With Further Ado (Gun Runner) crushing his rivals in Saturday's GI Toyota Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, Irad Ortiz Jr. continued one of the most spectacular runs through the preps for the GI Kentucky Derby that any jockey has ever had. It was his fifth win in a Derby prep, including three races that award the maximum 100 points to the winner. Of the five horses atop the point leaderboard for the Derby, Ortiz had ridden four of them at some point this year. They are Commandment (Into Mischief), Fulleffort (Liam's Map), Renegade (Into Mischief) and Further Ado.Further Ado won the Blue Grass in stunning fashion, obliterating the field by 11 lengths and earning a 106 Beyer. That's the fastest number run by any 3-year-old this year. As long Further Ado stays healthy, that's probably who he will pick to ride in the Derby. But it will hardly be an easy decision.Commandment, the GI Curlin Florida Derby winner, is likely off the table since Ortiz took off him to ride Renegade to victory in the GI Arkansas Derby. In Flavien Prat, trainer Brad Cox found a worthy replacement. While a nice horse, Fulleffort, who is also trained by Cox, as is Further Ado, is not going to be his pick. Considering the GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks winner has never run on the dirt in his life, he's too much of an unknown.But what about Renegade?Trained by Todd Pletcher, this is a serious horse. He didn't exactly beat the strongest field in the Arkansas Derby, but he could not have looked better. He kicked in at the top of the stretch and turned in the type of turn of foot that you only see from exceptional horses. He won by four lengths, though his Beyer number (98) does not stack up to the number turned in by Further Ado in the Blue Grass.And here's one more thing to consider: Is Further Ado the same horse when he's not running at Keeneland? He turns into a monster every time he shows up in Lexington. After two modest efforts last year in maiden races at Saratoga, he shipped to Keeneland and won a maiden race by 20 lengths, earning a then career-best 98 Beyer. He did come back to win the GII Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill, but it was a workmanlike performance in which his Beyer fell by 16 points. He began his 3-year-old campaign by finishing second in the GIII Tampa Bay Derby, earning a Beyer of 87, or 19 points slower than his Blue Grass number.With almost four weeks to go to the Derby, Ortiz's agent, Steve Rushing, is not ready to reveal his choice when it comes to his rider's mount. Smart agents wait as long as they can to make sure that they don't get caught in a situation where they commit to a mount that winds up having to defect from the race for some reason.“We haven't made a decision,” Rushing said via text. “I will talk to Irad sometime this week.”If Ortiz picks the winner, he will have ended his perplexing Derby slump. Among the best riders in his era, not only has he never won the Derby, he has never so much as finished among the top three. He is 0-for-9 and his best finish came aboard Improbable (City Zip), who was elevated to fourth in the 2019 Derby through disqualification. Brother Jose is no better. He's 0-for-10, but did finish second aboard Good Magic (Curlin) in 2018. His top Derby contender, at this point, looks to be Golden Tempo (Curlin), who was third in the GII Louisiana Derby. Don't Overlook The PumaThe Puma (Essential Quality) will probably be the fourth or fifth choice in the Derby, but that could make him the “value play” of the race. He lost the GI Florida Derby by a mere nose and before that won the GIII Tampa Bay Derby by 1 3/4 lengths. Who did he beat at Tampa? Further Ado. So if you like Further Ado, you can't not like The Puma.He could be Mage (Good Magic) 2.0. From the same connections, Mage just missed in the Florida Derby, finishing second, losing by a length. Five weeks later, he was an improved horse who won the Kentucky Derby by a length. Why Did They Shut Down the Derby Future Wager When They Did?Good bets have traditionally been hard to find in the Derby Future Wager, but some savvy players did manage to land on Further Ado at 17-1 when the sixth round of the wager closed Saturday evening. He will go off at much lower odds in the Derby and could be the race favorite.The only reason his price was as high as it was is because the Future Wager closed before the running of the Blue Grass. In fact, it closed at 6 p.m. ET, before the Blue Grass, before the GI Santa Anita Derby, and before the GII Wood Memorial had been run. Anyone who bet on Cherokee Nation (Not This Time) at 18-1 can't be too happy. He ran sixth in the Santa Anita Derby and, with only three Derby points to his credit, obviously won't be in the starting gate come Derby Day.What was the hurry?The last of the three Derby preps run Saturday was the Santa Anita Derby, which went off at 7:49 ET. Had they just waited say, two-and-a-half hours, to close the windows on the Derby Future Wager, the players would have had all the information they needed to make well-informed wagers. Instead, they were asked to make their bets in the dark. For Unaffiliated, The 31st Time Was a CharmIn what has to be a racing first, a horse, who was a maiden and had run 30 times, won a stakes race at Evangeline Downs on Saturday night. Of course, it wasn't just any stakes race, but one for Alabama-breds. With racing having disappeared in Alabama decades ago, Delta Downs and Evangeline offer the occasional stakes race for the handful of horses who were bred in the Yellowhammer State.Saturday's race, the $50,000 Buggin Out Stakes, was won by the 7-year-old Unaffiliated (Americain), who had come in with a 0-for-30 record. Sent off the favorite, he paid $5.40.The post Week In Review: For Irad Ortiz Jr., An Embarrassment of Riches appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.