"If I were ever to win the Derby that
would mean my mares had done their job,"
Janis Whitham said. "That's what I'd be
most proud of."
McAnally's last top horse for Janis
Whitham was Affluent (Affirmed), a four-
time Grade I winner who retired following
her 2003 campaign. Because she wanted
to be nearer to her race horses and brood-
mares she moved her to stable to Kentucky
and hired Carl Nafzger. When Nafzger re-
tired, the Whithams shifted to Wilkes,
Nafzger's former assistant. In addition
to Fort Larned and McCraken, the Wil-
kes-Whitham team has had a stakes winner
in Linda (Scat Daddy), who captured last
year's GII Mrs. Revere at Churchill Downs.
But it is McCraken who has become the
star of the stable and the first legitimate
Kentucky Derby candidate for the Whitham
family. He was undefeated as a 2-year-old,
breaking his maiden and then winning the
Street Sense and the GII Kentucky Jock-
ey Club. All three wins came at Churchill,
which bodes well for his chances on May 6.
"I'd be so happy for them if they were to
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