Right to Party Earns Kentucky Derby Spot With Wood Memorial Runner-Up Finish

The 66th Wood Memorial at Aqueduct was the last the old Big A will ever host, but Kenny McPeek's Right to Party made sure it also served as a launching pad for Louisville.

Starting at 38-1 in Saturday's $750,000 Grade 2 Wood Memorial Presented by Resorts World Casino, Right to Party was buried 11th of 12 at the half-mile call. What followed was exactly what McPeek had been waiting to see: jockey Christopher Elliott threaded traffic around the turn, angled out to the center of the track, and the Constitution colt produced a sustained closing rally through the stretch. He finished 1 1/4 lengths behind winner Albus, edging Ocelli by a nose for second place and 50 Derby qualifying points in a final time of 1:51.71.

Those 50 points push Right to Party's total to 65 and place him 12th on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard, with Churchill Downs on May 2 now firmly within reach.

"This horse just needed the added distance," McPeek said after the race. "He keeps coming and coming." Jimmy Jerkens, McPeek's New York-based assistant, was equally pointed about what the effort revealed: Right to Party "showed a lot of guts," handling traffic before sustaining the run once he found clear ground.

The Wood result answered the central question around the colt. Right to Party had finished third in the one-turn Gotham on Feb. 28, leaving open whether his closing style would translate around two turns. The Wood's 1 1/8-mile, two-turn configuration delivered the answer McPeek anticipated.

McPeek has seen this arc before. He trained Mystik Dan to a 2024 Kentucky Derby upset, a win built on patience with a horse that kept improving through the spring. Right to Party's trajectory through the New York prep season carries recognizable echoes of that campaign, and McPeek has already signaled intent to nominate the colt to the Triple Crown series.

A $325,000 purchase at the Keeneland September yearling sale, Right to Party is out of Havin' a Party, an Emcee mare whose female family includes graded stakes performers. The Constitution bloodline has become a reliable source of durable, distance-oriented runners, and Saturday reinforced that profile completely.

At 65 points and 12th on the leaderboard, Right to Party holds a safe position inside the Derby bubble without needing another start. The decision for McPeek now is whether to use a final prep to sharpen the colt or ship directly to Churchill and let Saturday's gutty effort do the work. Either way, a horse who was invisible at the half-mile call and nearly won the Wood Memorial has announced himself as one of the most compelling late-pace threats in the field.