Can Attachment Rate Win 2020 Kentucky Derby After Going Winless on the Road

The headline is only technically correct, in that Attachment Rate has not won in any of the four RTKD qualifying races he’s entered, but cut the colt some slack: He only broke his maiden in February 2020 with a win at Gulfstream Park.

Not impressed? How did you measure your success when you were three years old?

Dale L. Romans has trained thoroughbreds for all three of the Triple Crown races—most notably, he trained Shackleford, the winner of the 2011 Preakness Stakes. He’s also had winners and money finishers in nearly a dozen Breeders Cups competitions.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Romans was practically raised at Churchill Downs, where his father, trainer Jerry Romans, had a barn.

Of Attachment Rate, Romans had this to say to Horse Racing Nation just a week away from the Kentucky Derby: “He’s sound, he’s smart, he’s peaking.”

When jockey Joe Talamo slips into the irons for Attachment Rate’s Kentucky Derby run, it won’t be the first time he’s worked with the KD hopeful—he rode Attachment Rate to a second-place finish in his last pre-KD qualifying race, the Ellis Park Derby.

In fact, that performance was the thoroughbred’s “best performance so far” according to Romans, and is probably the reason the trainer tagged Talamo to ride the three-year-old in the Kentucky Derby for him this year.

Attachment Rate has scored RTKD points in three of the four qualifying races he’s entered, beginning with the Gotham Stakes in March, where he placed third behind Mischevious Alex and Untitled and scored his first 10 RTKD points.

He went on to place fourth in the Matt Wynn Stakes behind Maxfield, Ny Traffic, and Pneumatic. His parting gift was five more RTKD points.

He came in fifth in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in July, adding nothing to his RTKD score. But he bounced back in August for his last qualifying race, the Ellis Park Derby, where he finished ahead of Necker Island but behind Art Collector to place second and score his final 20 points.

If there weren’t even longer odds out there for some of the KD contenders–I’m thinking of Finnick the Fierce at 125-1–I would say Attachment’s 65-1 longshot is a reasonable “not in this lifetime” warning about a win bet here.

But if other horses finish behind Attachment Rate, that must mean fewer will finish ahead of him, right? I mean, that’s just science.