Kentucky Derby market given further shake up as Audible routs Florida field

Report: USA, Saturday

Gulfstream Park: Xpressbet Florida Derby (Grade 1) | 1m1f | dirt | 3yo

There was further movement in the Kentucky Derby betting on Saturday night as, hot on the heels of Mendelssohn assuming favouritism after an impressive win at Meydan, Todd Pletcher's Audible was cut into 8-1 joint-second favourite thanks to victory in the Grade 1 Xpressbet Florida Derby.

The 8-5 favourite romped home by three lengths under Johnny Velazquez, and consequently his ante-post price contracted from 11-1. He now leads the home challenge along with Bolt D'Oro for the 2018 edition of 'The Run for the Roses'.

Audible was settled in midfield on the outside of the nine-runner field by Velazquez as they went through the first half mile in 46.37s, and the pair loomed ominously into contention round the top bend to be on the lead as the field straightened up.

From there Audible powered all the way to the line, coming three lengths clear of the Juddmonte Farms-owned Hofburg (William Mott/Jose Ortiz) and Coolmore's Mississippi (Mark Casse/Julien Leparoux) to land Pletcher a fifth Florida Derby.

"You'd love for horses like this to breeze well all the time and put on a show in the morning, but we felt like he was training as well as he ever had," Pletcher told BloodHorse of the Holy Bull winner, before adding: "We were cautiously optimistic."

On the race itself he said: "We wanted to get some position into the first turn, which he was able to do beautifully. I was a little concerned at the five-eighths pole because he started to drop back a little bit, but I could tell Johnny wasn't panicked.

"He kind of grabbed him up, and sometime midway down the backstretch he started to pick up horses, and I started to feel better and better. You could tell the pace up front had developed pretty swiftly, so you felt like those horses were going to start to come back at some stage."

Pletcher's first Florida Derby came in 2007 with Scat Daddy, but it is a race he has recently dominated with Audible becoming his fourth winner in the last five editions.

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