LOUISVILLE – Jockey Corey Nakatani tried to get the mount on Aptitude for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby even though he’s named to ride Anees, Aptitude’s trainer Bobby Frankel said yesterday.
“He called me about a week ago to ask,” said Frankel, who fired Nakatani as his first-call rider last month for opting to ride Anees instead of Frankel’s Cocky in the Santa Anita Derby.
Anees, last year’s 2-year-old champ, finished fourth in that race, hasn’t trained well at Churchill Downs and is rumored to have physical problems. Aptitude, meanwhile, is the wise-guy longshot pick in the Derby after rallying for second in the Gotham and third in the Wood Memorial.
Anees’s former rider Gary Stevens, now an assistant trainer for The Thoroughbred Corp., which owns the colt, said he hadn’t heard about Nakatani trying to switch Derby horses in midstream.
“If it’s true, that boy would be in a lot of trouble,” Stevens said, “because we’ve got a signed contract. He’d end up watching the race in the jocks’ room.”
Nakatani’s agent, Bob Meldahl, wouldn’t confirm or deny Frankel’s claim.
“We’re committed to riding Anees and that’s who we’re going to ride,” he said. “I have no comment other than that.”
On Sunday, Frankel said Aptitude will be ridden in the Derby by Alex Solis, replacing Brice Blanc, who has ridden the colt in all five of his starts.