2015 Belmont Stakes Preview

There's plenty to say about the elite horses running in the Belmont, so let's get the lesser portion of the field out of the way quickly.

We acknowledge that crazy things happen in the Belmont  - all you need to do is remember the names Da'Tara, Sarava, Lemon Drop Kid and Birdstone, all of which were over 25-1 and ruined Triple Crown bids.  And we know that Nick Zito has upset the Triple Crown twice with a pair of those bombs (Da'Tara and Birdstone).  But Frammento has less to offer than those two horses, who at least had back class or good recent races to their credit.  Frammento has neither.

The same is true for Keen Ice, who hasn't run a good race in 7 months and still hasn't won a meaningful one.  Dale Romans is a great trainer, but this guy should be running earlier on the card in the Easy Goer, not the Belmont.  A win by either him or Frammento would be a Sarava-level shock.

Tale of Verve and Madefromlucky are ahead of those two because we can see either of them finishing in the money, but can't see either winning.  Madefromlucky was annihilated by American Pharoah twice earlier this year, and while he did win his last race, it wasn't in a blistering time or against a great field.  Tale of Verve closed on a sloppy Preakness track where nobody other than the winner ran at all, and basically finished second by default.  His breeding and running style mean that it wouldn't be a surprise if he finished in the superfecta, but it's tough to make a case for him beating seven other horses.

We're also not interested in Mubtaahij, who quietly had a very easy trip in the Derby - rating off the speed, on the rail, without traffic issues - and showed nothing in the stretch.  His breeding still doesn't scream dirt and he finished behind literally half the horses in this race with no excuse.  If we were setting a morning line for which horse was most likely to finish last, he'd be the favorite.

We give this quintet of horses a collective 4% shot to win the race; meaning they're about 25-1 as a group.  Sadly, we suspect that you won't get that price on any of those horses except Frammento.  Don't be tempted when you see Tale of Verve sitting at 18-1 and think it's a bargain.  It's not.

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On to the real contenders.  The case for American Pharoah is pretty easy and straightforward.  His Derby was probably his worst start since his maiden race and he defeated all top 3 year olds in the country with relative ease.  His Preakness was outstanding, and was almost a paid workout in the slop.  And speaking of workouts, his last two have been utterly gorgeous.  Here's his workout from Monday (jump to about 4:20):

The case against American Pharoah has been made by countless others and in other years when a Triple Crown is on the line.  Horses aren't bred like once were and can't run the distance.  Three races in five weeks is a lot to ask.  New shooters are have a huge advantage over horses that have been asked to compete in all three legs.  He hasn't run at Belmont before.  The pressure may get to the jockey. 

None of these are particularly appealing to us.  If Victor Espinoza can't handle the pressure despite having won 6 Triple Crown races and having a horse that's versatile and talented, then we don't know what to say.  The breeding on this guy is fine - his grandfather did win this race after all.  The fact he's never run at Belmont is a complete red herring to us - neither had Summer Bird, Rags to Riches, Ruler on Ice or Sarava, and they all won the Belmont.

And sure, American Pharoah may regress.  In any race, any horse may regress.  But there's absolutely no reason to think that a bad effort is coming.  Watch that workout again.  This horse is in fine form and is working out brilliantly.  Even if he regresses a little, someone is going to have to improve to beat him. 

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Only two horses appear to be able to take the next step forward and challenge him for the win slot.  The first is morning line second choice Frosted, who was last seen running 4th in the Derby.  We'll admit that there's some stuff to like here - trainer Kiaran McLaughlin is outstanding, his breeding is decent enough for the distance, and he has run well in his last two starts.

But we're very skeptical.  His Wood gets a giant asterisk from us because it was at Aqueduct, and as we noted in the Derby preview, he's a monster at Aqueduct (3/2-1-0), and ordinary everywhere else (5/0-3-0).  His 4th in the Derby is getting some accolades because he closed well and had some traffic trouble.  But to us that was a typical clunk-up finish, passing other tiring horses.  He was wide on the turns at Churchill and lost ground, but didn't really have a bad trip per se.  He tried to close from the back of the pack.  You know what happens when you try that?  You usually have to go wide and lose ground.  He may have been slightly closer to the top 3 with a better trip, but at the same time, may not have had the type of sustained rally that got him in 4th.

We're also generally skeptical of closers in the Belmont (while acknowledging that McLaughlin trained a dead closer that won the Belmont in Jazil).  Usually it takes tactical speed and a grinding ability to win the race.  Frosted doesn't run like that.  His best efforts at Aqueduct all had big moves on the turn.  So did his Derby.  Even his Fountain of Youth, where he ran a crummy 4th, consisted of a big move on the turn then a dead stop at the top of the stretch.  Generally, if you try to make a big move on the turn at the Belmont, you have nothing left for the stretch and fade miserably - recall the losing efforts by Animal Kingdom in 2011 and Mine That Bird in 2009.  So what does he do - try to make a sweeping move and gut it out for 2 extra furlongs, or attend to the pace and lose the closing bid that's made him successful?  It's a Hobson's Choice that we think sinks him.

Which leaves us with Materiality, whose troubled 6th place finish in the Derby has been noted by nearly everyone.  Unlike Frosted, he actually had a bad trip in the Derby.  He was shuffled back early and not allowed to flaunt his early speed, putting him next to last early in the race, which is not how he ran his first three races.  That he closed to 6th despite having the worst of it was a credit.  It's very reminiscent of the Trip From Hell that Lookin at Lucky had in the 2010 Derby.  And he rebounded to win the Preakness.

Adding to Materiality's credentials are his connections - Todd Pletcher and John Velazquez need no introduction here - and that he sports the highest speed figure in the entire field from his Florida Derby win.  And he's making his 5th career start, meaning there's clearly room for improvement.  Equally importantly, his draw (8 post) means that he should go just to the outside of American Pharoah and keep him in his sights.  We don't think that these two are going to engage in a speed duel; the point is that he's going to keep American Pharoah honest and not let him sneak away.

The negatives on Materiality -- other than he's not American Pharoah -- are small but exist.  The fact that he hasn't won a race away from Gulfstream bothers us a little bit.  If we're going to doink Frosted for being a horse for the course, we have to at least acknowledge that the same may be true for Materiality.  We're also not in love with his breeding.  Yes his father won the Belmont and has sired a Travers winner (Afleet Express), but we're still not a big fan of his as a distance sire.  And his dam is the daughter of rank sprinter Langfuhr.  If it comes down to a battle of who's better bred to get the final 2 furlongs, we're siding with American Pharoah.

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For years, when horses have made their bid attempt for the Triple Crown, the racing press have sneered at them as unfit to join the Pantheon with War Admiral, Citation, and Secretariat.  Everyone other than Dick Dutrow was rooting against Big Brown because of his unsavory trainer and owners, and felt they didn't belong with the likes of Billy Turner and Penny Chenery.  People picked War Emblem, Charismatic and I'll Have Another to lose because they didn't have race records before the Triple Crown that made people think they were appropriate Triple Crown winners.  Even Smarty Jones, who most people loved, was greeted with skepticism because he came from a racing backwater (Pennsylvania) and had run against nothing until his race before the Derby.  People thought he was neat, but "greatness" and "historic" seemed to escape him.

Perhaps nobody put this better than Steve Crist when writing about Funny Cide's attempt to take the Triple Crown in 2003:

The other reason I feel compelled to pick against Funny Cide is that for all his admirable qualities and likeability, he seems to stand outside the circle of greatness that characterized the only three horses to have won a crown in the last 50 years. The game has changed since the days of Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed, but I still want the next Triple Crown winner to be a champion at 2 rather than a winner of three restricted statebred races.

Well, here's the list of all the horses that have won the Eclipse for champion 2 year old and entered the Belmont with a shot at the Triple Crown:

Year	Horse	Belmont Finish
1973	Secretariat	1st
1977	Seattle Slew	1st
1978	Affirmed	1st
1979	Spectacular Bid	3rd
2015	American Pharoah	???

American Pharoah isn't a horse that's gotten hot for 2 months.  He isn't someone who's lucked into a pair of Triple Crown wins.  He isn't some mediocrity that's been dominating a bad group of horses.  He's been the best horse in this class for nearly a year.  Since losing his maiden race, he's won every race he's entered, has dominated almost all of them, and has beaten every notable member of his class in the process.

It's time.

Picks

1.  American Pharoah
2.  Materiality
3.  Tale of Verve
4.  Madefromlucky

Enjoy Belmont Day everyone!

2015 Kentucky Derby Preview Part II: The Upper Crust

Click here for Part 1 of our preview.

If you haven't heard elsewhere, this year's crop of three year olds portends to be a good one.  Bill Finley, who is usually cranky about this sort of thing, has said this is the best Derby field ever, topping one that included Secretariat, Forego and Sham.  Mike Watchmaker, who generally thinks every horse since Easy Goer is a dog, has compared two of the entrants to Seattle Slew and Affirmed.  Dick Jerardi, who has never seen a horse outside of Pennsylvania that he's actually liked, thinks this is the fastest crop of horses in ages.

We're tapping the brakes a little bit on these plaudits.  We're not sure there are multiple Hall of Fame horses in this race - hell, if we had one, that would be neat.  But this does look like an above average group of horses.  The best have run pretty fast in the prep races, have good breeding, and have avoided the injury bug.  This isn't 2008, where everyone besides Big Brown looked terrible, or 2009, where everyone got hurt and left the field wide open for an upset.  This looks like the best group we've seen since 2007, which included Curlin, Street Sense, Any Given Saturday and Hard Spun.

Our biggest takeaway from that Hot Take is that we're less inclined to back horses that don't check off a lot of the traditional boxes for Derby contenders.  Big Brown won the Derby off 3 starts because his competitors were garbage. Giacomo and Mine That Bird took the race because there were only 1-2 good horses in the race.  This isn't the case this year.  If you're a horse with flaws, you're going to need to overcome them and beat 5-7 horses that would be good choices most years.  Which is why we're not picking...

This Would Defy History

10.  Mubtaahij.  We've said it many times before and will say it again - the first horse from the UAE Derby that wins the Kentucky Derby will come at our expense.  This guy's a little more interesting than the prior winners because he won the UAE Derby on dirt (rather than synthetic) and is trained by Mike de Kock, who's great in South Africa but almost never comes to the USA.  But still - he's traveling half the world to take on better bred horses that have run on US tracks against better competition.  And there's chatter he'll be the 4th choice in the race (ignore his 20-1 morning line price, that's just wishful thinking).  No thanks.

9.  Materiality.  And then there's the Curse of Apollo.  We're getting to the point where we can write the same copy every year.  Or just point you to our takes on Verrazano, Bodemeister, Curlin, and Dunkirk.  In fact, this horse is Dunkirk version 2.0 - a well-bred Pletcher 3 year old with no juvenile experience but oozes potential.  We were impressed by his win in the Florida Derby, and we'd consider deviating from the Curse of Apollo in a less talented year.  But this year?  Not interested.

Not Out of It, But We're Against

8.  Frosted.  Beware the Horse for the Course.  It's a well-known fact that some horses like some tracks better than others and run their best races at certain locales.  Well, here's Exhibit A, a horse that has 2 wins and a second on Aqueduct's main track, but is winless elsewhere in 4 starts.  More problematically, he never came close in two Florida starts against logical contender...

7.  Upstart.  ...who we acknowledge has a shot but we're not loving in this spot.  This New York-bred dominated his first start then won a state-bred race handily in a very fast time.  Trainer Rick Violette - who we've always liked - aggressively pointed him to the Champagne and BC Juvenile, where he ran 2nd and 3rd respectively, running pretty well both times, but never really threatening the winners.  After a good Holy Bull to start out this year, he ran a DQ'd-into-2nd in the Fountain of Youth, then a beaten 2nd in the Florida Derby.  More importantly, his speed figures have stagnated in his last two races.

So was he just ahead of the class early last year?  There are some interesting excuses in each of his last two races, but the bottom line is that he hasn't developed as the distances have gotten longer.  To top it off, he missed training time last month with an illness.  While the connections say he's back in shape and he's worked out fine, we're not in love with horses that come in to the Derby with any hiccups.

6.  Dortmund.  He's undefeated, has won a pair of Grade 1 races, and has beaten some pretty good horses.  And he could win easily on Saturday and prove us wrong.  But we've got a couple of concerns.  First, his running style is on or close to the lead.  Now this is great in 5-7 horse races where you can control the tempo and take racing luck out of the equation.  But we don't see that as the case here because there is a TON of speed in this race - we expect that all of Materiality, Ocho Ocho Ocho, and 1-2 others will want to go fast early.  If he chases all of them, he's going to be in a world of trouble.  It's a little reminiscent of Bellamy Road in 2005, who came in off a world-beater front running performance in the Wood, and was absolutely fried after 6 furlongs.  Dortmund may fall into that same trap.

Second, and a bit more esoteric, we join many people's concern that this horse is, well, too big.  The horse is 17 hands high and while powerful, isn't the most manuverable horse because of his size.  There is something to be said for being a steed that won't get knocked around by the rigors of the race but there's also something to be said for a horse that can adjust quickly if he gets in trouble.

Look, we acknowledge we could be dead wrong and that this guy may turn out to be a blossoming star.  He's never lost, isn't poorly bred, and looked great in the Santa Anita Derby.  He's trained by Bob Baffert, who's second to none when it comes to the Derby.  But we're concerned that we're seeing another horse that has looked better than he is because he's repeatedly gotten easy leads that have allowed him to control the pace.  That certainly won't be the case on Saturday.  We think he challenges early but isn't in the picture at the end.

Prices With a Shot

5.  Bolo.  Our longshot du jour has a bit of an interesting background.  He's obscurely bred - his sire Temple City was barely known to us beforehand, and Chief Seattle isn't exactly a fashionable damsire - but the breeding actually isn't bad for the dirt or the distance.  He ran his first three races on the turf as a 2yo and did well, winning a maiden and ungraded stakes.  Off a short break, trainer Carla Gaines (who's not bad) switched him to the dirt and threw him to the wolves in the San Felipe, where he ran greenly but still closed to a decent 3rd behind Dortmund.  He regressed a little bit in the Santa Anita Derby, but seems posed to move forward in his third start of the year.  And he has some tactical speed but we think will probably close into the strong pace.  We think he's a bit unlikely to actually win the race, but has a big shot to hit the board at 40-1.

4.  Firing Line.  When an owner spends $240,000 at auction for a horse out of a completely unproven sire (Line of David) by an unknown damsire, either he's a lunatic or the horse can run.  Fortunately for Arnold Zetcher, it's the latter, as this modestly bred colt has never finished out of the exacta and won his last start by a whopping 14 lengths.  More impressively, he fought Dortmund twice and lost both races by a mere head.  Dortmund is going to be 3-1; Firing Line is going to be 15-1.  You can guess where our interest is.

So why are we ranking him here?  His running style.  We've hinted at it throughout this preview, but we think the pace is going to be strong and may cook everyone near it.  That may well include this guy, who's done his best running within a length of the lead.  Jockey Gary Stevens is one of the best ever and may try to rate him off the strong pace, and the 10 post certainly puts that possibility in play.  Our guess is he rates just a little off the pace but doesn't have enough to pass or hold off the remaining four horses.

3.  International Star. The best closer in the race happens to actually be a halfway decent horse, rather than your standard closer with 3rd-place-itis.  He spent his winter in Louisiana - hey, there are worse ideas - sweeping the Fairgrounds races with three come from behind victories.  He's blossomed since turning into a one-run closer and this race presents the perfect opportunity to continue this tradition, since the pace should be at worst honest, and possibly blistering.  Yes he's a little slow on the Speed Figures, but his running style fits the race shape.  We look to see him closing late, but think he's ultimately a minor threat to the top 2.

The Obvious Favorite

2.  American Pharoah.  While we think any of the top 8 horses could win this race, this one is the most likely to develop into a superstar.  After a poor maiden race, Bob Baffert threw him into a Grade 1  where he responded by wiring the field at 7 furlongs and winning easily.  His next win in the Front Runner was absolutely dominating, and in it he defeated eventual BC Juvenile winner Texas Red with ease.  After time off for a minor injury, he shipped to Arkansas and won both the Rebel and Arkansas Derby with absolute ease.  He has tactical speed (though is not an uncontrollable speedball or committed front runner), should have the pedigree to make 10 furlongs, and jockey Victor Espinoza knows a thing or two about winning Triple Crown races.

Our biggest concern is that his speed figures are inflated because he's had perfect trips in all 4 wins and has never had a serious obstacle in his path.  He towered over his competition in his last two starts; they were essentially paid workouts.  It's hardly uncommon for a horse to run career best speed figures when he gets easy trips and no real competition in the stretch.  So while the possibility of stardom is here, so is the possibility of a regression.  At 5-2, we're wary of picking against, but prefer...

The Pick

1.  Carpe Diem.  Greatness has been expected from this horse for over a year and so far he's done little to dissuade people from the notion that he might be special.  This spectacularly bred son of Giant's Causeway sold for $1.6 million as a two year old, and made his first start at Saratoga, where he won at 5 1/2 furlongs over Ready for Rye, a useful sprinter.  He stretched out to two turns for his second start and utterly dominated the BC Futurity at Keeneland - other than American Pharoah's Front Runner, it's probably the best performance by a horse in this field (sorry, Dortmund fans).  He ran an okay second in the BC Juvenile; this year he's easily won the Tampa Bay and Bluegrass Derbies.  In both races he showed tactical speed, made a good move on the turn and drew off in the stretch while never really being asked.

There are basically two knocks against him.  The first are his relatively low speed figures.  We're less concerned about those because we don't think Pletcher or Velazquez have asked this guy for his best race yet this year.  It's very reminiscent of how Pletcher also managed Super Saver in 2010, who had two useful races before the Derby that hardly indicated dominance, but was primed to go on the big day.  The bigger knock is drawing the 2-post.  We don't love it, but don't think it's a big enough negative to downgrade him from the top slot.  We think he makes a huge leap forward on Saturday, sits an okay trip off the strong pace, and runs down American Pharoah in a memorable Derby.

How to Play the Race

If you like anyone besides American Pharoah and Dortmund, just play him to win!  Carpe Diem is the likely third choice and we suspect he'll be at least 6-1.  There's nothing sexy about win betting, but there's sure nothing wrong with a 600% or higher return on investment.  If you're looking to boost the price, we recommend playing International Star, Bolo and Firing Line "underneath" in exactas and triples, or looking at the Oaks-Derby double that's available on Friday.  (We like Eskenformoney, Stellar Wind, and Puca in the Oaks.) And by all means, please ignore the superfecta.

Good luck to all and enjoy the race!!