West Saratoga takes trainer on his first road to the Kentucky Derby

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00:00Trainer Larry DeMeritt likes to say that he has champagne taste on a beer budget,

00:07and he certainly proved his philosophy when he purchased a yearling in the final 20 hips

00:12of last year's Keeneland September sale for $11,000. That colt went on to be grade 3 Iroquois

00:18stakes winner West Saratoga. Now, West Saratoga and his trainer are on to the grade 1 Claiborne

00:24Breeders Futurity.

00:54We breeze him in the mornings. He's excited, feel good about himself when he go out there

01:00and work good. You know, come back to the barn, he's real happy. This is a team effort.

01:07I, you know, just oversee things to get it done, but all week long we were saying, well,

01:14they got to run really good to beat this horse because he come out the race he won so good

01:21and ready to move forward. We had all the confidence in the world. After I won that

01:28race, I had people like Pat Day call me, Jacinto Vasquez called me, Gene Corbett called me,

01:36and these are guys who rode for me over the years, you know, and I think a lot of them,

01:43and besides, I have so many friends. It's like I'm doing it for a whole group of people,

01:49just not me. I love my horse a lot. I wouldn't trade him for any horse in the race. There's

01:56a horse within there would beat him before, and I'm not sure, you know, that horse could

02:02be moving forward also, you know. So, it's just a horse race, and we prepare our horse.

02:07We're not worrying about who's there. Once we take our horse into the race the best we

02:12can at this stage of the game, win, lose, or draw, I can handle it. I'm from the Bahamas.

02:19My dad was a horse trainer, so I always had that passion from a kid. I always tell people

02:25I know horses before I know myself. I was leading trainer there for two years in a row,

02:31and I got beat in the first Bahama Derby, so I figured, well, I had nothing else to prove back

02:38home, and I wanted to see if I could compete at the level over here, you know, and watching the

02:45Kentucky Derby, I said, that's my goal one day. But, you know, even if I didn't get there or still

02:53mightn't get there because it's a long way off still, you know, I'm a praying kind of person,

03:00and I said, hey, the Lord control our footsteps, and whatever he blessed me with, I'm still

03:07comfortable with my career in the horse game. So, hopefully, we're blessed enough to go on

03:13to the Derby. I'm just going day by day trying to do what God has me here to do.