the NL West, with no one else in the division having a winning record.

“The Dodgers,’’ Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo says, “are just an unbelievable team.’’

The scary part is that they’re going to even get better. Walker Buehler, one of the finest talents in the game, is scheduled to start for them Monday for the first time since June 2022. Starter Bobby Miller and veteran reliever Blake Treinen are expected to be activated later this month. Three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to return after the All-Star break and starter Dustin May could potentially come back before the season’s conclusion.

“This team, we don’t let the external factors get to us,’’ said Dodgers closer Evan Phillips, who has eight saves and a 0.77 ERA. “We know we’re a good team. We know we have the talent. We’re not going to let anything get in our way.’’

It helps having that $700 million man hitting second in the order, too, with Shohei Ohtani.

Ohtani hit .250 on the trip with two homers and six RBI while striking out eight times and grounding into three double plays. He was out of the starting lineup Wednesday after striking out three times the previous night.

Yet, even when Ohtani proves to be human, and slumps like everyone else, his sheer presence is a huge factor.

“I’m not saying that Ohani is Barry [Bonds],’’ Roberts said, “but when I played against Barry, it was like he was always looming. Ohtani is just like that. I can’t imagine the stress it puts on opposing teams knowing that he’s looming. He’s always there. It’s got to be stressful.’’

The same goes for the Dodgers.

They are always looming, winning the NL West title 10 of the last 11 years, and already given a 99% chance to be playing in October again.

“On paper, people might think we’re going to go 162-0,’’ Hernandez said. “But in baseball, there’s a bunch of ups and downs and it’s all about figuring out a way to make the downs as short as possible.

“It took us a little second there to get going again, but we’re rolling right now.

“I don’t think we have even reached our best yet, but once that happens, look out, this team is going to be special.’’

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Two jockeys were hospitalized Thursday after an incident caused them to fall from their horses during the second race at Churchill Downs.

Irving Moncada and Emmanuel Giles had to be carted off the dirt track via ambulance after falling from their mounts near the far turn during a 1 1/16-mile, $20,000 maiden claiming race.

Moncada, riding Territoriality, was knocked unconscious, his agent, Joe Paulley, told The Louisville Courier Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. Nearly two hours after post time (1:15 p.m.), Paulley said Moncada had regained consciousness at UofL Hospital and was undergoing scans. Moncada was released from the hospital with the all clear Thursday evening.

Spectators near the final turn told The Courier Journal that Moncada never moved while being loaded onto a gurney and into the ambulance.

Giles was also taken to UofL Hospital. His agent, Nancy Bahena, told The Courier Journal that Giles has pain in his shoulders and spine. They are waiting now on X-rays and CT scans.

Back in the receiving barn, while a state veterinarian evaluated Vostra, trainer Jeffrey Jones told The Courier Journal no one would give him an update on Giles, Vostra’s jockey. Jones also said he didn’t know what caused the spill.

Martin Chuan, aboard Valerie Blue, was disqualified for his role in it after a steward’s inquiry. He was bumped to last in the 10-horse race.

Another jockey who participated in the race said Chuan went into a spot with no room. According to a race recap in Equibase, Territoriality ‘clipped an outer rival’s hind heels and fell’ leaving the 5/16 pole. She ran free toward the finish line before an outrider caught her.

Vostra, the recap says, ‘struck a fallen foe’ and lost Giles around the 5/16 pole. The filly also was caught by an outrider before being led back to the receiving barn.

Martin Garcia, who rode Fasta Lavista Baby to victory, told The Courier Journal he was lucky his filly was able to jump around the incident when it occurred right in front of him.

Neither Territoriality nor Vostra was injured in the spill, Churchill’s equine medical director, Dr. Will Farmer, told The Courier Journal.

The week of Tiger Woods continues.

A day after his Sun Day Red brand was made available to the public – which he promoted on various talk shows – the United States Golf Association announced on Thursday that Woods was receiving a special exemption to play the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina, June 13-16.

While the PGA Championship and Masters offer lifetime exemptions to past champions, the U.S. Open does not. Woods is currently No. 789 in the Offical World Golf Ranking, and his five-year exemption after his 2019 Masters victory has run out.

The 48-year-old will make his 23rd U.S. Open start this year and first since 2020, when he missed the cut at Winged Foot. Woods is a three-time U.S. Open champion in 2000 (Pebble Beach), 2002 (Bethpage Black) and 2008 (Torrey Pines) and has finished inside the top 10 eight times.

So far this year Woods has withdrawn from his Genesis Invitational and finished 60th at the Masters, where he set the all-time record for consecutive cuts made at Augusta National. Woods is also expected to play the 2024 PGA Championship later this month, May 16-19, at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.

INDIANAPOLIS — After missing out on their first opportunity to close out a playoff series for the first time since 2014, the Indiana Pacers weren’t about to let another slip by at home. The Milwaukee Bucks had Damian Lillard back in action, but the Pacers still throttled Milwaukee 120-98 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Game 6 of their series on Thursday night, clinching a 4-2 series win to move on to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

The series win marks the Pacers’ first since they beat the Washington Wizards in six games in the 2014 Eastern Conference semifinals. The Pacers will play either the Knicks or the 76ers with Game 6 of that series happening later Thursday night. Indiana’s second-round series will begin Monday.

Here are four observations from Thursday’s closeout victory:

Even with Damian Lillard back, Pacers’ defense steps up

The Pacers spent most of the day not certain if they would see one or both of the Bucks’ All-NBA superstars. It wasn’t official until about an hour before tip-off that Giannis Antetokounmpo would not play, but about a half-hour before that, news broke that Lillard would return after missing the last two games with an Achilles issue.

Lillard managed to get his points, scoring 28 points on 7 of 16 shooting, but guards Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell made him work for those. Forward Bobby Portis and center Brook Lopez also scored 20 points each, but overall the Pacers’ defensive performance was one of their strongest of the season.

Milwaukee shot 35 of 83 from the floor (42.2%) including 7 of 27 from 3-point range. They finished with 1.04 points per possession and only one quarter over 25 points.

Obi Toppin catches fire

Obi Toppin has had some bright moments in these playoffs and he entered Game 6 averaging 10.7 points per game in the playoffs on 47.7% shooting, but he was 6 of 22 from 3-point range.

On Thursday, though, he was a force as both a rim runner and an outside shooter as he has been for much of this season.

Playing extended minutes thanks to foul trouble for center Myles Turner and starting forwards Pascal Siakam and Aaron Nesmith, Toppin scored 21 points on 8 of 15 shooting, knocking down 3 of 10 3-pointers. He also grabbed eight rebounds and was plus-9 in 24 minutes.

Toppin helped the Pacers’ bench outscore Milwaukee’s 50-10.

T.J. McConnell had his best performance of the playoffs

After the best season of his nine-year career and one of the best of any substitute in the NBA this season, McConnell struggled throughout the first five games of this series. Prior to Game 6, McConnell was averaging 7.4 points and 3.6 assists per game and shooting just 37% from the floor. And the man who once led the league in total steals for a season didn’t record a single theft.

The Pacers were a combined minus-32 in five games when McConnell was on the floor. During the regular season, he was plus-95, second only to Toppin among the players who ended the year on the Pacers’ bench.

On Thursday, McConnell seemed plenty motivated to change the direction of his postseason. He frequently guarded and harassed Lillard when he was on the floor and he was back to his pesky ways in the backcourt on defense. He stayed in attack mode on offense and got fortunate rolls on the short jumpers that he hasn’t always hit this series.

In the first half, McConnell was 2 of 3 from the floor and 4 of 4 at the line for eight points to go with six assists and three steals in 11 minutes. The Pacers were plus-11 in his minutes.

And in the second half, he was even better. McConnell drilled a 3-pointer right before the end of the third quarter and another early in the fourth with the Bucks having left him alone because the 3-ball is not usually his strong suit. That got him even more motivated for paint attacks. He finished with 20 points on 7 of 9 shooting, nine assists and four steals and was plus-22 for the game.

Pascal Siakam dominates in second half

After he scored a combined 71 points in the first two games of the series, the Bucks started committing more and more double teams to Pascal Siakam and he didn’t find it anywhere near as easy to work, scoring 17 points or fewer in each of the last three games and shooting 43% or under in all three of them. The attention didn’t let up in Game 6, and at halftime, Siakam had just four points on 2 of 4 shooting.

But with exceptional ball movement, the Pacers managed to find Siakam in more advantageous positions in the second half, he got some of his mid-range and outside shooting back and he managed some easy paint buckets and returned to the form of the go-to option he was for the early part of the series. He scored 15 points on 7 of 11 shooting in the second half and finished with 19 points for the game, making 9 of 15 total field goals.

Seven years after a woman alleges that Dak Prescott sexually assaulted her, Dallas police announced Thursday that they will not pursue charges against the Cowboys quarterback.

An investigation determined there wasn’t enough evidence against Prescott to proceed with the case.

‘I want to thank the Dallas Police Department and Dallas County District Attorneys’ office for their thorough investigation of the allegations against Dak Prescott,’ the quarterback’s attorney, Levi McCathern, said in a statement. ‘As we knew they would, they found nothing in their extensive exploration of the facts that would support a criminal prosecution.’

The news comes the same week that the accuser’s attorney, Yoel Zehaie, filed a motion to dismiss Prescott’s lawsuit against the accuser. Prescott is seeking $1 million in response to what his attorney’s claim was an extortion attempt on the woman’s behalf. They maintain that the woman asked for $100 million to drop the sexual assault allegation.

The women’s attorney also filed a countersuit in civil court.

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McCathern said in a statement on Thursday, ‘We are confident that at the end of law enforcement’s investigation into the extortion case that they will find the accuser and her attorneys just as guilty as Dak is innocent.

‘As I have said from the beginning, Dak is a great football player, and an even better human. He would never assault any woman. These false accusations were brought up 7 years after the alleged events for one reason and one reason only — to line the pockets of the accuser and her attorneys. Their behavior is an affront to all the true survivors of sexual assault.’

Zehaie told WFAA-TV in Dallas this week that Prescott’s lawsuit ‘was meant to silence his sexual assault victim’ and ‘is in violation of Texas’s Anti Slapp Statute which prohibits different forms of retaliatory lawsuits.’

Zehaie added in a statement on Thursday, according to ESPN, ‘We are proceeding with our counterclaims, even though Levi McCathern is using every tactic to prevent us from going to court.’

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Sometime in the early evening here Saturday, dusk will settle over Churchill Downs’ picturesque twin spires, and more than 100,000 people leaving the grounds in various states of intoxication and perspiration will return to real life from this once-a-year fantasy world that gets bigger, ritzier and more in-demand every year. 

The party will be over. The 150th Kentucky Derby will have been run. And the two-minute horse race they will have seen and wagered millions of dollars on will, in many ways, have been completely incidental to the experience they came to be part of. 

It works that way here, year after year, because the Derby is an enduring American tradition that seems to have only grown bigger and bigger no matter the circumstances surrounding it, from wars to economic depressions to, perhaps most surprising of all, the rise and fall of thoroughbred racing itself as a significant entity in the nation’s sporting landscape.

“It’s the one mainstay we can really rely on,” said Todd Pletcher, a two-time Derby winner who trains Saturday’s likely betting favorite, Fierceness. 

But this celebration of everything the Derby has been since its first running in 1875 takes place amidst cross-currents that explain the complicated place horse racing finds itself in 2024: A stunning lack of uniformity and organization in the sport’s management across the national landscape; a desperate fear of horses dying on racing’s most visible day and never-ending controversy surrounding Churchill Downs’ role as both a publicly traded company with a nearly $9.5 billion market cap and the Derby’s heavy-handed gatekeeper.

Yet undergirding all of it are two undeniable facts: The first Saturday in May is the one time everybody pays attention, and the Kentucky Derby is the one race everybody who gets involved in horse racing wants to win. 

Churchill Downs aggressively protects lucrative Derby

Has the Derby’s prominence been good for the sport as a whole? It depends on who you ask, but many in the industry will point to the fact that Churchill abandoned its horse racing business at tracks it owned, like Calder in Miami (now a casino); sold off Hollywood Park in Los Angeles in a deal that eventually doomed its horse racing operation (it’s now the site of SoFi Stadium) and ended racing at Arlington Park as part of a deal to sell the land to the Chicago Bears. 

Meanwhile, as part of the 150th Derby celebration, Churchill Downs this week unveiled its new $200 million showpiece paddock, whose primary function is to create more premium seating and dining areas for Derby week that will fetch upwards of $7,000 per person for the weekend. 

“Horse racing is less relevant as a sport now, and if you look back 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, it’s been kind of a continual decline,” said Craig Bernick, who now runs the Ocala, Florida-based Glen Hill Farm that his grandfather founded as a racing and breeding operation in the 1960s. ‘But the Derby itself has really been able to buck that trend. It’s a major, major event. Churchill, they’ve done an amazing job for their business, for their shareholders. It’s been an unbelievable wealth creation for Churchill. And the only horse race they care about is the Derby.

“They’ve invested in areas where they can get casinos, and they’ve got a great business model for making money. But it hasn’t been beneficial to the sport as a whole. And I don’t think that’s ever been their intention. Their intention is to make money, which they do.”

The aggressive way Churchill protects this one-of-a-kind, money-printing asset that comes around once a year strikes at the heart of this year’s bête noire: The third consecutive absence of six-time Derby winning trainer Bob Baffert and a horse named Muth, who would have been among the favorites Saturday were he allowed to run.

The Churchill-Baffert dispute stems from what would have been Baffert’s record-setting seventh Derby win on May 1, 2021, when 12-1 Medina Spirit crossed the finish line a half-length in front of 27-1 Mandaloun. 

A week later, Medina Spirit tested positive for a small amount of the corticosteroid betamethasone, leading to his eventual disqualification. Baffert claimed that the positive test was the result of an anti-fungal ointment used to treat a skin condition and that he was unaware it contained a banned substance. On June 2, 2021, Churchill hit Baffert with a two-year ban from entering a horse at any track owned by the company, noting five medication violations over the previous year associated with Baffert horses.

Baffert, for his part, has long claimed that any positive tests were inadvertent, usually attributing them to environmental contamination or, in a couple of 2020 cases, transferred to the horse via the hands of one of his staff members from a lidocaine patch on his back. Baffert has vehemently denied that he ever doped horses. 

Nevertheless, Churchill’s harsh suspension was widely viewed as proper given Baffert’s prominence within the game and the industrywide sense that horse racing urgently needed to clean up its act after years of damaging publicity surrounding doping cases and horse deaths. It was also upheld as legal by a U.S. District Court judge in February 2023, which should have brought the matter to an end with Baffert returning to the Derby in 2024. 

Bob Baffert ‘served his time and they extended it’

But on July 3 of last year, Churchill announced that Baffert’s ban had been extended at least another year, saying: “A trainer who is unwilling to accept responsibility for multiple drug test failures in our highest-profile races cannot be trusted to avoid future misconduct.’ This, presumably, was in reference to the fact that Baffert and Medina Spirit’s owner continued to pursue legal recourse to overturn the disqualification, and Baffert continuing to maintain his innocence in media appearances. 

If the original suspension was fair, adding another year on top of it – without any new violations – was seen in some quarters of the industry as unchecked bullying. It also came on the heels of a disastrous Derby week in 2023 in which two horses from the barn of trainer Saffie Joseph died, prompting Churchill to immediately suspend him and scratch his entry, Lord Miles, out of the Derby. 

Two months later, Joseph was cleared and reinstated as necropsies showed nothing conclusive about the incidents. Baffert, however, remained banned. 

“They made him the poster boy for what was happening,’ said four-time Derby winning trainer D. Wayne Lukas. “They put him right out there and made a house rule, and he served his time and they extended it. I thought that whole thing got out of hand.

‘My personal feeling is, management didn’t want that to be a story for the 150th Derby. If Bob was running, he would have been a lot of the story, and I think they felt that, because he really, really should be here.”

The way the Baffert-Churchill dispute has played out has once again put a spotlight on the hodgepodge, somewhat arbitrary nature of rules surrounding horse racing compared to other sports. 

Try to imagine, for instance, if NBA commissioner Adam Silver slapped another 15 games onto a player’s standard 25-game performance-enhancing drug suspension because the player didn’t show enough contrition in media interviews. You can’t imagine it because it simply wouldn’t happen. In pro sports, all of these issues are collectively bargained and standardized for the good of the sport. In horse racing, the motivations are entirely different. 

“Churchill Downs is a multibillion-dollar brand that wants to do everything they can to protect their brand,” said Kip Cornett, a longtime thoroughbred owner and horse player who founded one of the leading ad agencies in Kentucky. “And whether it’s Bob Baffert or any trainer that they feel like is compromising the value of that brand, they have shareholders that they answer to. So I understand their desire to protect their brand in any way possible, because I understand the value of a brand that they have. It’s one of the most powerful brands in sports.”

What’s confusing, though, is that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority (HISA) was enacted by Congress in 2020 as a regulatory body to, in essence, establish national standards on a variety of safety issues – from racetrack conditions to injury reporting to anti-doping and medication rules, rather than the state-by-state fiefdoms that made regulation of the sport wildly inconstant.

As of last May, HISA was fully operational with its anti-doping program, and while there have been some critics and bumps in the road, it has generally been a welcome development in this beleaguered industry.

Within the context of standardization as a national goal enshrined into federal law, it might seem odd that Baffert and owner Amr Zedan now sit on the sideline, readying Muth for the Preakness, where they’re allowed to race in two weeks while being unable to bring their horse to the Derby by decree of Churchill Downs Inc.

In a last-ditch legal effort to get Muth eligible for the Derby, Zedan and attorney John Quinn argued that extension of the ban was the result of nothing more than a personal vendetta against Baffert by Churchill CEO Bill Carstanjen. And in a phone interview last week, Quinn said Zedan had invested significant amounts of money over the past two years in 1- and 2-year-old horses, anticipating that Baffert would be allowed to return when his suspension was over. 

In the end, their legal effort to get Muth in the starting gate was unsuccessful. Once again, Churchill prevailed in a Kentucky court – albeit with a request from Circuit Judge Mitch Perry for the two sides to work together and reach an agreement to end the Baffert standoff. 

After the decision, Quinn said Zedan had a “very pleasant” phone conversation with Churchill’s chairman of the board, Alex Rankin. It’s unclear, though, where things go from here. 

‘He’ll want to have a horse in that race’

The 150th Derby will be run on Saturday without Zedan, Baffert and Muth. And maybe more importantly, the party will go on. 

“We think (they) made an arbitrary, unfair decision which is keeping one of the best horses from the most important race in the country, and we kind of hope as a result of this experience the folks at Churchill Downs will look themselves in the mirror and recognize this isn’t good for horse racing, good for them and that they’ll be more careful in the future,” Quinn said. 

For Zedan, the Los Angeles-born Saudi Arabian investor, it is the second time he has been on the wrong end of Derby heartbreak.

After deciding alongside Baffert in January to drop their final legal appeal to restore Medina Spirit’s victory, Zedan has officially been taken out of the record books as a Derby-winning owner. And now he’ll never even get the chance with Muth, who looked like a real contender for the roses with a dominating win in the Arkansas Derby. 

But the allure of the Kentucky Derby and its paradoxical role in this troubled sport endures as deeply as the race itself. Given the years of bitterness and legal wrangling with Churchill Downs, will Zedan try again for Derby 151?

“Mr. Zedan’s goal has always been, and only been, to have the best horses – including his horses that qualify – racing in the No. 1 horse race in the country,” Quinn said. “And that’s the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. That was his intention this year, and I’m sure that’ll be his intention next year. He’ll want to have a horse in that race.”