Reddam team, He's Had Enough hope to cash in CashCall

• He's Had Enough finished second to Shanghai Bobby in Breeders' Cup Juvenile
• Owner Paul Reddam's colt I'll Have Another won the 2012 Kentucky Derby
• Bob Baffert sends out four entrants and has won three of the last four runnings

The team that combined to win this year's Kentucky Derby with I'll Have Another — owner Paul Reddam, trainer Doug O'Neill and jockey Mario Gutierrez — hopes to take another step toward the 2013 Derby with their 2-year-old colt He's Had Enough in Saturday's $750,000 CashCall Futurity at Betfair Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif.

He's Had Enough stamped himself as a Derby contender by finishing second and losing by a head at 19-1 odds to unbeaten Shanghai Bobby in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita. It was his first start on dirt.

Reddam, founder and head of CashCall, the short-term loan and mortgage giant , also can earn back some of his sponsorship money in the stakes, which is at 11/16 mile.

(Last year Reddam was similarly rewarded with I'll Have Another's Santa Anita Derby win after CashCall got involved in promoting the race.)

He's Had Enough, a gray son of the hot young sire Tapit and who was a $200,000 yearling purchase at Keeneland, has run well on all surfaces.

"His best race was the Breeders' Cup on dirt," O'Neill said. "He just has a real long stride, great stamina kind of horse. That's more of a dirt horse. He doesn't have the crazy turn of foot you think of with a Grade I turf horse. He's a steady, grinding, classy son of a gun. He's got a mile and a quarter and dirt all over him."

Speaking of which, does having won one Kentucky Derby score in the pocket make him think it is attainable to do again? Or does it seem like pressing credulity incredulous to think such good fortune could strike two years in a row?

O'Neill says the former.

"We've been there, we've gone through all the jitters of the excitement of that stuff," O'Neill said. "Now we're just focusing on looking for the athlete that could handle that mentally. He's got the physical stuff, the pedigree and mentally he's just getting better and better. He's kind of a big playboy. But he's got no nerves, more just a playful horse. I think if we stay injury-free, come first Saturday in May, he's got as good a chance as anybody."

The trainer to beat is Bob Baffert, who sends out four entrants and has won three of the last four and a record six overall runnings of the stakes, known as the Hollywood Futurity until CashCall's sponsorship in 2007.

Baffert has stakes-winners Carving (Hollywood's Real Quiet at the same distance), Really Mr Greely (Grade III Hollywood Prevue at seven-eighths of a mile) and Den's Legacy (Grade III Generous on grass), as well as the front-running Title Contender, who off a maiden victory ran in the Juvenile, but faded to eighth.

East Coast and Midwest shippers to California have done inordinately well this year. Trainer Todd Pletcher tries to keep the pattern going by sending out 2-for-2 Violence, winner of Aqueduct's Grade II Nashua Stakes. Violence has never raced on a synthetic surface, but Hollywood Park's CushionTrack is regarded as the closest to true dirt.

"It's a very competitive field," O'Neill said. "Bob is taking four swings at us. It just shows you the importance of the race …. But I wouldn't trade places with anybody. I think we've got the most live horse in the field, and with a little bit of luck we'll take home the money for Paul."

Road to the Kentucky Derby: Churchill Downs has changed the method in which horses earn their way into the Kentucky Derby if more than 20 are entered for next May 4's race, abandoning preference based on graded-stakes earnings in favor of a tiered points system based on 36 races. The designated races this fall and into early next year offer a 10-4-2-1 scale for the top four finishers. Churchill has estimated that 40 points should get a horse into the May 4 Derby.

Point leaders: Shanghai Bobby, 20; Goldencents, 14; Joha, Overanalyze, Power Broker, Uncaptured, Steeler, River Seven, 10 each.

Saturday's points race: $750,000 CashCall Futurity (G1) at Betfair Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif., 1 1/16 miles over CushionTrack, post time 7:35 p.m. ET on TVG, HRTV.

Derby production: The CashCall/Hollywood Futurity has produced six Kentucky Derby winners in its 31 runnings. The last 10 years, however, CashCall starters have gone 1-for-19 in the Derby, with Giacomo prevailing at Churchill Downs at 50-1. The only CashCall horse to hit the board since Hollywood Park went to synthetic was runner-up Pioneerof the Nile in 2009.

Rees writes for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal