Kentucky Derby 2008

AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME...

What is the deal with this 'Big Brown' horse everyone is freaking over ?

I keep picturing a lumbering UPS truck trying to out run horses on a dirt track.

 

A handicapping article to make this thread feel more official...
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Derby predictions

"Anybody who says they know what's going to happen," said Jay Privman of the Daily Racing Form, "is lying."

It's all guesswork this spring. A considerable amount of mystery always is involved when you ask a group of 3-year-old horses to run farther than they ever have (1¼ miles) against more competition than they've ever faced (the field is expected be a full 20 for the fourth straight year). But usually we at least have a clue.

This year, we might as well consult inkblots as read the Form. This year, the Derby prep races did more to blur the picture than clarify it. This year, no animal struts into Louisville with bulletproof credentials.

"There's question marks with everybody," said Michael Matz, the man who expertly trained Barbaro up to his electrifying Derby victory in 2006. Matz is back this time with Visionaire, a colt whose single victory of note was by a nose in the slop in the Gotham Stakes March 8.

In other words, Visionaire is no Barbaro. But neither is anyone else in this field, at least not in terms of what they'd proven before Derby day.

Barbaro had won three graded stakes races before winning the roses. No horse in this field has won more than two graded stakes -- and just a handful have done that much.

But not only is this class largely unproven, it also is largely slow. The Beyer Speed Figures are a valuable tool in handicapping horses, and they paint a fairly bleak picture of this group.

The highest Beyer Figure in a graded stakes belongs to Big Brown, who ran a 106 in winning the Florida Derby on March 29. That's the slowest top Beyer for the Derby field in at least 15 years, since Sea Hero won the infamously uninspiring '93 Derby.

And then there is the biggest wrinkle of all, the varying track surfaces of the Derby preps. Several key races were run on synthetic surfaces, namely the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., and everything contested at Santa Anita in California. Given the wild variances in performance going from one surface to another, it makes predicting what they all will do on good old Kentucky dirt next to impossible.

"The first thing I do when I handicap a race, I throw out the horses I'm sure can't win," said Mike Battaglia, who has set the Derby morning-line odds every May since 1975. "Well, if you start looking at the horses in this race, who do you throw out?

"All these different preps, all these different numbers, all these different surfaces. It's very tough to handicap it."

But handicap it we must, because very few of the 150,000-plus people at Churchill on Saturday will be there solely for the juleps. So Wednesday, at the post-position draw broadcast, Battaglia unveiled the following:

• His favorite is Big Brown at 3-1. That's despite the fact that he's trying to win the Derby in just his fourth career race, something that last was done in 1915. Curlin has gone on to become a super horse, but he was a race short on seasoning when he tried the same thing last year and finished third.

• Battaglia's second choice was Colonel John at 4-1. That's despite the fact that the Colonel has never run a step of his six career races on real dirt. His blistering workout at Churchill on Sunday morning might have alleviated any doubt about his transition to dirt -- but his top Beyer Figure of 95 remains dawdling.

• His third choice was Pyro at 6-1. That's despite the fact that he finished 10th in his past race, the Blue Grass Stakes. No horse in modern Derby history has run that poorly in his final prep and then won the roses -- but there is some belief that Pyro simply hated the artificial Polytrack at Keeneland.

"Any time a horse runs 10th his last race, you throw him out," Battaglia said. "Not this year."

This year it's tough to toss any horse -- almost as tough as it is to embrace any horse. This is the Derby Without Conviction, which is why so many people wanted in. There's nobody here to scare them off.

That's why one filly (Eight Belles) will run. None has run since 1999. None has won since 1988. And none of the three fillies ever to win the race (out of 35 who have run) did so without previously racing against colts. Eight Belles has not taken on the boys before.

"I don't like it," said two-time Derby-winning trainer Nick Zito of the fillies gambit. "The Oaks [the filly race run on Friday] is in front of 100,000 people. Ain't that enough to cheer for ya?"

In this field, all believe they have a chance at the big prize.

That's why Zito himself is summoning the belief in his second and third string, Cool Coal Man and Anak Nakal. His first-stringer, the crazily fast War Pass, went to the sidelines with an injury last week. Cool Coal Man was a dull ninth in the Blue Grass and Anak Nakal a dull fifth in the Wood Memorial last time out.

"I wish Bill Parcells was here," Zito said. "I've got Jeff Hostetler this year."

And that's why Louie Roussel is here with a colt that might be closer to Gus Frerotte than Jeff Hostetler. His name is Recapturetheglory, a name Roussel had kept in his back pocket while waiting for a horse that could provide his return to the limelight. It's been a long wait, but he timed his use of the name just right.

Twenty years ago, the jocular New Orleans trainer was here with a horse named Risen Star and an owner named Ronnie Lamarque, who would sing a song about his colt to anyone who would listen. They were a hilarious duo, but they wound up making a serious run at racing immortality.

Risen Star finished a close third in the '88 Derby while racing wide the entire way around the Downs. Then he won the Preakness and routed everyone in the Belmont, doing a solid impersonation of his daddy, Secretariat, while winning by 15 lengths. I asked Roussel whether Risen Star would be the 3-5 favorite against this unimposing field.

"Yeah," he answered. "And he'd have my money, too. I'd be over there [at the betting window] saying, 'Let's get down.'"

Roussel never again saddled a horse in the Derby until now. He underwent three surgeries on his back and neck and was out of training for four years, returning this year.

He reunited with Lamarque and came back with a small stable. When Recapturetheglory won the Illinois Derby last month, it punched their ticket for a 20-year reunion with the Twin Spires.

"There's an old saying that the women get better looking at closing time," Roussel said. "I'm looking at [Recapturetheglory] saying, 'He's getting better. He's looking better.' Because you want him to look better. You kind of play mind games with yourself.

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Now doubt about that - but the Derby is always exciting - especially if you have some dollars down on a horse.
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I'm getting a bit nervous with Smarty Jones' amazing return -- no MadMax post yet !?

 

Wow, Big Brown is the real deal !

 

Uh oh horse down on the track...

 

Put her down on the track two broken ankles.