Amy Steinmann Smith, a Capitol Hill vet, knows horses. As an avid rider and competitor, she’s always on top of the sport. So much so, over the past several years, she’s put together an unofficial Kentucky Derby Race Guide – a guide which has made many of her friends a few bucks. Her picks have become so popular, she now sends them out to a sizable email list.
With Amy’s permission, we’ve included her picks below.
Happy betting, but more importantly, happy drinking tomorrow.
Remember: It’s Cinco de Mayo tomorrow, if you don’t box “El Padrino” and “I’ll Have Another,” you’re doing something wrong.
Amy’s Derby Picks
I need to start my 2012 sheet by addressing the incredibly high expectations I am aware that my scrappy little prediction sheet has hanging over its head this year. Yes, I picked Animal Kingdom to win the Derby last year at post time odds of 21-1 and made myself and several fans of this prediction sheet a lot of extra spending money. I enjoyed the aftermath of this prediction sheet even more than I enjoyed my payout from Derby bets – the ‘thank you’ emails that came in from complete strangers and photographs of win tickets, drunken celebrations, etc.
But the downside of achieving a ‘big hit’ is the need to put in bold type this year my usual disclaimer. Let me take this moment to remind my longtime prediction sheet fans that I also said that Mine that Bird was an embarrassment to the Derby field who should never have left Mew Mexico and that Giacomo didn’t even belong in stakes competition. Some years, I’m just way off…and of course the nature of the Derby field itself is a factor there, because in a 20 horse field, the best horse often doesn’t get a chance to run his race. (I still think that Mine that Bird and Giacomo were freak occurrences that wouldn’t happen again if you re-ran the race 100 times. But I also still lost my money!)
Last year I thought that the Derby was ‘wide-open’ because although I felt confident enough to put my lot in on Animal Kingdom, I saw at least 5 or 6 other horses whose victory would not have shocked me. Normally I feel like I can ‘boil’ the field down to 3 or 4 horses, and so last year’s field did seem to have more ‘possibilities’ that usual as far as who a handicapper could visualize on the final tote board. This year makes last year’s Derby look like a cakewalk. There are so many legitimate contenders this year that I expect the exactas and trifectas to pay out handsomely – and I doubt that there will be any horse in this races whose odds are too short to make a win bet worthwhile. It’s a year for the gamblers, guys!
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Just a quick recap of what I look for in a Derby winner…
I place a lot of emphasis on good workouts over the Churchill Downs track leading up to the race. The Churchill surface is a somewhat unique, a lot of sand and clay, and is different that what a lot of these horses are used to. They either love it or they hate it. As a handicapper, I really don’t like it when trainers bring their horses intoLouisville for the Derby only days before the race and never do more than an easy gallop with them over the track. It’s a betting risk I usually don’t find worth taking.
As long as we’re talking about surfaces, we need to mention the issue of artificial surfaces, which are playing more and more of a role in U.S. racing and Derby handicapping. An artificial surface is basically ‘fake dirt’ comprised of polypropylene fibers, recycled rubber and silica sand covered in a wax coating. Some people believe that is that it is safer (more cushion) for the horses, and others believe it was a ruse to market a product. Fortunately for us in handicapping this year, there isn’t a single horse in the field who hasn’t at least tried the dirt. There are, however, a few who have tried it and not had a good experience – which leaves it to the handicapper to decide what to read into it.
I believe that a key element in this year’s Derby will be a strong pace. There are several horses in this field that prefer to be on or near the lead, and we have the sprinter Trinniberg entered whose connections have publicly acknowledged that their intent is to let the horse roll on the lead and hope he can sustain his speed for the distance (I’m quite confident that this will not work out well for Trinniberg – or any other horse that tries to stay with him.) A strong pace sets up well for horses who prefer to close at the end.
MY QUICK TOSSES
“LIKE A MCDONALDS EMPLOYEE WITH A MEGA MILLIONS TICKET” CAUCUS
TRINNIBERG
I’ll let the sound bites from our nation’s most recognizable sports writers and handicappers speak for me on this one. From Bill Finley: “He no more belongs in the Kentucky Derby than he does in the Daytona 500.” From the Bloodhorse’s Jason Shandler: “The horse has about as much chance as winning as I do.” Or my favorite from Daily Racing Form’s Mike Watchmaker. “Everything about Trinniberg shouts that the only way he can get the Derby’s 10 furlongs is with the assistance of a ride in a Sallee horse van.”
The only thing this horse will be good for on Saturday is the sprint to the lead off the first turn. Then you can watch him stop like he hit a brick wall at about the mile pole. Everything about this horse, from his pedigree to his race record, screams “sprinter”. We’ve seen this before – Derby fever-crazed connections entering their horse despite all logic and sanity, just to be part of the ‘Big Show.’ These horses usually wreak havoc on the race and the rest of the field by setting a pace that is suicidal for the mile and ¼ distance, and they not only scorch themselves but any other horse that tries to hang just off the pace. News flash to the owners of Trinniberg: You don’t have to set your talented sprinter up to be buried by the field at the top of the stretch to get box seats on Derby Day – some boxes are available to purchase.
SABERCAT
The entry of this horse into the Derby is another example of the abuse of the graded earnings list, where a horse with no business in the Kentucky Derby enters based singularly on the fact that he CAN. (The Derby field is capped at 20 horses, and eligibility to enter is determined by how much money they have won in graded stakes races.) Sabercat managed to win the casino-enriched purse money of the Delta Jackpot Stakes at Delta Downs in Vinton, Louisiana last year as a 2YO (What race? Where? Exactly.) His claim to fame since that fateful day at Delta Downs last November is that he is also your glorious 3rd place finisher in the Arkansas Derby, having trailed the winner Bodemeister across the wire by more than 10 lengths.
This year, the well-known thoroughbred website “The Paulick Report” has had a piece on Kenny Thomas, a ‘horse psychologist’ who analyzes each Derby contender and uses their ‘body language’ to provide readers with some feedback on the chances of each horse based on their ‘emotional conformation’. He calls this the “Thomas Herding Technique.” Mostly I enjoyed reading it for the entertainment value. He had favorable ‘readings’ about most of this year’s Derby entrants. But his one-line assessment of Sabercat made me laugh out loud: “Sabercat does reasonably well at a lot of things, but he’s not a powerhouse.” What gave it away, his beaten ‘body language’ as he crawled home behind Bodemeister in Arkansas or the mere fact that he has so far earned his money for oats and hay at Delta Downs? Maybe this guy is on to something!
ROUSING SERMON
This horse’s claim to fame and graded earnings ticket to the Derby was punched in the Louisiana Derby, where he was beaten soundly to finish 3rd to 109-1 shot Hero of Order, a horse that was not even nominated for the Kentucky Derby. The Louisiana Derby as a prep race was for the most part devoid of any real talent and even with such a lightweight field, this horse couldn’t deliver. His speed figures are consistently below the better half of this field and while he seems like he has a future as a hard-knocker in local, ungraded-type stakes races, he is just simply outclassed here.
OPTIMIZER
It’s not a real Kentucky Derby until trainer D. Wayne Luka shows up with something that has 4 legs with horseshoes attached and enough graded earnings to scrape into the bottom of the qualifier list. So here is Optimizer, who does indeed have 4 legs and horseshoes, and as of mid-week managed to hit the magic #20 on the graded earnings list.
He’s not an absolutely ridiculous entry…just the regular eye-rolling variety. He is certainly better than some prior Lukas specials (Flying Private, Deeds Not Words…) at least this one finished 2nd in a quasi-respectable stakes race this year (the Rebel, in March.) But this horse finished 9th in the Arkansas Derby and no one, not even his trainer, has an explanation for it. He has lovely breeding – a son of the decorated turf champion English Channel. And there maybe a clue here (hello???) in that Optimizer finished 1st and 2nd in his two tries on turf and 3rd on Keeneland’s turf-like Polytrack surface, but has run up the track in his subsequent 6 tries on dirt with the exception of his bobbing and weaving 2nd place finish in the Rebel. It is certainly the way of D. Wayne Lukas to try to fit a square peg into a round hole to make the Derby (Square peg = turf horse, round hole = Derby contender.)
LIAISON
Part of me wants to make a humorous quip here. Perhaps he’s Bodemeister’s barn buddy, like the palomino stable pony that went everywhere with Seabiscuit in the movie, and Baffert just thought his Derby favorite needed the companionship of his less-capable yet still-eligible-on-graded-earnings (see problem as identified in Sabercat’s summary above) stable mate. This team concept might work out OK for Liaison if this were a relay race. Or if he were actually the post pony, like the palomino in the movie. But nope, he’s actually going to line up in the starting gate on Saturday – and even more tragically, from the far outside 20-hole.
The part of me that doesn’t find this humorous is concerned for this horse and thinks the connections are doing him a real disservice. This was a promising 2YO. He was an undefeated colt with 4 wins (two stakes wins) when as the favorite in the Robert Lewis Stakes in February, his 3YO debut, he was smashed between two horses, clipped heels, and lost his rider. Physically he was fine, but he was so dull in his last two starts, failing to even hit the board, that I suspect his incident took a mental toll on him. At this elite level, a horse has to want to race, he has to want to weave through a pack of horses to get to the front. If he’s tentative about that, he’s going to prioritize protecting himself and run just enough to stay with the pack. I wish they’d give this horse some time off and bring him back slowly to see if his buttons can be reset.
“IF MINE THAT BIRD AND SUPERSAVER CAN DO IT, SO CAN I”
ALSO KNOWN AS IMPROBABLE WINNERS YOU CAN MAKE A CASE FOR…BUT I WON’T
DONE TALKING
I need to start this horse’s summary off by saying that I love his trainer, Hamilton Smith. Done Talking is a local horse, based at Laurel Park – and Hamilton Smith is a quiet-spoken man who loves the animals in his charge from the biggest horse in the barn down to his elderly barn cat, who is always in his lap while he’s sitting in his office. He often lists his horses with me when I do the CANTER volunteer runs, when he thinks it’s time to find them a new home or at least pitch to their owner(s) that they have an opportunity to place their horses who are failing to run well enough to pay the bills. Barns like Hamilton’s are the meat and potatoes of the racing industry, and the Cinderella stories of the Derby that you can’t help but root for. In Hamilton’s own words: “This is the first horse I’ve had that warranted coming to the Derby [in 36 years of training]. It’s awfully expensive to take the risk unless you have a deserving horse, and I haven’t had the kind of owners where money doesn’t matter.”
Despite my affinity for his connections, I have to look at his horse with a clear mind devoid of sentimentality. This horse is a Derby entrant because he pulled out a longshot win in the Illinois Derby, giving him the graded stakes earnings he needed to get into the field even though the final time was so slow that the horses were practically running backwards at the wire. He will have a long stakes career, I hope….in the Mid-Atlantic region. Places like Laurel, Delaware Park or Philly. This is a gritty little horse who can win, in the right company. And once in a while, when the chips are down for everyone else, he might pull off a shocker. He’s like Norfolk State in this year’s NCAA Tourney. He had a nice season playing teams/racing horses that are the equivalent of the “Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.” (Who? Exactly.) And if you throw him into the right pace scenario and other teams/horses don’t show up, he might take down Mizzou / win a G1 Stakes race. But don’t blow your bracket on the 2nd round. Everyone likes the Cinderellas, but no one picks them to win the entire Tourney. Especially 15 seeds. All that said, I will cry tears of joy for Hamilton Smith and the sport of racing in entirety if his horse upends my bets by getting into the winners circle – the same way most NCAA basketball fans would relish such an extreme underdog story of a team like Norfolk State sweeping the whole thing.
TAKE CHARGE INDY
This is your longshot winner of the Florida Derby. He set an easy, uncontested pace on a speed-favoring track and comfortably led throughout to cruise home in a sustained but unimpressive fashion while Union Rags rallied late after being boxed in on the rail until midway through the stretch. With Calvin Borel aboard for the Derby he’s sure to be bet down below what he should be, since everyone Borel is perceived to have magical powers at Churchill Downs. But hey, Borel’s signature weave-through-traffic and sneak-through-on-the-rail move won’t replicate when he’s riding a horse that wants to be up towards the front early. And if his horse is trying to hang just behind a suicidal “Trinniberg” pace, Borel can’t give the horse new legs to finish at the end. This horse has quality breeding with quality connections, but the Florida Derby was just the perfect setup and he certainly won’t have such an easy time of it on Saturday. Given his easy setup in Florida, he just hasn’t proven much.
PROSPECTIVE
This horse earned his way into the Derby field by winning the Tampa Bay Derby back in early March. This prep race seems irrelevant to the larger Derby picture because wasn’t any notable 3YO in the field he beat. Prospective really had a fight to the wire to win, and his victory earned him a meager 90 Beyer Speed Figure, his lifetime best. In an attempt to continue to move their horse forward, his connections entered him in the Blue Grass Stakes against some of the better horses of his generation, where he couldn’t hang with them and finished up the track. (This included the likes of Hansen and Dullahan, both of whom beat him by several lengths.) After the Blue Grass, even his connections wisely waivered on their commitment to take their horse to the Derby, but Derby Fever eventually overcame them and they showed up at Churchill, ready to run.
Although there don’t appear to be pedigree limitations here, this horse has not run well to date beyond 1 and 1/16 – a real strike in a field with several horses who have either won or finished strongly against top competition at a mile and 1/8. Given his dismal performance in the Blue Grass and his mediocre workout times, he just seems a cut below most of this field and perhaps underprepared for what he will encounter on Saturday.
DADDY LONG LEGS
This guy is your Irish entry – he has shipped across the pond as one of the top 3YOs in Europe, from the highly respected barn of Aiden O’Brien. Some will argue that this horse has interesting long shot potential, as he is the handy winner of the UAE Derby – which at a mile and 3/16 is further than any other horse in this field has run.
The UAE Derby is run on Tapeta, a type of artificial surface. With the exception of last year’s Breeders Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, all of Daddy Long Leg’s races were either on turf or artificial surface – and his Churchill appearance on dirt last year was an absolute bomb, an otherwise-inexcusable 12th place finish. Worse than a horse unproven on dirt is one that has been proven to lose on it. I seriously question this horse’s ability on dirt at this point and Aiden O’Brien did this horse no favors by waiting until Derby week to ship him from overseas, denying him even one real work over the Churchill surface. The Euros have been trying to win a Kentucky Derby for several years now and they haven’t mastered the art of preparing for it yet.
A gambler’s strategy when you hit the track at Charles Town Races or even Laurel Park is to look at the horses in the paddock and see which horses have their owners present and dressed respectively. Is the horse braided? Does he appear well-groomed? All of these are signs that there is an expectation that there might be a winner’s circle photo in the near future. Well, Daddy Long Legs might show up on Saturday looking shiny and groomed, but trainer Aiden O’Brien remained on his side of the pond to saddle a horse running in the Eng-G1 Two Thousand Guineas. Sure, the Guineas is a significant race…but it pales to the significance of the Kentucky Derby, worldwide. Would you have stayed home and missed the winners circle and celebrations if you were Aiden O’Brien? (And if you stayed home, is it a calculation that you are skeptical that such a scene would happen?) More often than not, the horses with question marks roll the dice in the Derby at the desires of owners, not the trainers.
“MOST LIKELY TO WRECK AMY’S 2012 TRIFECTA”
THE HORSES I AM DISREGARDING AT ADMITTED PERIL TO MY BETS
DULLAHAN
I struggled with my decision to leave him out of my isolated trifecta. His pedigree and closing style indicate that he should love the additional distance of the Derby and his win in the Blue Grass Stakes was visually impressive and earned him a respectable 98 Beyer figure. He is absolutely a legitimate contender, as are the rest of the horses in this section – but it’s not really gambling if you bet on them all, and I have one big reason for excluding him.
The Blue Grass Stakes is run on Keeneland’s Polytrack, an artificial surface which seems to play a lot like turf. He has run on dirt three times (all at Churchill) and those three races were all his worst, both in order of finish and speed figures. On paper, this horse sure seems to be much better on the turf or artificial surfaces. In his only real work between the Blue Grass and the Derby, he went “OK” at Churchill Downs but nothing eye-popping, and the video of his work shows a colt with his head up a bit too much, not on the bit or really digging into his work. There will be people who disagree with this analysis and say that his 4th place finish in the BC Juvenile wasn’t so bad (even though he was several lengths behind the top three – Hansen, Union Rags and Creative Cause, respectively) and that he’s used to Churchill because it’s his home track. Well, he might be ‘used to it’ but that doesn’t mean he can run as well on it.
Incidentally, this horse is a half-brother to Mine that Bird (both are out of the mare Mining My Own.) Nah, I didn’t use this as a strike against him. But given my affinity for Mine that Bird (note strong sarcasm here) it sure doesn’t make me want to root for him. This horse is better than his brother, but he will likely need time down the road to prove that. And probably some turf.
WENT THE DAY WELL
Team Animal Kingdom returns! Went the Day Well is owned by Team Valor, trained by Graham Motion and ridden by John Velasquez – the same connections as last year’s Derby winner. Can lightning strike twice? I guess in some ways I hope so (as in, I’d like to pick the Derby winner again) but if this horse is the second-round lightning bolt for Team Valor, I won’t be cashing a win ticket.
Went the Day Well is coming off a win in the Spiral Stakes at Turfway, just like Animal Kingdom did last year. But his training issues (and subsequent conditioning issues) are a question mark to me for a horse with a light race record. Animal Kingdom was a great workhorse whose condition could be maintained and improved through his morning gallops and breezes. Not so for this horse – Team Valor’s manager Barry Irwin has admitted publicly that “he’s a lousy work horse. He doesn’t care in the morning, but he brings his game in the afternoon.” Talent can sometimes compensate when you are facing the questionable class of the Spiral field, but the Derby and its distance is a different story. Add to that the fact that this horse was stall-confined for 5 weeks at the beginning of this year after a questionable disease test that horses have when they are imported from Europe, as this horse was (the re-test was ultimately negative, but WTDW had to remain in quarantine – and in his stall – for weeks until that was confirmed.) Five weeks of any sort of exercise is a substantial block of conditioning this horse lost. You don’t win the Derby playing catch-up. The bottom line is, it was much more feasible for me to see a horse like Animal Kingdom making a big jump up in performance at this point last year than it is for me to envision this horse doing so.
EL PADRINO
Here is your 2012 “Wise Guy” horse. You’ll hear handicappers whispering his name, rubbing their hands together in anticipation of his double-digit odds and touting his gutsy stretch duel victory over the questionable Mark Valeski in the Risen Star Stakes. If these were still the days of the “Budweiser Longshot” sponsorship. he’d be the toast of the town. I guess that would make me a designated driver. Usually the ‘wise guys’ make me second-guess my passing over of their annual favorite but this year, in a field full of wide-open and more proven talent, I’m just scratching my head.
What the Wise Guys see is a horse with the right running style for this race (a closer) and a horse with a solid G2 stakes victory in a respectable prep race. The problem I have with him is, if I put his quality up against the quality of other ‘closers’ in the field, he falls short in my eyes to horses like Creative Cause, Dullahan, and Daddy Nose Best. I think he would have to be advantaged by several other talented colts having a horrific trip (always a possibility in the Derby, unfortunately) to be the strong horse picking up the pieces at the end. He sealed the deal in my eyes when he had a remarkably slow work last week as his final prep – 4f in :53+, not what I want to see in a sharpener before the Derby. His stable mate Gemologist outworked him by a full 3 seconds. His trainer Pletcher will say he’s just lazy, but you have to condition them somehow! Take heed that the wise guys like him, but I’ll pass in favor of other ‘closers’.
All of that said – If the track comes up muddy, I will use this horse in my box – his sire produces solid mudders and this horse crushed a maiden field at Belmont in the mud last year.
GEMOLOGIST
As a word of caution, this might be the most controversial exclusion I make to my bets – the undefeated winner of the Wood Memorial, a gorgeous, classically-bred son of Tiznow who already has two wins at Churchill Downs under his belt and displayed real grit when he dug in and found a new gear to repel a charging Alpha in the stretch of the Wood Memorial. It’s hard to find anything wrong with him. A victory here would not be a real shocker.
The reason I am ultimately discarding him from my larger trifecta box is that this horse runs his races either on the pace or just off it – and my bet here in excluding him is really a bet on how I think this race is going to unfold. This horse has never been further back in any field than 3rd. With the potential for a suicidal pace in Trinniberg combined with other class horses who want to be on or near the front like Hansen, Take Charge Indy and Bodemeister, this appears to be a race setup that could prove his undoing. Usually when such a scenario unfolds, the pace cooks not only the pacesetter but horses trying to keep within reach of him. This horse showed remarkable grit at the end of the Wood Memorial, but he also had the perfect race setup, lying just off a moderate pace without any real talent in the pacesetters themselves, swung around and cruised to the front and still had to battle to fight off a closer in Alpha who appeared to have been boxed in at the top of the stretch and partially denied his full run.
Gemologist fans will get a nice price on him on Saturday, I’m sure – longer odds than they will probably ever see again, because I think no matter what happens on Saturday he’ll come back later in the year as a force to be reckoned with in the 3YO division. But he has to survive the Derby pace first.
I’LL HAVE ANOTHER
When I watched this horse win the Santa Anita Derby in a gutsy, visually impressive fashion I took notice and put this horse on my short list of contenders to be my final Derby pick. I thought he could be the horse with the most raw talent in the potential Derby field. And then last week this horse showed up on California’s official vet list for receiving shock wave therapy treatments on his back. (The vet’s list is a list of horses who have removed themselves from race eligibility for a set period of time – in this case 10 days – for receiving a specific treatment or medication.) What does shock wave treatment do for a horse, you ask? I’d describe the treatment as it was used in this case as a sort of “acupuncture on steroids” – and much like the human version of acupuncture, no one wants to turn themselves into a pincushion unless they are trying to achieve relief from pain. I suspect that this horse was back sore and body sore from his grueling Santa Anita Derby run.
His trainer Doug O’ Neill is not exactly one of the sport’s straight shooters. In track terminology, he is alleged to be one of its “chemists”. He has been sanctioned multiple times for drug violations and has gone so far as to publicly criticize the California Racing Board for its testing methods after another failure and a hearing on suspension or revocation of his license. But this man has won several racing titles and stakes wins, and sad as it is, I found myself asking if the shock wave therapy would be enough to mask any issues that I’ll Have Another might have to allow his talent to get him across the line on Derby day. (I should add here that I see nothing wrong with shock wave therapy as an actual therapeutic treatment – it is legal, is used frequently on racing and riding horses to heal tissue, and certainly doesn’t compare to a drug violation. But since I think O’Neill might run a horse that was less than 100%, I’m suspect.)
I’ll Have Another’s final work in California before shipping east to Kentucky indicated to me that he might still have an issue. He finished in a pedantic time of 1:13:80 for 6f. Only days after receiving the shock wave therapy, he should have been at his most comfortable, and his work time makes me believe something may still be lingering there.
If my theory on this horse is bunk and he ends up having a big day at Churchill, the silver lining here will be his jockey, Mario Gutierrez. As recently as last year, Mario had been scraping by at Hastings Park, a modest track in Vancouver, Canada. This horse is his first big break and his first Derby.
HORSES I WILL USE IN MY TRIFECTA BOX
DADDY NOSE BEST
We interrupt this Derby analysis for a quick rant. Derby Gods should make sure this horse does not end up first at the wire because a name like “Daddy Nose Best” has no business on the reverent mint julep glass. If you have a horse worthy of the Triple Crown, name him accordingly.
Back to the subject at hand, a talented horse with a name worthy of…the third race at Charles Town. He looks on paper like a horse you can’t afford to ignore. He is fairly consistent and is proven over multiple surfaces, most recently coming off a win in the Sunland Derby in New Mexico. Until Mine That Bird threw everything out of whack, coming into the Kentucky Derby with your big prep race victory being a Sunland Derby win was the tennis equivalent of entering the U.S. Open because you had just won your country club’s annual tournament. Sunland is not exactly a place to find top tier horses. But Mine That Bird came into Kentucky via Sunland, so now it’s not considered as “impossible” as it was before. And at least “the Nose” actually WON the Sunland Derby. (But I digress and retreat from the verge of bashing the 2009 Derby again.)
There are three facts on this horse that lead me to use him in my combinations. The fact that he is coming off two consecutive stakes victories (even if they are in Grade 3 races) at a solid stayer’s distance of 1 and 1/8; the fact that he is a closer, which will suit him well with the way this race looks to unfold; an the fact that by all accounts he has been training well at Churchill and looks ready to run a good race. He is certainly a cut in class below several in this field, but in a 20 horse Demolition Derby, sometimes experience (this horse has run 10 times, including a 7 race campaign as a 2YO) and grit can compensate for a more talented but inexperienced and therefore mind-blown horse. If he gets a good ride, he should be running at the end and has a good shot to hit the board.
BODEMEISTER
Speaking of mind-blown, some of my handicapping friends will probably be mind-blown that I am excluding this horse from my main trifecta picks (although obviously since he’s in this category, I will use him in my boxes for cover.) If you are a handicapper who swears by speed figures (I generally weigh them heavily myself, especially the Beyer figures) this is by far the best horse in the race. His Arkansas Derby victory was the most dominant victory in any prep race – he crushed the field by more than 9 lengths. Add to that his pedigree, which says he can maintain that high cruising speed for a good distance – he is a son of one of my all time favorites, Empire Maker. He has the pedigree for the distance. Add to all this the fact that he has trained very well at Churchill Downs, which readers of my pick sheets know is critical to me. And of course, last but not least, he hails from the barn of multiple Derby-winning trainer Bob Baffert.
His detractors will say that it’s an issue that he was unraced as a 2YO. He has only 4 starts under his belt, and this is where the “is he seasoned enough?” question comes into play. He could easily be the deserving post-time favorite on Saturday, but there are a few question marks in my mind, and although in this particular Derby it is harder than usual to separate the top 5 or 6 horses (this guy being one of them), the questions must be weighed. I personally don’t care that he is lightly raced (so was Animal Kingdom, for that matter.) I DO care that in his one race where he faced a serious Derby contender (Creative Cause) he was beaten by a head (although he ran a fabulous race and was arguably not as ‘sharpened’ for it.) It calls into question a bit his dominance in the Arkansas Derby, where he ran a great race and a 108 Beyer figure but everything behind him lumbered in, and second-place finisher Secret Circle had a mere 92 in comparison.
I feel like I’m struggling here with the same logic I struggled with when Curlin was in the Derby. I did pick Street Sense to win in 2007 (and he did) but Curlin was the hardest to toss, and ultimately I used him in my trifecta but picked against him to win because I thought his light experience and the fact that the race didn’t look to set up well for him would be too much a strike against him. He did struggle with the exposure to a 20-horse field and did finish 3rd. (No, I did not cash my trifecta that day, thanks to Hard Spun getting in there for 2nd. Didn’t see that one coming.)
HANSEN
It hurts to pick against this guy. What a gutsy animal he is – this rare, solid-white fan favorite can count me among his legion of fans. He has exceeded every expectation of his pedigree and enters the Derby as the Juvenile Champion and never having finished worse than 2nd in his racing career. When loose on the lead he is downright dangerous, even at classic distances. If I weren’t expecting such a torrid pace to take shape on Saturday, this horse would be in my straight trifecta.
But alas, I suspect that the foils of Trinniberg as well as the presence of other pace-pressers will ensure that Hansen’s ability to relax and save some in the tank for the long Churchill stretch will be compromised. That said, he is, in my opinion, the classiest of the potential ‘pace’ horses and he is worthy of a cover bet as part of a box in the event that he manages to last to stay on the board – he has certainly proven himself enough of a fighter to hang in for something at the end even if he has run a scorcher on the back side. He had a fabulous prep race to set him up for the Derby – he was a just-passed 2nd in the Blue Grass Stakes to Dullahan, on a closer-favoring, speed-tiring Polytrack surface that other trainers have used to condition their horses for better performances on faster dirt surfaces. This sets him up perfectly and bodes well for his ability to stay the 1 and ¼ Derby distance. Added to the pros on Hansen is the fact that he won the Breeders Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs last November, so he clearly likes the track.
This guy’s breeding can’t get more blue collar. The cautiously-worded pedigree profile on Hansen on the official Kentucky Derby Page calls him “a genetic marvel in some respects” and refers to his maternal line as “a female line that has been virtually dormant for six generations.” Kendall Hansen, the owner and breeder of his namesake horse, claimed Hansen’s dam Stormy Sunday for a mere $5K right off the track. Hansen eventually bred her to Tapit, a talented stallion and producer and certainly a horse that passes Hansen a good deal of his ability (as well as his white color.) But not long after the equine Hansen was born, the human Hansen came upon hard times and actually GAVE Stormy Sunday away to a starting gate crew member at Churchill Downs named Curt Disbro. Disbro took her home to his small farm in Indiana where she lived with four donkeys. After Hansen hit the track and his talent became obvious to the world, the human Hansen realized he made a mistake and wanted the mare back. Curt Disbro sold her back for $10K and a new Tommy Hilfiger watch, which was the replacement for a watch that the equine Hansen ripped off his arm once while loading into a gate. Oh, and Curt gets to keep her new foal, a filly born last week on his farm in Indiana.
THE STRAIGHT TRIFECTA
CREATIVE CAUSE
This is your most consistent West Coast invader, and when he shipped east last year for the Breeders Cup Juvenile he finished a solid third behind Union Rags and Hansen. Given that performance at Churchill Downs, I cut him some slack for the fact that he shipped in late and did not have a real work over the track before the Derby. I had more trouble cutting him slack for rumors on the backstretch that persisted about a potential hoof issue – his connections publicly acknowledged that he lost a shoe in transit from CA, but claimed that it came off clean without damage. Despite this, there were reports that his hoof needed epoxy (often used by farriers to patch a hole in a hoof) and then he walked the shedrow at Churchill for a couple days when he was expected to gallop.
Because there was never any confirmation of this problem from a credible source, I’m going to give him and his connections the benefit of the doubt and assume that since he did gallop post-shoe loss and reportedly looked fine on the track, that all is OK with our dark gray son of Giant’s Causeway.
In seven graded stakes appearances (all G1 or G2) this horse has never finished off the board. He is the model of consistency in both hitting the board and in his speed figures (albeit a notch below a couple in this field, but stakes-worthy and constant). He is a solid workhorse in the mornings, he has the right running style to suit this race, and his connections seem to think he will be more focused and gritty with his blinkers removed (he has previously shown a tendency to hang in the stretch.)
For full disclosure, I went back and forth about which horse would fill out the bottom of my straight trifecta – I could see a scenario where I am underestimating Hansen’s ability to overcome and hang in there, and I also think that Daddy Nose Best seems to be peaking at a good time. I had no questions about my top two (below) but this one gave me pause. Ultimately, given this horse’s solid history, it seems like he should be there on the board at the end.
ALPHA
Alpha appears to be the overlay of the field at Morning Line odds of XX-1 and will absolutely factor into my bets. I weighed Alpha seriously as my pick to win and if his odds stay long enough as the windows are open on Saturday, I might just put down a win bet on him as well. He may have the best breeding of the field for the 1 and ¼Derby distance, his pedigree dripping with classic influence while at the same time he has shown to have speed and a quick turn of foot. He should have won the Wood Memorial, except for a rough trip where he was hammered on the first turn and then recovered from that only to be boxed in until beyond the top of the stretch. When he broke free and closed on Gemologist, the latter was able to hold him off with a resurging charge – but at 1 and ¼ and without the horrible trip, I believe the outcome of the Wood Memorial would have been a different one. Had that been the case, this horse’s odds would likely be half of what they will be when the gates open on Saturday.
Alpha’s detractors will point out that he missed some training between the Wood Memorial and the Derby because he had an infection from cuts sustained during his bouncing off horses on the first turn of the race. He missed a total of two days and one planned breeze – but when he got back to business and came out for his last pre-Derby work at Belmont, he put in one of the best workouts of the Derby field clocking 5f in :59:54, sharp by any standard. He has the right stalking/closing style for the anticipated hot pace, he has the pedigree for the distance and the turn of foot to weave through traffic. I expect him to be running at the end.
In a Derby field with so many possibilities, I dug deep through the contenders to see if I could find a hidden gem like Animal Kingdom in this year’s group. The bottom line is that my “hidden gem” is Alpha – but I just feel in my gut with all the factors considered that if everyone has a clean trip, there is a shorter-odds horse (the projected 2nd favorite behind Bodemeister) that I believe should win. As is always the case with the Derby, even the favorite’s odds should pay out nicely – but the value best better achieved in combining him with others.
MY PICK TO WIN:
UNION RAGS
The story of Union Rags is a story for the Derby ages, whether he wins or finishes last on Saturday. His owner Phyllis Wyeth, now 71 years of age, grew up in a family surrounded by horses – both the racing and riding variety – and she was a competitive steeplechase rider until a car accident at the age of 20 left her unable to walk without braces, and as she grew older, permanently confined to a motorized chair. Her family through the years had raced such legends as Devils Bag and Gone West, but as her parents aged, their operation became more of a breeding operation and less an active racing stable. Among the last of her parents’ prolific bloodstock was the mare Tempo, who in 2009 gave birth to what would be her last foal, a colt by Dixie Union named Union Rags. Tempo was a third generation descendant of her family’s breeding, and Union Rags the fourth generation.
At this point in her farm’s existence, it was common practice to keep only the fillies, and sell the colts at auction. Union Rags was sold as a yearling at auction for $145,000. But Phyllis Wyeth could not stop thinking about Tempo’s last colt. She had dreams about him, dreams that he would be something big and she would awaken with a powerful, lingering regret that she had sold him. So in the spring of 2011, when Union Rags was a sale entry from his new owners at the Florida 2YO in Training sale in the hope of turning a profit on him, Phyllis Wyeth obliged them by buying him back – for $390,000.
And then, of course, there is trainer Michael Matz, who will forever be known to casual race fans as a part of the triumph and tragedy of Barbaro. But those who follow racing regularly know that since those epic days in the spotlight, the Matz stable has fallen on hard times. His barn has lacked any noteworthy names for some time and early last year his biggest owners – Roy and Gretchen Jackson, who had raced Barbaro – moved on with their horses and left Matz’s operation a much smaller stable. By all accounts he was crushed, but around the same time he was trying to pick up the pieces from the parting of ways, Union Rags is purchased back by Wyeth, shows up in his barn and there is new reason to be hopeful for the future.
Union Rags has been everything Phyllis Wyeth dreamed he would be. Never worse than 3rd, he was undefeated heading into last year’s Breeders Cup Juvenile, where a wide and troubled trip almost assuredly cost him an undefeated 2YO season. He returned to win the Fountain of Youth handily this year, and then finished a controversial 3rd in the Florida Derby. This is where his odds will give you value: The Florida Derby opened the door for his detractors to question his ability when he failed to rally to catch the eventual winner Take Charge Indy or 2nd place finisher Reveron. But all you need to do is watch the video replay to see that he was boxed in at the rail until halfway down the stretch, left with an impossible ground to make up considering that Take Charge Indy had loafed his way uncontested on the pace and had plenty of gas left for the finish.
Matz has exuded his usual modesty in conveying his confidence in his charge all week, but the physical appearance of Union Rags and his great works leading up to this race speak for themselves. The railbirds at Churchill Downs claim that this horse has grown and put on weight (and he was a big colt to begin with) and looks healthy, happy, and ready to run. And his final work at Churchill last Saturday was 5f in :59:80, and that speaks for itself too.
MY BETS:
WIN BET on UNION RAGS
TRIFECTA with UNION RAGS, ALPHA, and CREATIVE CAUSE
EXACTA / TRIFECTA BOX w/ above three and HANSEN, BODEMEISTER, and DADDY NOSE BEST
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!