{"id":42910,"date":"2025-08-04T09:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/42910\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T09:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T09:27:10","slug":"chunk-of-gold-sparkles-in-gate-to-wire-west-virginia-derby-romp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/42910\/","title":{"rendered":"Chunk Of Gold Sparkles In Gate-To-Wire West Virginia Derby Romp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chunk Of Gold Sparkles In Gate-To-Wire West Virginia Derby Romp<\/a> originally appeared on Paulick Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chunk of Gold, wearing blinkers for the first time, capitalized on a poor start by heavily favored East Avenue, both starters in the Kentucky Derby (G1) this spring, and led from start to finish in the Sunday’s $400,000 West Virginia Derby (G3) at Mountaineer Casino, Resort and Races.<\/p>\n

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Trained by Ethan West for owner Terry Stephens, Chunk of Gold won for the second time in his seven-race career after collecting three second-place finishes in graded stakes. He was the second choice at 2-1 in a field of eight in the 1 1\/8-mile test for 3-year-olds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning this race means a lot,\u201d said Jareth Loveberry, who has ridden the Preservationist colt in his last five starts. \u201cI rode at Mountaineer from 2009-2014. I met Ethan (West) here and we\u2019ve known each other for 12 years. It\u2019s also my birthday today, which makes it extra meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very honest horse that tries every time. I was planning to be close early in the race, but when East Avenue didn\u2019t make the lead, we took his spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chunk of Gold nursed a one-length lead over McAfee and Just a Fair Shake for more than six furlongs, then opened his lead turning for home to win by 4\u00bc lengths in 1:50.97 on a fast track. McAfee captured second, while Brotha Keny rallied well for third. East Avenue was fifth. The winner paid $6.80.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was fantastic,\u201d West said of the colt\u2019s performance. \u201cAll the credit goes to Jareth. He rode a great race. We had hoped to be close early, so we added blinkers to get him to be more responsive. But after the start, Jareth basically walked the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting,\u201d said Stephens, who had a large group on hand for the race. “He has run very well in graded stakes and it\u2019s nice to see him win one. I\u2019m happy for the horse, the trainer and all the connections. I\u2019m very proud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chunk of Gold was bred in Kentucky by late former Kentucky Governor Brereton C. Jones.He was produced by the Cairo Prince mare Play for Gold. He was ninth, just behind eighth-place finisher East Avenue, in the Kentucky Derby after a trio of seconds in Derby preps: the Leonatus Jan. 18 at Turfway Park, the Risen Star (G2) Feb. 15 at Fair Grounds, and the Louisiana Derby (G2) March 22 at the New Orleans track. He entered Sunday’s race off a runner-up finish in the Ohio Derby (G2) at Thistledown.<\/p>\n

The $246,400 winner’s share of the West Virginia Derby purse elevated his career earnings to $695,218.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Paulick Report<\/a> on Aug 4, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chunk Of Gold Sparkles In Gate-To-Wire West Virginia Derby Romp originally appeared on Paulick Report. Chunk of Gold,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[24640,24639,24635,1568,16199,24637,3004,101,24638,56,54,55,24636],"class_list":["post-42910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-chunk","tag-east-avenue","tag-ethan-west","tag-gold","tag-kentucky-derby","tag-mountaineer-casino","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-terry-stephens","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-west-virginia-derby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}