Favored Gayego added a little spice to the Kentucky Derby picture after scoring a three-quarter length victory over Z Fortune in the $1 million Grade II Arkansas Derby on sunny, windy Saturday afternoon at Oaklawn Park.

A season-high crowd of 56,326 watched Gayego — in his first start outside California — make a successful transition from a synthetic surface to dirt, which he will encounter next in the Kentucky Derby on May 3 at Churchill Downs.

Photo Extra:

See photos from the Derby day at Focus.

For owners Carlos Juelle and Jose Prieto, who immigrated from Cuba more than 20 years ago, Gayego represents the American dream.

“Right now, we only have one horse,” said Juelle, an accountant from Rolling Hills, Calif. “All the others horses have broken down.”

But Gayego, whose name derives from the natives of Galicia, a region in northern Spain, is all the Cubanacan Stables needs.

For more information see today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Subscribers can read the story here on ArkansasOnline.

This article was published April 13, 2008 at 6:00 a.m.

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