HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Although most of the talk both before and after Dornoch’s popular victory here Saturday in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth centered around who didn’t run, rather than who did run in the race, the fact remains that a very solid Kentucky Derby candidate emerged from the somewhat bizarre event with a boatload of qualifying points and a pretty good base to build upon as he continues to move forward to the first Saturday in May. Dornoch entered the Fountain of Youth as the third rated 3-year-old on the latest Daily Racing Form Derby Watch List. While his victory here Saturday may not have been the most eye-catching or highest rated Derby prep in recent memory, Dornoch, who earned an 88 Beyer Speed Figure for the effort, again proved how tenacious he can be under pressure. Dornoch did exactly what he needed to do to kick off his 3-year-old campaign, making his first start since outgaming Sierra Leone in the Grade 2 Remsen three months earlier. “I’m sure there are plenty of people out there knocking his performance and saying he beat nobody yesterday,” trainer Danny Gargan said on Sunday. “But we can’t help the fact [that] all those horses scratched and others may have chosen to go in other directions on Saturday. I really wanted Speak Easy to run because I wanted another horse in front of him [Dornoch], we wanted him to sit behind horses because we’ve been training him that way. But after Speak Easy scratched, I ran down to the track and told Luis [Saez] to just go. And every time a horse came to him, every time he got challenged, Luis said he grabbed the bridle and that he had plenty of horse under him.” :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2024: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more Gargan reported that Dornoch came out of the race in excellent fashion and overall, he couldn’t have been happier by the way everything played out the previous afternoon. “He came back good, cooled out nice and that’s partly because he really didn’t have to run that hard. It was a nice day for him,” Gargan noted. “Any time you don’t have to run that hard and can get the Derby points we needed, it’s a pretty good thing.” Gargan said he also wasn’t making much of an issue about the fact Dornoch did not switch leads until about a sixteenth of a mile from the wire. “He didn’t change until very late in his race at Keeneland either,” Gargan recalled. “Luis has worked him a few times and he knows he’ll eventually change when he needs too. We just don’t want to be yanking him around all over the place to do so. The one thing he has proven, and showed again yesterday, is that he is a fighter. At some stage, somebody is going to have to show they can pass him to win the race.”  Gargan said he will sit down in the next week or so and map out a definite plan for Dornoch moving forward with his two options either coming back in the $1 million Florida Derby here on March 30 or to await the Blue Grass at Keeneland one week later.  “It comes down to having four weeks until the next one and five to the Derby or five before his next start and only four weeks to the Derby,” Gargan explained. “The fact he had what I feel was a relatively easy race for him yesterday certainly does makes the Florida Derby more enticing.”  As for Locked, who trainer Todd Pletcher scratched out of the Fountain of Youth because he was not happy with the way he trained that morning, and Speak Easy, scratched in the post parade after running off under Irad Ortiz Jr. and crashing into a rail near the top of the stretch, their Kentucky Derby prospects remain uncertain at this point. Pletcher told Daily Racing Form’s David Grening that Locked galloped Sunday morning and was doing better. “This morning, I would have been comfortable running,” Pletcher said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do for sure, but we’re not giving up on another prep at some point.” Pletcher did rule out next Saturday’s Tampa Bay Derby as one of those options. Speak Easy suffered lacerations on the inside of his right forearm and inside of his left hind just above the stifle, both of which required stitches. Pletcher told Grening his horse would miss a minimum of a week of training and could head to WinStar Farm where they have a hyperbaric chamber to accelerate the healing of his cuts. “He’s going to miss a little bit of training, exactly how much I don’t know yet,” Pletcher said.     Le Dom Bro, who took a strong run at Dornoch before settling for second money as a 27-1 outsider in the Fountain of Youth, is "90 percent" certain to come back in the Florida Derby his trainer, Eniel Cordero, said on Sunday. Other prospective starters for the Florida Derby include Hades and Fierceness, the first- and third-place finishers, respectively, in the Grade 3 Holy Bull; Conquest Warrior, an easy and very impressive winner of a nine-furlong allowance race here Friday; and Top Conor, a well-graded debut winner from the barn of trainer Chad Brown. Orseno still happy bypassing Fountain of Youth Hades, who upset reigning juvenile champion Fierceness in the Grade 3 Holy Bull but whose connections opted to pass the Fountain of Youth, was back on the work tab Sunday morning, breezing an easy half mile in 48.45 seconds, his final quarter in 23.35, before galloping out, as always, with tons of energy. Hades completed five panels in 1:01.40 before easing up six furlongs in 1:14.49 under regular work rider Ray Ganpath, much to the delight of his trainer Joe Orseno.  “I thought the work was perfect, he slowed him down early and let him finish strong,” said Orseno. “And he cooled out fantastic, like he was looking to do more. I’m really happy with him right now.”   Orseno said he had no regrets about bypassing the Fountain of Youth to await the Florida Derby even in light of all the late scratches that ultimately left only five starters while drastically watering down the quality of the original field.  “To be honest, it wasn’t until Thursday or Friday of this week that my horse got that gleam in his eye he had before the Holy Bull,” said Orseno. “And if we had run in there yesterday, it would have still forced us to run him again, no matter what it took out of him, and it’s the wear and tear that I’d be concerned about. Sure it would have been nice to have picked up some points in the Fountain of Youth. But my thinking is if we have to worry about him getting enough points in the Florida Derby, then what would we be going to Kentucky for anyway. This way, we’ll have a fresh horse for the next one and for me, in the end, it’s all about doing what’s best for the horse.  – additional reporting by David Grening :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.