Horses of the Decade Part II: The Boys

After looking at the gals in Part I, we're turning to the boys in Part II. Because the discussion for the 3 year old colts is fairly length, we're going to break it up into two pieces. In the next post we'll get to the male turf horse and sprint horse, and have some other side awards, Bill Simmons-style.

2yo colt

Let's dispense with the easy ones. Action This Day (2003) is in the running for worst horse to win an Eclipse Award (we may do a small bit on that later on) with exactly one good win to his credit, the BC Juvenile. Declan's Moon (2004) was a nice horse that won by default when a bomb won the Juvenile. Macho Uno (2000), Stevie Wonderboy (2005), Street Sense (2006) and Midshipman (2008) were all fine specimens of horseflesh--this group includes a Kentucky Derby winner--but basically won the Eclipse award solely because they won the Juvenile. That's fine and good, but knocks them out of the running for something grander. So let's look at the four remaining contenders.

Johannesburg (2001). Went 7-for-7 as a 2 year old, which included four Grade 1 wins, 3 in Europe and one in the BC Juvenile. There's little to find fault with here, except to note that the Juvenile was his only route race and his only dirt race, and in that, his chief contenders (Officer, Siphonizer) threw in clunkers on either a dead rail or an off day.

Vindication (2002). 4-for-4 in his 2yo campaign, he had a visually impressive win in the Kentucky Juvenile and then won the Breeders Cup Juvenile in somewhat impressive fashion. Somewhat. Compromising the accolades for his win was that his chief contender (Sky Mesa) was an early scratch and his top competitor (Hold That Tiger) broke poorly and had a ride from hell. We're impressed but not bowled over.

War Pass (2007). The fastest of all the 2yos this decade, he was 4-for-4 and popped off a speed figure over 110 in his BC Juvenile win. The caveats are that his Juvenile win came in the slop, where other horses may not have fired their best shot and that he was never really challenged early in any of his races (he was a speedball).

Lookin at Lucky (2009). Won three Grade 1's and was a very, very unfortunate 2nd in the BC Juvenile to Vale of York. We like that this horse won stakes races at a bunch of different distances and stretched out from a sprint to a route with no difficulty. We also like that after running in the Juvenile he came back and won another stakes race in December; the number of horses that have just packed it in after October/November are innumerable. He's a bit of a throwback to the horses in the 90's (Favorite Trick, Real Quiet) who ran actual lengthy campaigns as juveniles. We don't like that he never ran on a dirt track, but it's not his fault that California mandated that all dirt tracks be converted to synthetics.

To us, it comes down to how much credit you give Johannesburg for his overseas sprint wins and a goofy BC Juvy win versus Lookin at Lucky's dominance over a synthetic surface. We give Johannesburg a lot of credit for his overseas exploits, but note that winning a bunch of turf sprints as a two year old is a far cry from the success Euros have in older races with stiff competition; it's easier to duck or miss big horses when you're a Juvenile. By contrast, this year's champion took on all the best horses in the States, was repeatedly successful in route races and was clearly the best horse of his class. We're not sure that was the case with Johannesburg, who may have just been the best in on BC day when only one other horse (Repent) fired.

Eclipse Ballot: 1. Lookin at Lucky; 2. Johannesburg; 3. War Pass.

3yo colt

We remind everyone that for this group we're only looking at a horse's 3 year old campaign, which means all those that want to argue that it has to be either Curlin or Tiznow...save it for Horse of the Decade debates. This is actually a pretty fun group to analyze because there are six horses that won two legs of the Triple Crown, three other horses that won one leg plus the Jockey Club Gold Cup, and one horse that skipped the Triple Crown but won Horse of the Year. A countdown is in order.

10. Funny Cide (2003). His three-year-old season had three good races: a nice second in the Wood, a Derby win, and a Preakness romp. Honestly, his best race was probably losing the Wood where he showed good speed and guts. After that he won the Derby over an ailing Empire Maker (who he couldn't beat in the Wood), and beat only one horse of any consequence (Peace Rules) in the Preakness. By the end of the year, few really thought he was better than Empire Maker, who beat him again in the Belmont, and Funny Cide's 8-2-2-2 record for the year is unimpressive.

9. War Emblem (2002). One of the odder horses to contend for the Triple Crown, as he was all or nothing speedball. His 2002 season had 10 races with 5 wins (which included the Illinois and Kentucky Derbies, the Preakness and the Haskell), a 5th place finish, two 6th place finishes and two 8th place finishes. We can't help but think that he's only here because he caught a track bias on Derby Day and won a weak Preakness and Haskell. Had Medaglia d'Oro shown up for the first two legs of the Triple Crown or not succumbed to Volponi in the Breeders Cup Classic, he would have won this award.

8. Summer Bird (2009, presumably). A nothing before the Belmont, he subsequently rattled off wins in the Belmont, Travers and JCGC, before running an okay fourth in the BC Classic. A nice year, and we like him to have a big 4-year-old season.

7. Afleet Alex (2005). But for a horrible loss in the Derby, he would be our twelfth Triple Crown winner, as we previously discussed ad nauseum. Alas, not to be. Like the next two horses, he was fairly talented but we're punishing him a bit for calling it quits early in the year; would it have killed his owners to run him in the fall after he recovered from his minor injury or in 2006?

6. Smarty Jones (2004). We were never big fans of this guy, and still think his Derby was a fluke because of the torrential downpour twenty minutes before post time. Still, for 5 months he was tough to beat and his Belmont run was amazing for 11 furlongs. Also punished because he was retired early and because we lost the Pick Six thanks to his Belmont defeat.

5. Big Brown (2009). Boundless potential, great results except for the Belmont, intolerable connections. We won't belabor the points we made about 86 times last year.

4. Tiznow (2000). This class was a talented group--Tiznow, Giant's Causeway, Albert the Great, Captain Steve, El Corredor, and Aptitude were all very good horses. But the real story from that year was the hype around Fusaichi Pegasus, proclaimed Super Horse before the Derby, after winning the Derby, and after winning the Jerome before the Breeders Cup, despite the horse having breeding, soundness and handling issues. And while the majority presumed that FuPeg would romp at the Breeders Cup, in the end, this guy won in a classic battle with Ireland's Giant's Causeway. Prior to that race, Tiznow was somewhat obscure; he hadn't run in the Triple Crown, and his big wins were the Super Derby and Goodwood. In the end, those three wins made him Horse of the Year. But it was a pretty weak year all around (the best other options were Lemon Drop Kid and Kona Gold--ugh), and while his campaign was neat, it wasn't quite up to the level of the next three.

3. Bernardini (2006). On paper his year wasn't much better than a few of the horses we've already discussed; he won the Preakness, Travers, JCGC and Jim Dandy, which isn't too different from Summer Bird, and Bernardini also ran 2nd in the BC Classic. The difference was how much talent, potential and ability this horse showed. With the possible exception of Big Brown, none of the previous seven horses were as freakish and machine-like as this guy, who from May to September was one of the best horses we've seen this decade. We're still sad he didn't run as a four year old, because he could have been an all-time great.

2. Curlin (2007). He'll get a better treatment from us in the Horse of the Decade debate, so we'll just answer it quickly, why isn't he our #1 instead of...

1. Point Given (2001)...? Broken down, Point Given had a better 3 year old season. Point Given was the only horse to win four $1,000,000 races in a row (Preakness-Belmont-Haskell-Travers) and was fairly dominant in all 4 races over a pretty solid crop of horses. Prior to that, he won both of this Derby preps, including the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, and with a better ride, probably could/should have been second in the Derby behind Monarchos. By contrast, Curlin won 3 Grade 1's (Preakness, JCGC and BC Classic), ran a good 2nd in the Belmont and a solid 3rd in the Derby. His campaign was amazing considering he hadn't run as a 2 year old. But for the three year old season only? Point Given's 2001 was the most dominant horse we saw and he gets the nod.

Eclipse Ballot: 1. Point Given; 2. Curlin; 3. Bernardini.

Older Male

We can divide these ten horses into four groups.

(1) Nice horses that won the award because they were the best in weak years, and have no business being in the discussion. By this we mean Left Bank (2002), Lawyer Ron (2007) and whoever wins this year (probably Gio Ponti). Thanks for playing, fellas.

(2) Horses that we clearly the best their year and were in no way transcendent. Lemon Drop Kid (2000), Mineshaft (2003), and Saint Liam (2005) were all very good horses and should have won the Eclipse in their respective years. Are any of them even close to a Hall of Fame conversation? No.

(3) The warriors. Tiznow (2001) and Curlin (2008) both followed up winning Horse of the Year a as a three year old by running ambitious 4 year old campaigns. Tiznow's season was in two parts: he ran well in California by winning the Big 'Cap, then took off the summer to run a pair of 3rd place finishes before winning the BC Classic. A nice year and a nice horse, but not exactly Pensky material.

Curlin won Horse of the Year for his 4 Grade 1 wins in 2008: the Dubai World Cup, Stephen Foster, Woodward and JCGC. He also ran a fairly game second in a try over the turf and a miserable 4th in the BC Classic. Great performances, great talent...there are really no knocks here.

(4) The freaks. Invasor (2006) is the freak closest to people's minds because he ran...well, 3 years ago. On a personal note, we saw this horse in the paddock before he won the 2006 Whitney and were blown away by how enormous he was. A physical specimen, outside of a meh run in Dubai, he won everything else in 2006, including a strong with over Bernardini in the BC Classic. Another horse with few flaws (he followed this up with wins in the Donn and Dubai World Cup in 2007).

But if there's a horse that defined brilliance and talent, it was Ghostzapper (2004). Ghostzapper's 2004 campaign was a perfect 4-for-4 with wins at 7 furlongs (Tom Fool) 9 furlongs (Woodward, some Jersey race) and 10 furlongs (BC Classic). Beyond that year, he won Grade 1's at 6 1/2 furlongs (Vosburgh) and a mile (Met Mile). While rarely healthy, when healthy, he was the fastest horse since Formal Gold and the most versatile in two decades. He could win long or short, in the front or from the rear. And he's the best older horse we saw this decade, hands down.

Eclipse Ballot: 1. Ghostzapper; 2. Curlin; 3. Invasor.

Breeders Cup Preview Part II: The Disintegration of the Classic

After a workout this morning where he tore off a chunk of his right front foot, Big Brown was retired to a life of sex and oats.  This means he's out of next week's Breeders Cup Classic, and that the much-desired showdown with reigning Horse of the Year Curlin won't happen.  

This sucks enough air out of the Breeders Cup to begin with, but it might be just the beginning.  All along, Curlin's connections were reticent about going to the Breeders Cup this year because it's being held at Santa Anita, where they run on an artificial surface, and not dirt.  There was chatter in the late summer that Curlin would skip the Breeders Cup altogether and point either for the Clark Handicap in late November or ship to Japan for their Dirt Cup.  However, it had appeared that Curlin's connections had come around to running in the Breeders Cup over the last couple of weeks: they opened the door after the Jockey Club Gold Cup, they shipped him to California, and they started working him out on the track.

Now, you have to ask what the point of him running in the BC Classic would be.  A victory doesn't do a helluva lot, while a loss only pokes a hole in his resume.  Since the showdown with Big Brown for Horse of the Year is off, look for Curlin's owner to announce in the next day or so that they're passing to run in Japan.  Taking his place as the favorite?  Probably Casino Drive, who was scratched the morning of the Belmont after a hoof injury, but won his comeback race yesterday.  Yes, the favorite for the race with the biggest purse in the US may be a horse making his fourth career start.

What Now, Big Brown?

Yesterday, Derby/Preakness winner Big Brown returned to the races for the first time since his Belmont debacle in New Jersey's signature race, the Haskell Invitational. Bet down to 1-5 odds, if you polled the crowd as to what would have happened during the race, you would have probably gotten two responses:

(1) Big Brown romps over a hideous field and wins by daylight.

(2) Big Brown is still injured, jinxed or feeling the effects of being off steroids and will run up the track.

Conventional wisdom, once again, was dead wrong. Big Brown was forwardly placed early, running second to the 20-1 longshot and horribly named Coal Play, trained by Nick Zito of Da'Tara fame. After 7 furlongs, Coal Play wasn't coming back to the back, he was opening up on Big Brown! Big Brown, after a fair amount of urging and whipping by jockey Kent Desormeaux, finally found the next gear in the final furlong, and eventually dug past Coal Play to win by a length and a half. (For a replay, see the Form's link here.)

The immediate reaction by myself and many others was to be unimpressed. This horse had toyed with rivals in the Derby and Preakness, and now he had trouble beating Coal Play, who had never won a stakes race? It looked like this may be his last race. However, a day later and with the benefit of knowing that he ran a 106 Gowanus Speed Figure (not great, not awful), perhaps we haven't seen the last of Big Brown after all. The question is, what next?

To figure out what comes next, it's worth asking what is to be gained by continuing to run Big Brown. It's unlikely he's going to be crowned an immortal at this point, barring him breaking track records for the rest of his (brief) career. At the same time, he's already wrapped up the Eclipse award for 3-year old colt of the year. The only prize left to shoot for is Horse of the Year, a race in which he's probably behind Curlin, and possibly behind undefeated filly Zenyatta. Okay. So how does he get to Horse of the Year?

For starters, the connections must forget about running in the Travers or any other race against 3 year olds only. There's absolutely no upside to those races, as he'll either simply re-beat the same 3yos he's dominated most of the year, or worse, lose to some longshot, leading not only losing the HOTY race but also stud value. If IEAH and Dutrow are thinking in terms of awards, they'll pass on the Travers, Pennsylvania Derby, Super Derby, etc., and focus on beating older horses.

They also should forget about returning Big Brown to the turf. I mean, what would it prove if he beat a 3yo turf horse like Tizdejavu or a turf colt like Einstein? Who cares?

No, the truth is he has to go after the two big handicap horses that are out there: defending HOTY Curlin and speedy gelding Commentator, who just won the Whitney. The latter is being pointed to September's MassCap, and Curlin's plans should be announced soon. Big Brown should point for either the MassCap or whatever Curlin runs in. That's more important than the Travers. Hell, that's more important than the Breeders Cup, which neither Curlin nor Commentator are pointing towards because of a synthetic surface. Beating Tiago and Well Armed in that race will prove nothing.

If you want to be the best, you need to beat the best. Here's to hoping that we get a race with Big Brown, Commentator and Curlin together, which would be as fun as anything we've seen recently.

Triple Crown Wrapup

We should have seen this coming.

Here at the Gazette, we take the approach in the Triple Crown that history repeats itself frequently. That's why Big Brown's Derby win was a shocker...but it's also not going to lead to a cavalcade of horses winning the Derby in their fourth start. Big Brown took advantage of one of the worst classes of three year olds in ages to win a pair of big races and fool us into thinking he was Seattle Slew. (Well, most of us. There's a lot of us, myself included, who weren't buying the hype, but still thought he was really talented.)

The thing is, we've seen this exact same scenario play out twice in the last ten years. 1999 presented us with a Derby crop that could most charitably be described as mediocre, with absolutely nobody standing out come Derby Day. The class was so weak, two fillies entered the Derby, and one of them was co-favored with a gelding that looked like he was over the top. Come Derby day, Charismatic makes a small leap forward off his unheralded Lexington win, and then romps in the Preakness over many of the same horses. But the Belmont was a different story--the horse, while injured during the race, wasn't winning anyway, and delivered a subpar performance in the Belmont while improving longshots Lemon Drop Kid and Vision and Verse dueled to the wire. It was pretty clear leading up to the race that Charismatic was vulnerable, it just wan't clear who would take advantage.

We had this again in 2002, where War Emblem rode a speed bias to win the Derby over a hideous class of three year olds (the Derby favorite was a whopping 5-1) and barely held on in the Preakness to beat a 43-1 shot. When he stumbled out of the gate in the Belmont, it opened the race to chaos, as nobody else had proven they were any good. And chaos we got, in the form of 70-1 shot Sarava winning it all.

The difference this year was that Big Brown looked dominant because his 5 wins were effortless. But the signs that the Belmont would be different were there. The breeding issues. The quartercrack. The oppressive heat yesterday. The tight schedule of racing. It wasn't hard to see that he was going to lose yesterday. Hell, we picked it.

What was tough to see was Da'Tara coming up with the blanket of carnations. But the same damn thing that happened in 1999 and 2002 happened again: the rest of the horses were so sub-par that chaos determined the race. This time, the chaos was lone speed with a horse with decent breeding. If Denis of Cork was really a good horse, he should have won. But he didn't. And that's why those who played Da'Tara yesterday were dead-on: they knew that because of Casino Drive's scratch, after Big Brown, the race was a total toss-up. Why not take a stab on a horse that at least ran competitively in his last, rather than a boring horse like Tale of Ekati?

Welcome to the hall of Triple Crown winners, Da'Tara. But don't think that this makes you the next Point Given. More likely, he's in the basement level with Commendable, Sarava and Editor's Note. We may see him again in the Travers and Breeders Cup, but it's possible this will be his first and only big race win.

And that does it for our conventional horse racing coverage until Saratoga, where we'll pop in and out with some minor notes on the meet or racing in general. Back to fantasy baseball.

Belmont Stakes Preview Part III: The Countdown

Can Big Brown pull it off?

He's done absolutely everything asked of him to date, and it's a helluva lot. Five wins on two different surfaces, with multiple trainers and jockeys, in 4 different states, and he hasn't had a tough time yet. There's a lot of smoke, fire and hullaballo over his connections being unsavory and schmucks in general, but there's no denying that this horse is talented.

There's also no denying that he's picked the absolutely perfect year to come and make this type of a splash. His Derby was good, but it wouldn't have beaten Street Sense last year, and while he probably would have run harder if necessary in the Preakness, he still would've been lengths behind the last 4 winners. You can only run against the horses from your generation, and it's not his fault that this class stinks, but the fact that he's "dominated" lesser horses to date has to be considered when evaluating just how well he's run recently. It's quite possible this is the tip of the iceberg of his talent and he's just unfortunate to not get credit because his competition blows, a la Seattle Slew but let's not also dismiss the possibility that he's just pulling another Charismatic and catching fire at just the right time.

Pointless banter aside, it's the final leg of the Triple Crown. Let's count 'em down in reverse order, while trying not to be too redundant with our other publication. For another fantastic look at the Derby, check out our brethren at East Coast Bias.

This is Just Mean

10. Guadalcanal. For reasons unclear, we've got a horse in this race who hasn't won a race yet. This isn't totally unheard of in Europe, but is a rarity here. We're getting all the usual excuses, he's bred for the distance, he finished well in his last, blah blah blah. The truth is, what's the point? What's the best case scenario, he finishes 4th? Why not run in a solid maiden race instead? Horses don't recover quickly from 12-furlong dirt races. Let's hope this guy makes it out in one piece.

Outsiders Looking In

9. Da' Tara. The lesser of the two Nick Zito horses, he comes in off a fairly blase runner up finish in the Barbaro Stakes on the Preakness undercard, which came right after his 5th place finish in the Derby Trial. It's tough to like him when it's difficult to like...

8. Macho Again...the horse that beat him by five lengths in the Derby Trial. The 2nd place finisher in the Preakness looks to move forward off that effort, but a re-examination of the Preakness shows that his 2nd wasn't so much a great effort as it was a matter of finishing there by default. Someone had to run 2nd, and a couple of more deserving horses had traffic trouble in the race. It's difficult to see him moving forward off his last, and it's much more likely he's already run his best race and will regress to a non-threatening back of the pack finish here.

7. Tale of Ekati. He should rate better than this, what with a Grade 1 win and a decent pedigree to get the distance, but something may be amiss with this guy--he had a pair of poor workouts prior to his last one which was okay. You never want to see quotes like this from your trainer, especially one as good as Barclay Tagg:

Wood Memorial winner Tale of Ekati worked a slow 1:18.47 on Monday morning under jockey Eibar Coa, which left trainer Barclay Tagg visibly frustrated. Tagg said, "I don't know how a world-class rider can go out there and work (a horse) in 1:18 - I just don't know, I told him go in 1:12." Coa said, "He was acting a little bit weird today. I didn't want to force him to do something that I didn't feel was the right thing. He's a better worker than that."

Now yes, he did follow that up with a better effort, but this came after a bad workout on Preakness day as well. To top it off, he's still light in the Beyer department, and I feel we've already seen his best race, which wasn't that great. Time to move on.

Solely Exotics Filler

6. Ready's Echo. Clunked up for 3rd in the Peter Pan and should be running late again, and has Todd Pletcher in his corner. That's it for the positives with this guy, as he's yet to run a truly fast race and doesn't have the breeding (More Than Ready?) for 12 furlongs. You also have to question any Pletcher horse that's going to be a huge price. Some trainers (Zito, Lukas, Jerkens) are always deadly, even with longshots. Pletcher, by contrast, rarely has horses that greatly outrun their odds. If a horse is double-digit odds, chances are, it runs like one, with the only exceptions that pop to mind being Invisible Ink's & Bluegrass Cat's 2nds in the Derby; the former running before Pletcher was a juggernaut and the latter being more than double the price he should have been in the race. Still, it's not impossible to see him clunking up late to round out a superfecta.

5. Icabad Crane. Despite finishing behind Macho Again in the Preakness, he's a lot more interesting in the Belmont, as he had a fairly poor trip in the Preakness that probably cost him second, is much better bred to get the distance, and is from connections that could coax him into a money finish. The biggest quibble with him is the question of locale, as his two best races have come at Pimlico, and it's not unreasonable to think he won't be as good in New York. He's got next to no shot at actually winning the race, but if a couple of contenders misfire or get burned early, he's more likely than most to run third.

The Vanquished

4. Big Brown. Aaaaand, the road ends here. I'm not going to deny that there's a lot to like. But as I mentioned earlier, there are three keys to winning the Belmont nowadays: adequate rest, a top-shelf jockey, and distance breeding. Big Brown fails on two of these. He's now had 5 races in under 3 months, including this being his 3rd in 5 weeks, and has already had a foot malady that's probably worse than they're letting on. The jockey....no knock here on KJ Desormeaux. But the breeding? I think that's the Achilles Heel. And I think it hits him between the eyeballs with three furlongs to go while others are still running strong.

The Sleeper

3. Anak Nakal. Everyone's comparing him to 2004 Belmont winner Birdstone because he was an accomplished two year old, is from the Nick Zito barn, is a closer, skipped the Preakness after an okay Derby, and is trying to knock off a titan. The comparisons aren't bad, I'll grant that. The big difference is that Birdstone was a very good two year old--he won the Champagne in a fast time, and would have been the favorite in the Breeders Cup Juvenile had he been sent. His two losses prior to the Belmont had built-in excuses that he wasn't a mud horse. When we got a fast track at the Belmont, he was able to run again. By contrast, this guy isn't quite as fast or accomplished, but is bred to the wazoo for 12 furlongs. Definitely could sneak into triples at 30-1 or higher, but really tough to like to win unless the two faves fall apart and he gets first run on...

The Contenders

2. Denis of Cork. What type of racehorse wins the Belmont? Usually not a front-runner. Usually not a horse that makes a big move on a turn. And usually not a closer with an explosive late burst. No, it's most often an even-paced horse that sits off the pace, isn't affected by the early rush, and can keep grinding away at the lead for 12 furlongs. This guy fits the mold perfectly, and as I noted in the Derby preview, still has a lot of upside to hit. And his 3rd in the Derby was a pretty solid effort. The biggest issue: I don't love his pedigree at the distance. His daddy, Harlan's Holiday, flopped badly as the Derby favorite and wasn't stout enough to go more than 9 furlongs. How's that going to translate to his son?

1. Casino Drive. Yes, I'm aware of the foot bruise, but frankly, if he's still in the race come post-time, it means it's not that big an issue, as I don't see the connections taking any real chances here. If it's a real issue, he'll be scratched and just elevate Denis of Cork to the win slot. But besides the foot bruise, he has exactly one negative: his lack of experience. But as Big Brown has shown, even that's not a big deal, especially when contending with a mediocre field. If the foot's good, look for him to improve, take the steady and patient ride by Edgar Prado, and be in the winner's circle.

[Update: 9:02 a.m.---Casino Drive is scratched. Sigh. ---El Angelo]

Belmont Stakes Preview Part II: Previous Attempts at Glory

Since Affirmed nosed out Alydar to win the Triple Crown in 1978, ten horses have entered the Belmont a mile and a half from immortality. All failed. Why didn't any of these horses succeed in their attempts to capture the Triple Crown?

1. The dice went cold. As three year olds can improve markedly at a moment's notice, sometimes in a weak year, a 3yo can get good and parlay it into a pair of wins in the classics, only to flop in the final leg, usually due to breeding or fatigue from the racing schedule. This is the equine equivalent of getting on a good run at a craps table but having it end with a 7 before hitting the biggest bet. This happened to Pleasant Colony, Alysheba, Charismatic and War Emblem. Even after their Preakness wins, nobody thought any of these horses were juggernauts, and few were surprised that they lost the Belmont.

2. They were lucky to be where they were. Some horses do win the Derby and Preakness despite it being clear they weren't the best horse in either or both race. Easy Goer fans blame Pat Day for Sunday Silence's Derby win, and the Belmont romp was their vindication. Silver Charm, while talented, was lucky to win the Derby and was even luckier when Touch Gold had a historically bad trip in the Preakness. It surprised nobody when Touch Gold turned the tables in the Belmont. And either because of hoof issues or just having a bad day, Empire Maker lost to Funny Cide in the Derby for no apparent reason, but paid back the favor in the Belmont. In all 3 cases, it was hard to argue the better horse lost the Belmont.

3. Human error. Spectacular Bid was one of the 10 greatest horses ever and lost the Triple Crown because his jockey got him in a suicidal duel with a hopeless longshot. Stewart Elliot, similarly in over his head, ended up having Smarty Jones duel on the lead for the first 10 furlongs only to have nothing left to fend off grinder Birdstone. And Kent Desormeaux was roundly criticized for moving prematurely on Real Quiet, who was nosed at the wire by the late-surging Victory Gallop. All 3 of these horses, with slightly better rides, should have been Triple Crown winners.

We can't dismiss any of these scenarios for Big Brown. He may have simply been hot for 2 straight races and will now get caught come furlongs 11 and 12. Casino Drive may turn out to be his Easy Goer/Touch Gold and surpass him in the stretch. And Desormeaux may foul up again, opening the door for someone like Denis of Cork.

Or, he just might be that good and be our 12th Triple Crown winner.

The Quartercrack FAQ

The press is all in a tizzy over reports that Big Brown is "injured", in danger of missing the race, and in trouble because he's got a quartercrack. Let's calm down, avoid hyperbole, and take a few minutes to answer some key questions on this development.

What is a quartercrack?

It's a minor crack on the hoof of the horse. In terms of human injuries, it's somewhere between a hangnail and a bad foot blister.

Is it life threatening?

Absolutely not. Quartercracks are not uncommon and are wholly unrelated to lamintitis (what felled Barbaro and Secretariat). Again, it's like a foot blister--bandage it up and/or use that area a little less and it'll go away.

Is this a surprise?

1000% no. Big Brown missed significant training time last fall and winter with other hoof problems, none of which were life- or career-threatening, but all of which interrupt training. Many people thought that the quick spacing of races in the Triple Crown sequence may exacerbate his propensity for achy feet; this seems to have been right.

Does this alter his schedule at all?

If this were pretty much any other horse, odds are s/he would get a few weeks out to let the crack heal and point for a later race. But this is a Triple crown bid. He'll miss a few days or a week of training and be back to his usual routine by mid- to late-week.

Will this effect him in the Belmont?

Ah, the key question. His trainer Dick Dutrow insists it'll make no difference. The owners are saying the same thing and his vet is talking a big game. Still, it's worth looking at a pair of similar recent instances of favorites with hoof issues:

2003: Empire Maker is the 2-1 Derby favorite off two strong Grade I wins, including a measured win over Funny Cide in the Wood. In the week preceding the Derby, he develops a foot bruise, missed some training, and trainer Bobby Frankel deems him "fine". On the big day, Empire Maker runs 2nd in the Derby, barely beating the inferior Peace Rules and fails to threaten the winning Funny Cide. Was it the hoof? Maybe. 5 weeks later, Empire Maker, fully healed, returns in the Belmont and beats Funny Cide convincingly.

1996: The extremely talented Unbridled's Song enters the Derby as a stark favorite with myriad foot issues that cause him to miss training time. He runs fantastically for 9 furlongs, only to run out of steam by the eighth pole and finish fifth. While some would argue he was questionable at the distance anyway and trainer Jim Ryerson was in over his head, it's pretty clear he was not fully amped and able to win because of his feet.

So where does this leave Big Brown? While it doesn't improve his chances to have a minor injury, it's overstating its severity to say it makes winning impossible. Observe how much training he misses carefully, and not just jogging (like he did this morning). If he's not galloping 100% by the weekend, it's then time for the connections of Denis of Cork to get excited. In the meantime, here are our revised antepost odds:

Big Brown......1-1
Casino Drive......2-1
Denis of Cork......4-1
Tale of Ekati.......15-1
Anal Nakal..........20-1
Macho Again......50-1
Tomcito..............50-1
Ready's Echo......50-1
Ichabad Crane.....75-1
Behindatthebar....75-1
Spark Candle.........100-1

Wow

Five wins, 39+ lengths in front of the vanquished competition, and if Kent Desormeaux had tried in either the Derby or Preakness, that number could be closer to 50. This is one talented horse and one crappy group of 3 year olds he's beating. And now we go to Belmont for the Triple Crown. Here are the Gazette's morning line odds:

Big Brown............3-5
Casino Drive........4-1
Denis of Cork.......6-1
Tale of Ekati........8-1
Macho Again.......30-1
Icabad Crane......50-1
Anak Nakal.........50-1
Tomcito...............100-1

Coming up in the next fortnight or so, the three-part Belmont Stakes preview. Is Big Brown the next Seattle Slew, or the next Real Quiet?

2008 Preakness Preview: Dominance Repated?

The years on the calendar may change, but the Preakness storylines always stay the same. Every year after the Derby, we have a winner atop the 3-year-old class, followed by one of four reactions to his win and his chances to take the Triple Crown:

1. What the hell happened?!??!? This comes when you have a titanic upset in the Derby that takes pretty much everyone by surprise. Examples of this include Charismatic (1999), War Emblem (2002) and Giacomo (2005). Everyone thinks that the Triple Crown is a pipe dream. While Giacomo went on to do absolutely nothing for the rest of his career, it's notable that the other two managed to follow up their Derby upsets with Preakness wins, only to flop in the Belmont.

2. Yeah he won, but so what? This is the common reaction for a result that's an upset but not really that big an upset or a horse that was more professional than brilliant in winning the Derby. Recent examples are Real Quiet (1998) and Funny Cide (2003). Nobody's dismissing the Triple Crown after the win, but certainly nobody's thinking it's going to happen either. It's notable again that both of these horses, with considerably less hype than you'd think, won the Preakness with relative ease only to once again come up short in the Belmont.

3. Impressive. Do it again. Usually goes to a horse that looked quite good winning the Derby and was very pickable beforehand, but comes with the caveat that the racing public knows the challenge he's got ahead of him, often because of a looming nemesis still in contention who didn't fire his best shot on Derby day. This group includes Silver Charm (1997), Monarchos (2001), Smarty Jones (2004), and Street Sense (2007) . Nobody's sold on the Triple Crown, but everyone thinks that it's a possibility if they can put forward more similar efforts because clearly the talent is there. For what it's worth, only Silver Charm repeated in the Preakness, and he only did so because Touch Gold had a trip from hell.

4. We have the next Secretariat! Everyone's ready to anoint the Derby winner as the Triple Crown heir apparent because of a dominant win in Louisville. The recent examples of this are Fusaichi Pegasus (2000) and Barbaro (2006), and it goes without saying that Big Brown falls into this category as well. People are already pointing towards his potential Belmont matchup with Casino Drive as the next coming of Affirmed-Alydar while ignoring the fact that he has to win on Saturday at Pimlico. And it's worth noting that while the press had given FuPeg and Barbaro the Triple Crown after their scintillating Derby winners....both lost the Preakness.

I'm not going to pour on Barbaro's grave, except to note he would have had a helluva time beating Bernardini in the Preakness had he kept running, because Bernardini was an absolute freak and ran his eyeballs out in the Preakness. So let's instead focus on a not-bad comparison for Big Brown: Fusaichi Pegasus, who was dubbed Super Horse before and after the Derby. Check out some of the comments from the press and racing world in 2000:

BALTIMORE - Today's running of the Preakness is all about Fusaichi Pegasus. This may be as close to a one-horse race as you can get. (Boston Globe)

Beyer said if it wasn't the Preakness, he wouldn't have wagered on a race with such a strong favorite like Fusaichi Pegasus. But he felt inclined to get involved in the middle jewel, even though he can't bet against Fusaichi Pegasus. "Nobody is going to take a shot against him," Beyer says. "He is a justified 1-5 favorite. Picking someone in a win is a stretch." (ESPN.com)

BALTIMORE -- Trainer Bob Baffert, never more than a length away from a wisecrack, knows how Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi Pegasus can lose the Preakness: Load him in the gate backward. "These other horses are going to have to run the race of their lives," said Baffert, who won the Derby and Preakness with Silver Charm (1997) and Real Quiet (1998). "This Derby winner is an extraordinary horse." (AP)

Come Preakness day, with the grounds a veritable pea soup from a rainstorm, the somewhat-heralded Red Bullet upset FuPeg, who would only win one more race in his brief career. And with rain in the forecast for Pimlico on Friday (and possibly Saturday), it begs the question: is there a Red Bullet in this field?

Without further ado, let's run down the contenders in this year's Preakness in the reverse order of their likelihood to win. While I do note that the horses I picked to finish 12th and 17th ran 1-2 in the Derby, let's ignore that and focus on my sterling pick of Curlin last year.

My Trainer Hates Me

13. Yankee Bravo. His best performance to date was an exceedingly slow win in the California Derby on a synthetic surface. Top off the fact he's slow as all hell with the fact he's not bred to get a mile, let alone the Preakness distance, and he's tough to endorse.

12. Riley Tucker. Stepped up enormously in his last race...over Polytrack. Taking that out of the equation, he's shown nothing on the dirt to indicate he belongs in a Grade 3 race, let alone the Preakness.

11. Kentucky Bear. His trainer's been hyping him to no end since his first start. He backed that up with a nice maiden win...and a scintillating 7th place finish in the Fountain of Youth behind a bunch of horses that have done nothing. And the two horses that ran in front of him in the Blue Grass came back to run 9th and 20th in the Derby. This is roughly the equivalent of DeShawn Stevenson's guarantee, only if it came against the Lakers. Next...

10. Icabad Crane. He's the only starter that's got a race over the track. As for his other merits, I'm going to be kind and say nothing, because there are none. More to the point, why would a jockey ride a horse named after The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? Wouldn't superstition keep you far far away from anything that would even reference your potential decapitation?

Longshots to Finish in the Exotics

9. Tres Borrachos. He's been beaten pretty soundly by both the aforementioned Yankee Bravo, who stinks, and Gayego, who's also in this race. There's the remote chance that he could get an easy lead and hang on for the show spot, but I think there's going to be a little more pace in this race than everyone else thinks.

8. Behindatthebar. He'll take a ton of action because of the Pletcher factor and because he won nicely in his last race, the Lexington over Polytrack. Problem is that he beat nobody of note in that race and looks to be a synthetic track fiend. There's also something a tad bizarre about the fact that Pletcher isn't going to his first call jockey, John Velazquez, here. Yes, his current jock (David Flores) isn't bad and rode him in all his victories, but you'd think if the trainer thought he had a real contender he'd do what he could to get him in the race. [Update: he's been scratched with a bruised hoof, and will point to the Belmont. --ElAngelo]

7. Giant Moon. Had trouble getting by Court Vision in his last race, who was up the track in the Derby. Tough to see how he'd improve here; the only benefit in his corner is that he's by Giant's Causeway, which is offset by his damsire being a sprinter. Looks like a great contender for the Mike Lee Stakes next month.

6. Hey Byrn. One of the three horses in this race to have a graded stakes win on the dirt (along with Gayego and Big Brown), his last meeting with Big Brown resulted in him getting trounced by 15 lengths. He rebounded somewhat to win the Holy Bull stakes at the Preakness distance, but he actually ran slower in that race than he did in his two earlier wins this year. He's going to be overbet because of his kinda-gaudy record, which is based on a couple of allowance races, and given his horrendous post (#13), he's a nice bet-against.

Exotic Hopefuls

5. Racecar Rhapsody. This horse's chances of winning should be somewhere around 50-1, as he really hasn't come that close in his last few starts against lesser company. However, he's a stone closer in a race with a fair amount of speed, and his breeding suggests he'll actually like the distance. He's a great filler for exactas, trifectas, and superfectas, and may actually help raise the prices a little bit.

4. Macho Again. One of the tougher reads in the field, as he fits speed-figure wise with Gayego off his last race, a scintillating win in the Derby Trial. Still, it's worth bearing in mind that he got an absolute dream trip in that race and now adds 3 furlongs in distance. There's a chance he's getting good at the right time. There's also a chance that he's just not that good--both starts in graded stakes races were absolute stinkbombs. Tough to leave out of triples, but also tough to love.

3. Stevil. Interesting sleeper horse. Zito's been touting this guy as one of his best all year, but the results haven't really shown on the track. His loss in the Blue Grass was a decent but not great Polytrack effort, but what stands out is his race prior to that, where he made a fair move in the Louisiana Derby, only to have horrendous traffic trouble. Top that off with some nice workouts since his last, and we may have a horse here with some upside. Not enough to catch Big Brown, but enough to consider a top-3 finish.

The Potential Upsetter

2. Gayego. More than once in the next 72 hours, you're going to hear comparisons between this horse and Louis Quatorze, who ran 16th in the 1996 Derby only to bounce back and win at Pimlico at 8-1 on Preakness day. That does provide some historical precedent from bouncing back from a bad Derby effort, but it's the exception, not the rule. Since Louis Q., the other horses that rebounded from Derby losses to win the Preakness were Point Given (5th in the Derby), Afleet Alex (3rd) and Curlin (3rd). Still, this horse is worth thinking about because he's shown the ability to pop at triple digit Gowanus Speed Figure, does have good tactical speed that might give him first run on Big Brown, and was taken out of all consideration in the Derby about 1/4 mile into the race. I'm still not wild about his breeding at this distance, but he's a lot more proven than the other 11 challengers in this race, and if Big Brown regresses enough, he's really the only plausible candidate to fill the Red Bullet role.

The Pick

1. Big Brown. Yeah, this is about as interesting as watching paint dry. But unless he trips up because of weather or his achy feet, or Gayego moves about 10 lengths forward, it's almost impossible to see how he's going to lose this race. I still don't think he's as super as everyone else does, but he's miles better than this execrable field. Sorry kids.

How to Play the Race

If you're at Pimlico on Saturday, between your Miller Lites, consider playing a Pick 3 or Pick 4 that ends in the Preakness, as you can either single Big Brown with confidence or take a stab at boxcar payoffs with Gayego or if you're really crazy, one of the other horses. If you're being more simple, I'd look to key BB and Gayego in the top 2 spots of triples and supefectas, and spread with some of the longer shots (Stevil, Racecar Rhapsody) underneath. Even with BB on top, it could still pay over $500 if the right horses come in.

Good luck to all!

[Update: 5/16, 10:31 am: Behindatthebar has been scratched with a bruised hoof. Annoying, as he was going to take a lot of money relative to his chances. Sigh. The guys at East Coast Bias are all over this race as well.]

2008 Kentucky Derby Preview Part II: The Also-Rans

The details have been parsed, the pretenders have been culled, and the post positions have been drawn. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our potential field of twenty for the 2008 Kentucky Derby!

When we say 'potential', we mean that in every sense of the word. As the entries are drawn a good 72 hours before the race starts, there's an excellent chance that a horse may 'scratch' beforehand and be withdrawn from the race. Normally, this happens as a precautionary measure, when a horse isn't eating right, spikes a fever, is walking gingerly in the morning, or something else to indicate that he isn't 100%. While you want to see your horse in the Derby, and it's tough to come within 3 days of the start only to back out, you certainly do not want to go into the race with anything shy of a horse at his peak.

But this year we may face another type of scratch: the strategic scratch. Last employed in 2002 when Danthebluegrassman was entered to keep out the immortal Sunday Break (a horse I liked and who won absolutely nothing of consequence), this year we have Eight Belles who's entered both the Derby and its female counterpart, the Kentucky Oaks. The Oaks is run on Friday, and as of right now, with Eight Belles having drawn the 6 post in the Derby, it's likely she'll run in the Derby, as her owner and trainer have said all along they'd only scratch her from the Derby if her post sucked.

Over the last few weeks, this has drawn a fair amount of ire and consternation from owners and the racing media, who'd like to institute an "also eligible" list. On most racedays, if a race is oversubscribed, the racing secretary will make an AE list with the horses that weren't good enough or lucky enough to draw into the field, but that will be eligible to run in the event of a scratch. Plenty are calling for the same in the Derby, so the connections of Halo Najib don't get the short end of the stick because Eight Belles drew a bad post.

Yet, you have to ask what the upside is here, besides giving gamblers another horse to throw into the mix. There are already over 93,000 superfecta combinations possible in a 19-horse field; to expand it to 116,000, while a seemingly huge difference, isn't that big a deal when you realize the 20th horse to be entered will more likely than not be the longest shot in the field. (Halo Najib would probably be 50-1 this year.) Furthermore, the Derby is already the largest race in America in terms of field size, and every year, half the field emerges from the race traumatized, beaten up and never quite the same. Reducing the field size for this race isn't a bad thing, and reducing it by one horse that was already on the margins of qualifying certainly isn't a negative. If you're good enough to be in the race, prove it by performing well in the six months before the Derby, and you won't have to worry about whether a horse like Eight Belles is scratching.

On that note, let's turn to the annual countdown of Derby horses from least to most likely to win the race. If you're looking for a treatment of what types of qualities a horse needs to win the Derby, check out last year's essay on the subject. For today, we examine those horses that I believe to be the outsiders in this year's field.

Don't Get Hurt Out There!

20. Anak Nakal. In his favor, he's got a win over the track. Sadly, that's also true for half the field, and there's the small matter that he's the slowest horse in the field. I think that trumps any local success.

19. Z Humor. Don't confuse him with Z Fortune, who's also running in the Derby, and has twice as much talent. I would guess about $75,000 will be bet on him by drunken pinheads confusing the two steeds. This one stinks, despite being trained by Bill Mott, one of the best in the business.

18. Big Truck. His only win of note was when 2 year old champion War Pass stopped running about 3 furlongs into the Tampa Bay Derby and he beat a bunch of slowpokes. Prior to that, he lost the New York-bred championship race, which is considerably easier than this.

17. Eight Belles. Fillies can win the Derby. Just not fillies that haven't had any experience against the boys, haven't prepped at a mile and an eighth and haven't shown they're anything special to begin with. Frankly, I'd pick her to lose the Kentucky Oaks, and those horses aren't as fast as these. For all those that want to compare her to either last year's Belmont winner Rags to Riches or 1988 Derby champ Winning Colors, the correct comparison is Three Ring, who had a similar profile, took on the boys in 1999 (also a poor crop), and ran dead last.

16. Smooth Air. He ran second to phenom Big Brown in the Florida Derby and was half a dozen lengths clear of the third place horse, after pulling off a mild upset to with the Hutchinson Stakes, and is trained by a great old-timer in Bernie Stutts, who's kinda like your crotchety grandfather. Unfortunately, the best horse Smooth Air beat in the Florida Derby was the winner of the Peruvian Triple Crown, which isn't exactly a building block for the Derby. There are also reports that he hasn't been feeling well this week. While Michael Jordan could beat the Jazz with the flu, this would be the equivalent of Kyle Korver toppling the Lakers while sick with dysentery.

Pace Casualties

15. Bob Black Jack. The modestly-bred California shipper has been setting the pace in routes out West and getting run down by more stoutly-bred colts. Not only is he going from Polytrack to dirt, he's going about 3 furlongs beyond his optimal distance. Can't see him being anywhere near the front come the quarter pole, but I can see him ensuring a swift pace and ruining the chances of the other horses in this section. However, unlike the others in this field, he has a doppelganger in a Croatian Old English Sheepdog, which is much cooler than he is.

14. Cowboy Cal. Front-runner that did well on a synthetic surface, simply proving the truism that turf runners do well on artificial surfaces. He couldn't hold off his stablemate Monba at a shorter distance under absolutely no pace pressure. It's unlikely he'll move forward off his last, and you have to think we'll see him in the Virginia Derby next month, where he stands a better chance.

13. Recapturetheglory. From the connections that brought you Risen Star's meteoric rise in 1988, we have the Illinois Derby winner who wired the field after slowpoke fractions. I would rank him lower except for the War Emblem Factor: much like the 2002 Derby winner, he's being dismissed as an early speed toss-out by most (including me) based on pedigree and past results. (Let's just hope this guy doesn't have the same mating issues that War Emblem had.) But if there's a rail bias and he gets an easy lead, much like in 2002, there's a real chance he could wire the field, because he's not without talent. Unfortunately, between his poor post draw and the other contenders, that's not likely.

12. Big Brown. We've been here before: a horse that's freakishly fast, gorgeous and talented in a field that's uninspiring-to-okay with connections that have a checkered past. All the naysayers say he can't get it done because he's too lightly raced, bucking history, blah blah blah. All the rest say he's a cinch because he's the best horse and has the most talent.

Here's why I say we've been here before: we had this exact same scenario last year with Curlin. Curlin had run three times in the winter/spring of 2007, and came into the race with the best speed figures and upside in the race. Everyone, including me, screamed that he couldn't win because of Apollo's Curse, because he didn't have 5 starts, etc. And what happened? He ran a helluva race....to finish third behind the more experienced Street Sense and Hard Spun. And while he ran well, he wasn't really close to the top two. The race served as a building block to the rest of his excellent campaign, which culminated in a Breeders Cup Classic win and the title of Horse of the Year.

The biggest difference this year (besides the fact that he ran once as a 2-year-old, which is offset a lot by the fact he only ran twice this year and thrice overall) is that there doesn't appear to be anyone as good or as fast as Street Sense or Hard Spun this year. Yet. Plenty of horses have jumped up on Derby Day to run a lot faster simply because 3-year-old horses are still growing and maturing. And even if this is a weak crop, that doesn't compensate for the fact that this horse is light on experience, has beaten only one horse in the field this year (Smooth Air), is going to have to contend with a fairly quick pace, isn't really bred to be a 10 furlong dirt horse, drew the outside post, has hoof issues, AND has proven absolutely nothing on dirt outside of Gulfstream Park, a track that's notorious for having horses either love it or hate it. I cannot, cannot, cannot see him overcoming all of that simply because his competition isn't as strong as you'd like and because the press is desperately looking for the next Secretariat.

Big Brown may be the best horse in this class. Big Brown may be the fastest horse in this class. Big Brown may win Horse of the Year. This does not mean he will win the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, and at 3-1, he will be a hideous wager. Bet against on Saturday, and look for him to come back stronger in his subsequent races.

Coming Tomorrow: the contenders!