Breeders Cup Preview Part I: The Forgotten Horse?

We're three weeks out from the Breeders Cup, which means it's time to start taking stock in the quality of the fields and getting some general ideas about the potential runners. Let's start the process by looking at a horse that may get overlooked in the big race, the Classic.

So far the Classic has taken a beating in the horse racing media, and they haven't even drawn the field yet. Sea of Stars, who was hailed as the best European horse since Mill Reef, retired after the Arc despite being perfectly healthy. The best horse in America, Rachel Alexandra, has called it a year, having beaten every three year old of note and all the east coast dirt horses that are any good. The next best storyline, the undefeated filly Zenyatta, may or may not decide to take on the boys in the Classic, and even if she does, she'll be overbet based on her record.

Turning to the probable favorites in the Classic beyond Zenyatta and it stays a little dicey. In the wake of two Euros making up last year's Classic exacta, the favorites on everyone's tongue are Aidan O'Brien's pair of accomplished milers, Rip van Winkle and Mastercraftsman. While clearly they can win, they're going to be 2-1 and 5-1 respectively, and offer no paramutuel appeal. Summer Bird, winner of the Belmont, Travers and Jockey Club Gold Cup, is a nice horse, but hasn't won anything outside of New York and has trained like garbage over synthetic tracks. American turf sensation Gio Ponti should be competitive with his usual effort, but his previous efforts on synthetics are unimpressive. California mainstays like Colonel John, Tiago and Richard's Kid do not exactly get the pulse racing. And the top East Coast older horses like Macho Again and Bullsbay look to be too slow.

However, still lurking out there is a colt that once made headlines and has since disappeared from the public's eye....


...this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird.

We know, we're the same guys that ranked him 20th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby, where all he did was rally from DAF'ing last to win by the largest margin since Assault. What's he been doing since then, for those of us who haven't been paying attention?

Preakness: Mine That Bird loses jockey Calvin Borel to Rachel Alexandra and picks up Mike Smith as his new rider. Perhaps as a result of the bad karma that came with Smith (his ex-girlfriend, Chantal Sutherland, was MTB's regular rider in Canada), Mine That Bird runs a huge race, but doesn't get a great trip and has to settle for second behind Rachel Alexandra. Arguably, it's more impressive than his Derby win.

Belmont Stakes: Calvin Borel has one of the odder weeks for a jockey. Even though he's based out of Kentucky and is not particularly familiar with the Belmont surface, Borel takes the entire week of the Belmont off and doesn't ride a single race at the track until the Stakes. Bad idea. He fails to appreciate how quirky Belmont's enormous turns are and misses a pronounced rail bias, makes a premature move in the turn with MTB, who flattens out to run third to Summer Bird and Dunkirk. It's unclear if he would have won with a better ride but he certainly would have had a shot if Borel knew how to ride at Belmont.

West Virginia Derby: Eschewing the big early August races (the Jim Dandy and Haskell), the connections of MTB send him to bucolic Chester, West Virginia to run in the West Virginia Derby for a seemingly easier paycheck. Wrong. Sent off at 9-10 odds, he gets the quick pace he wanted, but Mike Smith, back in the irons, sends him after the leaders way too early, and he has nothing left for the stretch run as he settles for third place. This prompts the connections to decide to take off the rest of August and September, and have one prep for the Breeders Cup:

Goodwood: With Borel back in the saddle, MTB sets in at dead last about 12 lengths off the lead, and runs 6th. Oddly, this was his best race since the Preakness. He wasn't asked to move until 2 furlongs out, and did respond, albeit not with rocket speed. He closed nicely into a moderate pace and looked like a horse that needed the race to "tighten" up for a big spot. (As noted by Steve Crist, Zenyatta, who ran that same day, would have lost to him.)

So where does this put him for the Breeders Cup Classic? Well, there's still no guarantee he likes a synthetic track; he ran dead last in the Breeders Cup Juvenile last year, and Borel's comments after the Goodwood weren't that inspiring. What is true, though, is that we can expect a fair pace in the Classic this year and the extra furlong will be to his benefit. We're not sure he can win. But you're getting a horse that likes the distance, likes the race shape, and may be peaking at 15-1 or possibly higher. Is he the answer we're looking for? He just may be.

2009 Belmont Stakes Preview

The big story from this year's Belmont isn't who's running, it's who's not running. Despite winning the Kentucky Oaks and Preakness, thrusting herself well ahead of the pack in Horse of the Year discussion, Jess Jackson and Steve Asmussen have decided to keep super filly Rachel Alexandra out of the Belmont, doing "what's best for the horse." Which is refreshing.

But maybe it's also because winning the Belmont Stakes this decade has been something of a curse to a horse's later career. Since Lemon Drop Kid took home the carnations in 1999, Belmont winners have been an astoundingly bad 3-for-23 in their post-Belmont career. A quick run-through:

2000: Commendable upsets the Belmont at 18-1 in a brilliant ride by Pat Day. It's his second and final career win, as he drops his next four starts.

2001: Arguably the best horse to run this decade, Point Given romps in the Belmont, then comes back to win the Haskell and Travers, and is subsequently retired with an injury. Had he come back as a four year old, he may have been one of the more dominating older horses we've seen this side of Invasor.

2002: Sarava shocks the world by winning the Belmont at 70-1. He shocks nobody by finishing out of the money in his next four starts.

2003: Empire Maker gets revenge for his Derby loss, and then follows that up with a loss in the Jim Dandy at 1-5. He's then retired after a minor injury, given that his stud value has gone through the roof.

2004: Birdstone pulls off a surprise win over Smarty Jones at 36-1, then follows that up with a Travers win. For some reason, he's laid off until the Breeders Cup (where he loses), and is retired to stud. This is odd simply because he was owned by Marylou Whitney, who didn't exactly need the money, and because he wasn't a hot sire prospect.

2005: Afleet Alex wins by a football field over the immortal Andromeda's Hero. It's his final start, as he's ushered off to the breeding shed.

2006: Jazil beats a fairly motley group of horses (only 1 horse behind him, Bluegrass Cat, was actually any good) for his second and final career win. He follows it up with two second place finishes the following year and a dead-last finish on the turf before being retired.

2007: Rags to Riches takes the entire summer off after winning one "for the girls", and loses her comeback race to Lear's Princess. It's the last we see of her.

2008: Da'Tara pulls off a 39-1 gate-to-wire shocker, and has lost all 6 races since then.

Is there a common theme here? Not quite, but you could argue that the explanations fall into three categories:

• The horse wasn't any good to begin with. This explains the big upset winners (Commendable, Sarava, Da'Tara), and to a large extent, Jazil, who really just took advantage of a good ride and good fortune against a Grade II field. While 2006 was one of the best classes of 3yos we've seen in a while thanks to Bernardini, Barbaro, Discreet Cat, Showing Up, Corinthian and Lawyer Ron, note that none of these horses were in the Belmont.

• The horse was injured. This knocked Rags to Riches out. The question is whether the Belmont was the cause of her injury.

• The stud deals were too good to pass up. Say goodbye to Empire Maker, Afleet Alex, Point Given and Birdstone for that reason. All but Birdstone also suffered minor injuries in their 3yo season, which were good pretexts for retiring early.

What this tends to show is that the Belmont is both grueling and lucrative. A win can mean a bonanza at stud, so long as you're not an inconceivable longshot. But it also may mean that your career may be cut short...unless, of course, you're a gelding, like Mine That Bird.

So who's going to be cursed this year? Let's run the entries down this year from worst to first. As a side note, we're going to try to live blog the Belmont tomorrow, but won't be getting there until the 4th race or so. Go Bimini.

Tough to See Winning

10. Luv Gov. Now that everyone is ripping off our exclusive coverage of Marylou Whitney's droll sense of humor, this horse is infamous. The problem is that he can't run that fast, and will be hard pressed to finish in the top half of the pack.

9. Brave Victor. The first of Nick Zito's two horses, this guy's the closer that clunked up for third in the Peter Pan last out. Given that the winner of the Peter Pan is someone we don't like (we'll get to him in a minute) and the runner up look like garbage in the Met Mile, it's tough to endorse him, the show finisher.

8. Flying Private. While he ran 4th in the Preakness, there wasn't a single point in the race where he looked like he was a threat to run better than fourth. And while he established a new top Gowanus Speed Figure in his last, it's more than a little bizarre that almost the entire Preakness field established a new top figure in the race. That's generally indicative of a bad figure, so downgrade his last by 5-8 points. Doing that makes him too slow and uninteresting.

7. Summer Bird. Going from Chris Rosier to Kent Desormeaux is arguably the biggest jockey change in the history of this race, so long as Kent doesn't pull this guy up in the stretch as well. The jock switch doesn't change the fact that this lightly raced colt owns nothing more than a maiden win and a clunk up third that looks even less impressive on review: Old Fashioned exited the Arkansas Derby with an injury, while Papa Clem has firmly established himself as mediocre. Some are touting this horse for a short at a price; we see him as, at best, exotics filler, but more likely overrated.

The Sucker Play

6. Charitable Man. The probable second choice in the race (our guess is he'll be around 5-2), he's a fantastic bet-against. His supporters will note that he's undefeated on dirt, 2-for-2 at Belmont, blah blah blah. The truth is he has no 2-turn experience (outside of a polytrack disaster), and his last race wasn't as good as it seemed, given that he had a perfect trip behind an intractable front-runner and no good horses behind him. To make matters worse, every trainer is well aware that he's a threat, to the point where they see him as the horse to beat. Shouldn't that be good? No. In a rider's race, a horse with tactical speed can get ridden to death by smart jockeys. It happened to Funny Cide, Smart Jones and to some extent, Big Brown. Look for it to happen again here.

The Interesting Price Plays

5. Mr. Hot Stuff. Well that was helpful. As noted in our Preakness preview, the Derby did little to tell us whether synthetics surface horses will do well on dirt because of the slop factor. Then came the Preakness, and Pioneerof the Nile flopped miserably. Does that damn this guy to also-ran status? Not necessarily. We like the extra time off and the fact that he was improving with every race until the Derby. He's probably not fast enough to win the race, but he's a must use "underneath".

4. Miner's Escape. Horse with early speed trained by Nick Zito that just ran well in his last at Pimlico and will be a square price...any of this sound familiar? Yeah, he's very similar to last year's upsetter, Da'Tara. We like him to be addressing the pace early and giving Charitable Man fits. Will he still be around at the end? Depends a lot on how the other horses run; if they're just off his flank, we don't love his chances, but if they let him and Charitable Man run a bit, he could sneak off with the race before anyone catches him. Intruiging price play for your Pick 3's.

Chief Contenders

3. Mine That Bird. We'd be very surprised if this guy was off the board, as he's turned out to be a pretty honest horse with a good late run. But we'd also be surprised if he's the winner. Why? Simple: dead closers do NOT traditionally fare well in the Belmont, because of the deep sandy track, the wideness of the turns, and the long homestretch. Grinders and pace pressers fare much better. There hasn't been a winner that's come from more than 10 lengths back in well over a decade, and the only "closer" this decade, Jazil, was less than 3 lengths out of it halfway through the race. While his trainer is saying that he'll be closer to the pace, we doubt they mean that he'll be that close to the front. He should be coming late (a la Denis of Cork last year), but arrive too late to win.

2. Chocolate Candy. He should be able to get first run on the rest of the field if the two front runners wilt. The big questions though remain: does he like dirt? Is he fast enough? Is he bred to go the distance? We're pretty sure the answer to the last question is yes (Candy Ride oiut of a Seattle Slew dam), and we think he's fast enough, there's just the nagging question of whether he'll translate well to the fast dirt. Given that he didn't totally pitch it in the Derby, and is working out well, we'll say yes and use him aggressively.

The Pick

1. Dunkirk. Anyone remember who the second choice in the Derby was? Oh right, this guy, who was everyone's favorite potential freak coming into the race. And the reason he wasn't the favorite was the same reason he was uncompetitive in the Derby: the mud. The slop elevated the excreable Friesan Fire to the role of favorite, and by all accounts (watch his replay), kept him from running even a passable race. It's a classic toss-out race. When you throw that race away, you're left with the horse who has the best GSF, good breeding (we're not crazy about Unbridled's Song at 12 furlongs, but if Northern Afleet can sire a classic winner, anything's possible), perfect connections, and has the most upside of anyone in the field. When in doubt, we side with the potential superstar. That's Dunkirk.

For those of you looking to make some plays on the fantastic undercard on Belmont day, we like Fabulous Strike in the True North, My Princess Jess in the Just a Game, Munnings in the Woody Stephens, Funny Moon in the Acorn, and Marsh Side in the Manhattan. Good luck and enjoy the day!

2009 Preakness Preview

Okay, a 50-1 shot (who was well over 100-1 in overseas books and exotics pools) won the Kentucky Derby. What do we make of this implausible upset?

After Mine That Bird's shocking victory in the Kentucky Derby, everyone has rushed to try to compare his victory to either Giacomo's win in 2005, Cannero II's victory in 1971, or Doneraile's 91-1 upset in 1913. Two of the three comparisons are utterly wrong. Doneraile may as well have run in the Middle Ages; the horse ran 62 times in his career. Giacomo, as previously noted, basically won by default on a day where Afleet Alex and Bellamy Road turned in subpar performances, and nobody else stepped up to the plate. While it wasn't surprising that Giacomo only won one other race after that, it also wasn't a shocker that he finished in the money in the Derby. Before the Derby, Giacomo had shown some ability in graded stakes races and head been keeping good company. We actually know people who bet Giacomo in trifectas and superfectas. By contrast, only person we know that cashed a ticket on Mine That Bird is Angelo's mother, who pulled out of a hat a $10 win ticket on the horse at a Derby party.

Cannonero II is an interesting comparison, because like MTB, he was dismissed based on losing races at crappier tracks (in Venezuela, for crying out loud), and shocked everyone by being better than thought on Derby Day. He carried this over to the Preakness, before flopping in the Belmont and having an undistinguished career afterward. The problem with the Cannonero II comparison is that there wasn't an obvious reason for the horse's win besides talent. Mine That Bird, by contrast, clearly took advantage of a muddy track and a superb ride from Calvin Borel. Had the track come up fast on Derby day, it's likely that Mine That Bird would have run well, but not won.

So what else did we learn from the Derby besides that Mine That Bird likes the slop and is a better horse than his PP's showed? Shockingly little. The muddy track clearly impacted other horses as well, as absolutely nobody showed any improvement in the race, and most horses regressed. It's very reminiscent of 2004, where a storm annihilated the track an hour before the race, and everyone besides Smarty Jones and Lion Heart ran like garbage as a result. Which makes handicapping the Preakness even harder, because we still have no real answers on our synthetic surface questions and are presented with some interesting new shooters this time.

So even though we flopped miserably on handicapping the Derby, let's turn the page and do a countdown for the Preakness. We note that we've picked the winner of the last two Preaknesses, meaning that the safe play is probably boxing the first four horses we eliminate. For the record, we're making these picks assuming the track is fast; if it rains, we'll update it the day of with some thoughts and changes.

Huh?

13. Flying Private. As we'll explore a little later, there's good reason to think the slop at Churchill Downs hid the true ability of at least one of the horses that ran in the Derby. This guy isn't him. To put it bluntly, he ran dead last in the Derby and was a longshot to begin with based on a career where he accomplished nothing. There's zero indication that he should improve by moving to Maryland. For all the hullabaloo over whether Rachel Alexandra would be excluded based on ringers being entered, people should be more focused on Lukas potentially ruining a perfectly decent horse in the Triple Crown, yet again.

The Wrong Newcomers

12. Tone it Down. This year's local hope for the scions of Maryland, he faded to third in the Federico Tesio stakes two weeks ago to finish behind the immortal Miner's Escape and Hehasnosay. His speed figures are slow enough that he's not competitive (then again, so were Mine That Bird's), but more problematically, he's outclassed and should get fried on the front end. Pass.

11. Luv Gov. If the name sounds familiar, it's because we briefly mentioned this guy last summer as one of two horses owned by racing doyenne Marylou Whitney that pays tribute to the erstwhile governor of New York. (Check out this piece, where Whitney's husband tries to admit that they don't hate Spitzer, and then commits a bigger party foul by admitting that they read the New York Post.) While he ran nicely breaking his maiden on the Derby undercard, there's good reason to think that was a function of the slop and no real reason to think he'll be competitive at this level.

10. Big Drama. A lot of people are giving this newcomer a big shot in the Preakness, but we're just not seeing it. He's been out once this year, where he crossed the finish line first in the Swale (at 7 furlongs, 2 1/2 shorter than the Preakness), but was DQ'd to second for bumping the runner up while tiring in the stretch. His previous successes were in Florida statebred races and at the Delta Jackpot, which is Louisiana's equivalent of the now-esteemed Sunland Derby. While Mine That Bird did teach us a lesson about scoffing at stakes at slots-fueled tracks, we still don't see much class in this horse. To top it off, he's an intractable front-runner and has pure sprint breeding (Montbrook out of a Notebook mare) that doesn't suggest he'll stay the distance against good horses. We like him as a toss-out, which is good, because he'll probably be around 8-1.

The Derby Repeaters

9. General Quarters. There appear to be two strategies for this horse: either send him to attend to the pace and have him try to waltz home after being near reasonable fractions, or have him make one run later, and watch him finish badly. Given that he probably can't survive a speed duel, and jockey Julian Leparoux is more known for patient rides (a la Pat Day, the Good Hands Man), it's more likely we'll see him at the rear of the field, and out of contention.

8. Friesan Fire. The beaten Derby favorite! While many will invoke Louis Quatorze, Point Given and Afleet Alex as examples of Derby underperformers that roubounded in the Preakness, we're against. We had an almost identical situation two years ago, where Circular Quay ran poorly in the Derby off a long layoff and then was rushed into the Preakness. How'd that fare? Poorly, he was well out of the money and looked like a short horse. Making FF's case worse, he's supposedly a slop monster, but did nothing in the soup at Churchill except get his beat up on his legs from contact with other horses while finishing next to last. As there's no indication that this horse is anything special away from Fairgrounds, we'll bet against until he proves us wrong, especially if he's 6-1 or so.

7. Musket Man. While we'd argue the slop changed the outcome for a lot of horses in the Derby, we're not so sure that's the case here, as this horse ran roughly what you'd expect him to run: a high 90's GSF while showing no punch in the stretch. It just so happened that because I Want Revenge scratched and nobody besides the winner ran a lick that this made him the show finisher. We're still unconvinced this guy wants any part of a route race, and while he'd be a fun horse to own, we think he's set here to regress and vacation until the late summer stakes races.

6. Mine That Bird. Yes, he's better than everyone thought. He's got some talent and his horrible rides in New Mexico clearly made him appear worse than he was. But it's impossible to dispute that he didn't get a perfect confluence of events on Derby day. A solid pace. A wet track. The scratch of I Want Revenge and Quality Road's withdrawal. A perfect ride by Borel. Luck when the rail was open pretty much the whole way around. Take away any of those things, and we're probably talking about a different winner of the Derby and he's this year's version of Sedgefield.

Is he going to get all of those breaks again? Clearly that's impossible, because Borel isn't riding him, and he instead gets salty veteran Mike Smith in the irons. While Smitty's a perfectly fine jockey and a Hall of Famer, we can't think of a single race where he was the difference between winning and losing. (And he's ridden Skip Away, Holy Bull and Zenyatta, for crying out loud.) Even worse, it's unlikely that we'll have a wet track again, and it's even less likely that he'll get a perfect rail-skimming trip . What's more likely is that his Preakness resembles Giacomo's: clunk up for a piece, but never threaten the winner.

5. Pioneerof the Nile. Minor and useless prediction: this horse, and not Mine That Bird, will be the second choice in the Preakness. He's a horrible idea at 5-2, as we still have zero proof that he can crack a 100 Gowanus Speed Figure, still hasn't proven he likes dirt, and is wheeling back off two weeks after having all his prior races strategically spread apart. It's unlikely he'll be at the back of the pack come the end of the race, but this is not the spot to jump on his bandwagon.

The Interesting Newcomers

4. Take the Points. Speedster from the Todd Pletcher barn with very obscure breeding (Even the Score out of a Fred Astaire mare?), this guy's an interesting read who may offer value underneath if he doesn't get fried on the front end. He possesses good tactical speed but isn't a need-the-lead horse (unlike, say, his stablemate Join in the Dance), and should be near the front. His last two dirt efforts were very good: a nice win in the mud, followed by a strong showing in an allowance race at Gulfstream. He followed that up with a pair of mediocre efforts on a synthetic surface, which Pletcher pretty clearly sent him to so to avoid Pletcher's other horses. Can he improve moving back to the dirt at 30-1? We say yes, and like him to round out superfectas.

3. Terrain. We've been waiting for this horse to get a dirt fast track for a while now, and we're finally going to get our wish. Too bad it's in the Preakness, where he might be a little outclassed. But our like for him is not dissimilar to our reasonsing for liking West Side Bernie in the Derby (yeah, that sucked, but shaddup): he hasn't had a fair shake to run well in a while. His Delta Jackpot race to close out 2008 was compromised by a moronic ride his jockey sucked him into a speed duel, making him fade. His Louisiana Derby and Blue Grass weren't awful, but they occurred, respectively, on slop and Polytrack, neither of which is probably his optimal surface. Finally, he's united with a competent rider, a fast track, and should get first run on the deep closers like Mine That Bird. Look for him to come flying late at a huge price.

2. Rachel Alexandra. Okay, we'll say it: Rachel Alexandra is this year's Big Brown. She's a very talented filly, but her reputation is beyond her accomplishments at the moment, given that she's won a whopping one Grade 1 race, her 20 1/4 length romp in the Oaks last out. And as pointed out by many (including Steve Crist), the field for the Oaks, like last year's Derby field, was atrocious. This makes it pretty tough to gauge if this girl is really a freak like everyone thinks or is simply another very good horse that got lucky that her competition stinks.

More to the point, she's being asked to do a lot here. Take on 12 other horses. Run back in two weeks time. Tend to a pace that should be somewhat brisk. Adjust to a new trainer (okay, this may not be a big factor). And for all this we're supposed to take 2-1 odds? Look, if she wins and she's the next Ruffian, Go For Wand, or even Surfside, we'll eat crow and admit it. But for now, she's a horrible play at short odds in the Preakness, and we're looking elsewhere for the win slot.

(As a total aside, Rick Reilly gets paid $3.5 million apparently to get the facts wrong. By no measure is Rachel Alexandra "the fastest racehorse in the world". Hell, she's not even the fastest filly in the world, that title would probably go to either Goldikova or Zenyatta. She's not "undefeated in four tries", she's 4-for-4 this year and is 7-for-10 life time. But hey, great job otherwise.)

The Pick

1. Papa Clem. We have no idea how much horses like Pioneerof the Nile were hurt by the slop. By contrast, we do know this guy was hurt by the slop. His Louisiana Derby was a definitively meh effort on a wet surface, which he followed up with a good win in the Arkansas Derby on a fast track (he improved by over 10 GSF points in between). Given that history, it wasn't really a surprise to see him run a meh 4th in the Derby in the mud, especially since he was slammed by Pioneerof the Nile in the stretch and may have finished 2nd with a slightly cleaner trip. It's not at all a stretch to think he'll return to his Arkansas Derby form, which would have everyone not named Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra playing catch up with him. Since we're against those two because of the lack of slop and the suspect nature of the filly's competition, he's the most logical pick, and should be a square price (8-1?).

Playing the Race

Once again, if you like anyone in this race, a win bet is a very good way to go, because everyone other than Rachel Alexandra should be an okay price, if not commensurate with their chances of winning. If you're looking for a 4-digit payday though, check out the races preceding the Preakness and look into Pick 3's an Pick 4's. Tossing Rachel Alexandra and Pioneerof the Nile will inflate the odds in the multi-race exotics tremendously, even if you catch a couple of favorites early on. And to make it formal, our official picks:

1. Papa Clem
2. Terrain
3. Take the Points
4. Rachel Alexandra

Good luck to all and enjoy the race!