Photo:

Richard Steele / Eclipse Sportswire

McKinzie Street isn’t exactly off the road to Kentucky Derby 2025, but he’s at least taking a detour.

Co-owner Pierre Amestoy Jr. moved the McKinzie colt to trainer Justin Evans from Tim Yakteen, and he will make his first start for his new trainer in Sunday’s Sunland Park Derby, which offers 20-10-6-4-2 qualifying points for the run for the roses.

McKinzie already has three points, earned when he finished third in the Grade 1 American Pharoah behind champion 2-year-old male Citizen Bull and Getaway Car, both trained by Bob Baffert.

McKinzie bested both of those rivals in the prior race, the Del Mar Futurity (G2), where he was second to Gaming, also trained by Baffert.

The quality and quantity of Baffert runners was one of the factors in the move to Evans, said Amestoy, who is based in Albuquerque, N.M.

Baffert “just brings them in waves, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with one horse when he’s running two or three in every race, three or four times,” Amestoy told Horse Racing Nation on Monday. “I think we’re taking a little pressure off the colt, see if we could maximize his earnings.”

But that competition wasn’t the only consideration.

“Tim basically stays in California, and Justin runs more (in Albuquerque),” he said. “So we brought him home. We were going to give him some time off, but he’s looking so good that I decided to just keep him here locally and run him at Sunland Park. It wasn’t anything that Tim did wrong, nothing like that. It was just I decided to try to maximize what I could as early as in his 3-year-old year, and Justin’s here between Turf (Paradise) and Sunland. So I decided to just leave him here locally and see how we can do.”

Amestoy, who owns McKinzie Street with his wife, Leslie, and Roger Beasley, isn’t one of those owners who is bound and determined to run in the Kentucky Derby even if it’s maybe not the right spot. McKinzie Street wasn’t nominated for the Triple Crown, and Amestoy was at the Derby before with Practical Move, who spiked a fever before the 2023 race and was scratched.

“There’s other options. I mean, the Kentucky Derby isn’t the only path,” he said. With Practical Move, “it was a lot of hoopla for nothing at the end of the day, a lot of stress and a lot of stress on the horse. And so I’m not sure that’s a path. Potentially, you never rule it out. But there’s other races that a guy could run that are maybe not as prestigious but they’ve got good value in them, and then we’ll kind of go from there. I don’t have anything planned beyond this.”

McKinzie Street has worked twice for Evans, including a bullet five furlongs in 58.20 seconds at Turf Paradise on Tuesday, and the trainer is happy to have him in his barn.

“He’s just an amazing horse, best horse I’ve ever been able to train,” Evans said. “I’m really thankful to the Amestoys for the opportunity they gave me with him. His works have been great over here. He’s done super. He’s held his weight good. We’re really looking forward to Sunday.”

Evans and Amestoy said the competition will be strong in the Sunland Derby, with a field that includes Getaway Car and Caldera, who broke his maiden with a 5 1/2-length win going 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn on Jan. 17.

“It’s always tough whenever Baffert shows up over there,” Evans said. “My buddy here in Phoenix, Robertino Diodoro, he’s got a couple of nice colts. My buddy from Sunland, Dick Cappellucci, he’s got a nice colt in there. So it’s not going to be any easy race, that’s for sure. And Wayne Lucas, I mean, sheesh, that colt he’s bringing in, he looks phenomenal. So it’s going to be a competitive race, and hopefully the race flow kind of goes our way and things can set up how we like it. And we’ve got a chance. You know, I like our chances.”