David Whitworth Beckman has helped many horses get to Triple Crown races. He worked with Uncle Mo and Eskendereya, both scratched in the run-up to the Kentucky Derby, and with Super Saver, who won the 2010 Derby. Beckman also laid hands on Good Magic, second in the 2018 Derby, and Cloud Computing, winner of the 2017 Preakness. All those experiences came when Beckman, who goes by Whit, worked as an assistant for other trainers, first Todd Pletcher, later Chad Brown. When Honor Marie walks into the Fair Grounds paddock Saturday preparing to race in the Risen Star Stakes, Beckman not only will put a saddle on the horse, he, himself, will have trained Honor Marie into his 3-year-old debut. This is Beckman’s first chance with a Triple Crown prospect since he opened his own stable, consisting of two horses, during the latter half of 2021. Honor Marie, making his third start, ended his 2-year-old campaign impressively, winning the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes. He earned an elite Beyer for his age, 92, rallying into a slow pace to win going away over a 1 1/16-mile trip at the bottom end of the colt’s preferred distance range. He has two encouraging races over the track that hosts the Derby and from his trainer’s account has wintered very well in New Orleans. :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2024: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more “You see so many good horses and you realize that with straightforward, easygoing animals like this one, you just treat them like a horse,” said Beckman, 41. “You can get yourself all worked up if you have all these kinds of expectations. I hope he continues to take us there. You see good 2-year-olds that go bad. This is exciting, but I don’t let it consume me.” Honor Marie is one of 12 sophomore colts entered in the Grade 2 Risen Star, a 1 1/8-mile contest that drew an unusually strong, deep field for a Derby prep in mid-February. Two of Beckman’s former bosses, Brown and Pletcher, have runners, Brown the formidable Sierra Leone, Pletcher the lesser pair of Moonlight and Cardinale. Track Phantom already has won the Gun Runner and the Lecomte during the Fair Grounds meet, and his Hall of Fame trainer, Steve Asmussen, also runs lights-out maiden winner Hall of Fame. Catching Freedom, trained by Brad Cox, captured the Smarty Jones last month at Oaklawn Park. The Risen Star is loaded, and the top five finishers earn 105 qualifying points toward the Derby distributed 50, 25, 15, 10, and 5. The winner is assured a Derby berth, and with his 10 points from the Kentucky Jockey Club, Honor Marie could finish second and likely make the 20-runner Derby field. Beckman got his feet under him during the 2022 season and had a solid 2023, winning 13 races from 102 starters with stable earnings approaching $1.5 million. A native of Louisville, Beckman is the son of an equine veterinarian, Dr. David Beckman, who specialized in Thoroughbred farm work. Beckman graduated from St. Xavier High School and briefly attended the College of Charleston before transferring, briefly, to the University of Louisville. “I wasn’t feeling the college vibe at all. I had a couple years [screwing] off, not doing much of anything,” Beckman said. Beckman found his way to the racetrack in the early aughts, hotwalking and grooming at Churchill Downs for trainer Walter Bindner. Unlike university, this life captured him. “I always loved racing but at that time I just made the connection. Sometimes you can be in the right place at the right time. As soon as I got to it, just the routine of it, it held my attention, kept me focused,” said Beckman. Beckman got a job helping train Godolphin 2-year-olds at Keeneland, which led to him working as a Pletcher assistant from 2007 to 2013, a period Beckman described as “like college to me.” Beckman only left Pletcher when he was hired as a private trainer in Saudi Arabia, where he did two stints separated by time as an assistant to trainer Eoin Harty. “That was another level of experience,” he said. “You face a lot more challenges over there, trying to put a puzzle together that’s tough to solve, especially when you don’t speak the language.” In 2015, Beckman returned to America to visit his girlfriend, pregnant with Beckman’s daughter. Headed to board a plane taking him back to Saudi Arabia, Beckman turned around, deciding he’d had enough. A month later, Brown hired him. Beckman worked with Brown on the East Coast for a few years, grew tired of living in New York, and made plans in 2018 to return home to Kentucky. Brown subsequently decided to open a Kentucky string that Beckman would lead, a setup that held through 2020, COVID-19 dealing a final blow to the Beckman-headed satellite string. “One thing or another always was preventing us from getting real traction,” said Beckman. “We parted amicably. I was always focused on the training side and had been hesitant on the business side of things.” Beckman took the leap, slowly building his stable with a variety of clients. One of them, Legion Racing, would send Beckman 2-year-olds meant to get started racing during the summer before being taken to the Keeneland horses of racing age sale in November. That initially was the plan with Honor Marie – before Whitman told his group this colt had too much talent for standard plans. Kerry and Alan Ribble’s Ribble Farms bought out the other Legion partners following Honor Marie’s debut, and after the KJC the group of Mike Eiserman, Earl Silver, and Ken and Dave Fishbein acquired 25 percent of the colt. It was not dazzling flash that Honor Marie showed early. Purchased for $40,000 as a yearling, Honor Marie is a son of Honor Code, who now stands in Japan, and the Smart Strike mare Dame Marie. Honor Marie began breezing in April, a laid-back dude. “He’s an easygoing kind of horse. You can just gallop him around there,” said Beckman, who debuted Honor Marie in a six-furlong Churchill maiden race Sept. 29, figuring the colt would require more distance to win. Instead, Honor Marie came from last to get up by a nose. A month later, racing seven furlongs in the slop, he finished a creditable second behind Otto the Conqueror, who would go on to win the Springboard Mile. Whitman took his shot in the KJC, presuming, accurately, that Honor Marie would relish two-turn racing. Last of eight going into the far turn, Honor Marie sustained a long, swooping run that carried him to a two-length victory. Sent shortly thereafter to New Orleans, Honor Marie resumed breezing on Dec. 31 and comes into the Risen Star with six timed drills. Beckman, who has a string at Turfway Park, has bounced back and forth from Louisville to New Orleans all winter, supervising and observing workouts. Three weeks in a row, from mid-January through early February, Beckman dodged heavy rain and wet tracks as best he could. Honor Marie had a major move on Monday, Feb. 5, and all had gone perfectly until a work this past Sunday had to be aborted because of trouble on the track during the breeze. Beckman considered working again Monday, instead choosing to bring Honor Marie into Saturday’s contest after a couple strong, open gallops. “He’s had three really strong five-eighths. The horse looks fantastic. We were ready last week,” said Beckman. The Beckman stable as of Feb. 13 was winless so far in 2024. Honor Marie’s KJC marks the only graded stakes win of Beckman’s career. Yet the relatively new head trainer is neither young nor lacking experience with high-class colts. Honor Marie just might take Beckman down another Triple Crown trail – as his own boss this time. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.