Belmont Preview: WWDOD?

Forty-nine more weeks. Then, maybe, another shot. This year there will be no comparisons to Touch Gold denying Silver Charm, or to Real Quiet leading in all but one stride against Victory Gallop. No replays to watch and feel awful for Spectacular Bid or Sunday Silence. And, concurrently, there will be no Big Brown mid-race judgment call, no Eight Belles tragedy to try to stomach, and no Barbaro saga to unfold. Bottom line… to feel cheated today is expected, if not short-sighted. Doug O’Neil, for all he’s been accused of (rightly or wrongly) undoubtedly did the right thing here, and he and his team are to be commended. (WhatWouldDougO'NeilDo?) It’s not as if Affirmed were alive, sipping a glass of champagne with Mercury Morris and celebrating the fact that their records still stood. There are no losers here. I’ll Have Another begins his retirement from racing a few starts early, and there is still a hell of a race to be run Saturday. Potential tragedy averted. All that being said, let’s face it… this sport needs a triple crown winner, and this one just felt right.

So another field of eleven, and thankfully nobody with a (GB) or (FR) behind their name to make my head hurt as I attempt to study past Euro performances and grasp at straws. Honestly, the scratch doesn’t really change much from a handicapping perspective, the weather is nice, and the field is pretty straight forward. I think there are four horses with a shot at hitting the board here, and two with a shot at taking it… so, without further ado. 

Street Life (1) will break from the rail, and might be your winner. The 1-hole will not be an issue for him, as he’ll look to stay out of the scrum early and save his best running for last. He’s a fresh, New York-based horse that circled this race on his calendar months ago, and has been training exclusively at Belmont since April. For his most recent performance, you’ll have to look past the Derby and Preakness (neither of which he entered), to find the Peter Pan Stakes on May 12^th… also at Belmont. If you watch that race and don’t think he wants every bit of a mile and a half, then just stop reading. That day he was the co-third choice at 8-1, running a mile and a sixteenth… you’ll get around the same odds at the Belmont, and he’ll get his best distance.

The first of the two Kenny McPeek entries is Unstoppable U (2). I always look twice when I see a trainer enter two horses, true stable-mates or not. However, I think this is a product of the close proximity I have to Steve Asmussen, and more of a “tell” for him than any type of angle I can delve into across the board (as it were). The issue with Unstoppable U is that he will stop. He’ll get out early, and hopefully set some quick fractions…but he’ll get swallowed up like a tic tac when they flatten out after the far turn. Think Trinniberg…as fast as he can, for as long as he can. Unfortunately, this race is the longest.

Union Rags (3) should go off around 2-1 as the second choice or co-favorite, and rightly so…maybe. If you look back to the Champagne last year at Belmont, you see a horse with plenty in the tank and the ability to deal with trouble in the stretch. If you look at the Derby, you don’t. I say over and over that sometimes you have to throw the Derby out, and when we do that, we’re only left with one question: does he get the distance? I’ve heard from so many folks that want to dub him a ‘miler’, and while I can’t fall into rank there, I don’t think this field and this distance set up particularly well for him. He’s got the talent, and the fight, I just don’t know if he has that extra ¼ mile with what is going to be unfolding around him. I like him to finish out the superfecta, and will probably even box him in a trifecta or two, but I’m just not sold on him being a de facto favorite in I’ll Have Another’s absence. 

The second horse that McPeek has entered, Atigun (4), doesn’t do a whole lot for me… so make sure you place a win bet on him. He doesn’t have the class, and I don’t want to waste too many characters trying to document why. If you need to look past an unimpressive 5^th in the Arkansas, and 11^th in the Rebel, then feel free to. I just can’t make a case.

Your morning line favorite will be your favorite at the gate… and for all intents and purposes, this race is Dullahan’s (5) to lose. He’s fresh, there’s no reason to suspect a let-down with Castellano in the irons, the distance is perfect, and the field won’t push him as wide this time… I can’t find a negative. His works have even been the talk of the track this week – a certified closer running the fastest first two fractions of his career without being asked? I guess if you really wanted to get into conspiracy theories, you could conjure up something about the rider asking for more than was advertised…but who has time for that? (You’d be surprised)

Ravelo’s Boy (6), Five Sixteen (7), and Guyana Star Dweej (8) should just enjoy their time on camera and those fancy Belmont digs for the weekend. I heard one handicapper refer to Five Sixteen’s entry here as nothing more than an “ego trip.” Maybe a little harsh, and if there is anything to be pulled out of him, Rosie Napravnik will find it. Simply put, there are just four or five better horses in here than both the (7) and the (8), and something will have to go terribly wrong with a couple of them for either horse to have a chance of taking home a major award.

Bob Baffert’s entry comes in the form of the Derby Trials place horse, Paynter (9). He’s yet to win a stakes race, and he’s in good company. Five out of the last six Belmont winners claimed their first stakes victory in the same spot. The case for him: he’s lightly raced, and is bred for (and has built up to) the distance; he finished a game fourth in the Santa Anita behind I’ll Have Another and Creative Cause after bobbling at the start; he has great early speed and the potential is there to rate off of Unstoppable U. The case against him: body of work… and I used the words “bobble” and “potential” in making the case for him. How can you have lack of races as both a positive and a negative? The former is trainer-sympathetic, relying on bloodlines and methodology. The latter is ‘wagerer’-sympathetic, and is why the Daily Racing Form exists. In either case, I expect to see the light blue and yellow colors from the Zayat racing stables running fast and early. He’ll be on my ticket; I just hope his tank is big enough to make it worth the while.

Optimizer (10) and My Adonis (12) round out the 2012 field. If you need any reason not to include Optimizer on your ticket, read anything I’ve written before today… or more simply, watch him race. My Adonis probably has just as much of a right to be here (if not a bit more) but his performance level seems to decrease proportionately with increases in class and distance. That being said, he’d be a pleasant surprise to crack the top half of the field, or to jump up and bite someone.

It really should be a great race. You’ll have Paynter and UU getting out early, Union Rags in the mix on the turn and down the stretch, Street Life and Dullahan bringing it home… and Five Sixteen, Guyana Star Dweej, and My Adonis, who will hopefully be more than just traffic. No sample tickets this time. You can see where my head’s at… this is one to enjoy.

The pomp may be gone, but there is still plenty of circumstance to make watching this race and following this field worthwhile. I’ll Have Another will be the story of the day on Saturday, and his connections will answer every question with poise and expertise. There will be all manner of canned retrospectives that the networks are scrambling to revise, and a healthy dose of “what if’s” and “what now’s.” But at the end of the day, the race will have been run. We’ll have a new horse and new connections enjoying their moment in the sun, and I’ll Have another will begin to fill out his dance card. And one more thing is for sure, twenty-five year old Mario Gutierrez’s life will never be the same. He’ll always have I’ll Have Another, May ’12, and he’ll never hurt for a mount again. The parting words from a glassy-eyed Gutierrez before leaving the dressing room on Friday, “He’ll be my hero forever.”

The Eleven: Preakness 2012

These next two squares on the calendar may just represent my favorite weekend of the year. Spring fever has given way to full-on plotting of summer endeavors, and we get to see if we have a true Triple Crown candidate (in addition to Josh Hamilton) on our hands. I've been operating on a school calendar for the past twenty-nine years, so there's clearly a countdown going on in my head, but the end is still a few days away (14 to be exact), so I guess we can talk horses in the meantime.

"The Eleven"... One of my favorite songs of all-time, and not coincidentally, the number of entries in this year's Preakness field. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. I don't recall a lead-up to Baltimore where there has been so much more news about who's not making the trip than there has been about the contenders who are already there. And then to not make a full field of 14? I guess percentage-wise it has to make things better from a handicapping perspective, even if not from an 'odds-getting' perspective... but more so, I hope it will result in healthier horses who are pointing towards massive Breeder's Cup showdowns.

I feel like the trainers did a lot of the work for us in this one. No Dullahan, no Hansen, no Gemologist. No Union Rags, no Trinniberg, and no Take Charge Indy...who underwent surgery last week to have a bone chip in his left front ankle removed. I guess we can go ahead and excuse that last performance after all. I'm sure a couple will point towards the Belmont, but most will likely find more evenly spaced stakes at preferred distances between now and November. It goes to show that you reap what you sow when you run these races so closely together. Unless you've got a shot at the Triple Crown, it isn't worth the potential hit in future earnings an injury could cost you. Trainers want to have races named after their horses as a legacy, not as a memorial #EightBelles #Barbaro.

With only eleven to get through, I think we'll just go in order starting from the rail. The (1) Tiger Walk and the (2) Teeth of the Dog are both coming off a good six week layoff following the Wood Memorial. Last time out, these two completed the superfecta underneath Gemologist and Alpha, both legitimate Derby contenders. Tiger Walk doesn't appear to be too much of a factor. He's been consistently pushed out and troubled with wide trips in previous races... and while that obviously won't be the case here, he will be overtaken very early on the rail, and need more than the "mild" closing ability he showed last time out against similar company. Teeth of the Dog is little bit of a different story. While I think it's pretty unlikely that he brings home any type of award here, his Equibase speed figure trend over the last four is astounding (71-84-93-109). He deserves a look, but I think we saw his best last time out. It looked like he had something for a split second in the lane, and then it dissolved into a 3+ lengths 3rd that just felt insignificant. Gemologist and Alpha were the class of that field, and now he's going to run down Bodemeister and I'll Have Another?

The (3), Pretension, gets little of my time. He has an impressive record of wins and places in minor stakes...like 40k-75k minor, but has fallen flat against the big boys. When I see all of those little strategic wins, and then a no-chance 5th in the Gotham and a 9th place belly flop in the Illinois...you're just out. Zetterholm (4) would need a huge step up here. He's strung together 3 straight wins, but it's been chasing the same horses around at Aqueduct over and over. Give me Teeth of the Dog over this one.

I don't know how to keep the next three horses out of the superfecta. (5) Went the Day Well, (6) Creative Cause, and the (7) Bodemeister, are legit. The odds are what they are for a reason. I wish I wouldn't have listened to any media today, because a handicapper who I hold in high esteem is all over the horse that I wanted to be all over first. I think we'll see WTDW fighting it out with Bodemeister over that final 16th with (9) I'll Have Another fighting to get to those two. Whether he gets there or not is anybody's guess.

So I conveniently skipped over (8) Daddy Nose Best there. He still scares me, and I still think he has blow-up-the-field potential, I just don't know if he has any gas left in the tank. He gets Julien Leparoux back aboard (that Gomez is such a slouch), and if you throw out the Derby, he's trending great, proving that dirt is the right surface for him. Let me stop and clarify something there. If you could select a substantial fact or two and throw them out of any argument, it would surely increase your chances of winning said argument. The Kentucky Derby just isn't what I would call a 'substantial fact.' It tells you something about the top finishers...the best of the horses that got the best trips. But in a 20-horse field, it often doesn't tell you anything about the back half of the field, or the good horses that got a bad trip. Daddy Nose Best was actually pretty decently placed... he just got romped. Gomez went to ask him, but all the extra he may have had was burned up the race before at
Sunland. So why does Asmussen turn right around two weeks later and give it another go? Because he knows he's better than at least 5 other horses, and with a field of 11, a little break your way and a little stumble somewhere else, and you go home with a check. I'll play him across the board for the sake of doing it, but boy he looked empty after both of his last two.

That just leaves two; (10) Optimizer, and (11) Cozetti. When I look at these two horses, I see a lot of the same. They've both raced these same horses (and similar) multiple times before, and they’ve had their asses handed to them in short order each time. In a combined 17 lifetime starts, these two have one win apiece... when each broke their maiden in August and November (respectively) of 2011. Three back, Optimizer showed a little against a soft field in the Rebel, and Cozetti had an irrelevant 3rd in the Tampa Bay, but nothing even close to the class in this race. If you still need convincing, catch the 2012 Arkansas Derby on YouTube...asses handed.

So my ticket will look something like this tri-wheel: 5,7 / 5,7,9 / 2,5,6,7,8,9 ... I know it's chalky, but this race usually is. I think you could probably just box the 5,7,9 and call it a day. The unknowns that will be prevalent at Belmont certainly didn't turn out for this one.  So in the meantime, win some money, hope for a Triple Crown shot, and see if you can't find something to read about Mario Gutierrez.

Seis de Mayo, Derby light

Before I went to sleep last night, I didn’t find myself searching the regular sites for write-ups on palatable angles that explained why the Kentucky Derby played out the way it did. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t start out that way, but it didn’t take me too long to get off on a little bit of a tangent. I was, in part, intrigued by the horse that had so many local track experts in California riding the fence. But after reading countless vanilla race recaps and fighting off yawns, I found myself fixated on the winning pilot, Mario Gutierrez, who first showed up as a blip on my radar in February of this year. The tangent ultimately led me to the Windsor (Ontario, CA) Star. A fine publication to be sure. It was 12° C and the wind was blowing at 13 km/h NE in Windsor, Ontario when I signed off last night. A bit of a departure from the 90° F+ heat index that the folks in the infield, as well as the Jockeys during the post parade, were dealing with in Louisville only hours before. 

Fast forward to Sunday morning and me attempting to rub the Cinco de Mayo out of my eyes. Mario Gutierrez had already been up for hours by the time I was. This (Mario’s obligation, not my May 6^th recovery) was a result of one or both of the following factors. One, his adrenal glands were still redlining from his 3,017^th and most memorable career mount… or two, he was busy planning the trip that Hidden Passion needed to get in the 6^th this afternoon at Hollywood Park. Such is the life of a jockey. There were races to tend to before the 11^th yesterday at Churchill, and there will be races after… like, today.

The native Mexican, riding out of western Canada, got his first ever Derby Mount in Kentucky, on a poly-track shipper from California. Throw in a draw of the 19-hole…one of two stalls that had never produced a Derby winner at Churchill, and you’ve got the makings of a champion. I love this sport. 

About the Derby… I’ll never mind eating a little crow, especially when there is an opportunity for redemption less than three weeks away. But man, what a race. Maybe a bit of a tactical mistake in the game plan from Gemologist… boy did he get out there fast. It made me nervous, then excited, then left me shaking my head by the time he entered the final turn and I saw those fractions. The head shaking continued when I had to sift through the field to find Daddy Nose Best and Union Rags hampered with troubled trips; and even more so when Take Charge Indy apparently began attempting to settle a bet with Trinniberg to see who could finish last. It’s hard to tell who won that bet, since Calvin Borel was saddled with a ‘DQ’ next to the #3 by the time the tote board went official. 

But, like Mario Gutierrez, we all must move on. I’m sure plenty will be focused on Bodemeister in handicapping circles over the upcoming weeks, and rightly so. What a horse. I’m excited to see him run again, and equally excited to see who the new additions to the field at the Preakness will be. Between now and Preakness week, maybe some Lone Star Park, maybe some fodder that I come across. But we’ll be dialed in for the Preakness now that The Derby tornado has blown through.

Damn. Mario Gutierrez. To stand at the precipice of the sports world for one day. A place where just over 100 people have stood in almost the last century and a half. He didn’t go to Disney World today; he just went in for another day at the office. The Mexican, the Canadian, the Kentucky Derby Champion, returns to California to ride in an allowance optional claiming race. It's the only mount he was offered today. I’ll be watching. Congrats, Mario. Great ride.

2012 Kentucky Derby Field

I've received several messages about the Kentucky Derby this year, so instead of just throwing up numbers "day of", I'll relay my thought process this year and let you decide what to do "day of." The post-position draw yesterday sorted a lot of things out, and complicated a few others. Off the cuff, horrible news for Daddy Long Legs (1) and Optimizer (2), the latter of which may have had a puncher's chance to hit the board with a good trip from an outside post. Also bad news for Liaison (20), who will be left with more ground to make up than his past performances would lead me to believe he is capable of tackling. The best post news landed in the lap of undefeated Gemologist (15) and Hansen (14), but we'll get to them in a minute.

With a twenty horse field, the only way I can begin to wrap my head around getting to a Final Four (which is my ultimate goal in this race), is to eliminate as many horses as I can first. So that being said, let's just go ahead and add Rousing Sermon (7), Sabercat (18), and the pace-setting Trinniberg (9) to the trash heap. I tried to envision a scenario where Trinniberg held on long enough to hit the board, or complete a super, but I think he is completely swallowed up before the end of the final turn. The next three horses I can eliminate partly based on post position, but more so based on recent past performances against similar or identical company. Alpha (11) is a tough one to eliminate this early on, but I think I've seen his best in the Wood Memorial. I don't think he can replicate that game second to Gemologist (15), but even if he can, it won't be enough. Additionally, he has a history of gate trouble, and will load 1st in stall 11...that's a long time to wait for a horse that's shown he doesn't want to be there in the first place. Much easier for me to discard are El Padrino (16) who has shown up against lesser fields, but has been beat convincingly by horses from this field; and Done Talking (17), who at 50-1, is not likely to be the first horse ever to win the Derby from the 17-hole.

Alright, straight to another point... success on the poly-tracks, especially in California (I'm looking at you Santa Anita) does less and less for me every year. I'll Have Another (19) looked great in the S.A. Derby, but even the west coast blowhards are tapping the breaks on him right now, and I don't see his style translating to 1 1/4 on dirt. On a side note, the 19-hole is the only other slot that has never produced a Derby winner. On the flip side, Prospective (12) has done most of his racing east of the Mississippi, but has shown that he belongs exclusively in Grade-II and Grade-III company. Coming off a 6th place finish at the Bluegrass, his only other race against Grade-I company was last year...in the Juvenile...at Churchill...against many of these same horses...where he finished 13th.

Now's where it starts to get tough. Dullahan (5) sits right in the middle of three horses that are going to have plenty to say about the outcome of this race. He rallied in the Blue Grass, and gave me flashbacks to Stately Victor. I bit on that once, I'm not biting again. The horse looked awful after the race was over, and though he'll get plenty of support at the window, I can't help seeing Stately Victor all over again. You have to eliminate horses somehow, but this one admittedly stings, and is the one I feel is almost certain to come back and bite me.

Okay, so eight horses left, and all 8 have a legitimate shot at this thing. That's not non-committal handicapper bulsh...it's just how it is this year. Ladies and Gentlemen, here are your contestants:

(3)Take Charge Indy, (4)Union Rags, (6)Bodemeister, (8) Creative Cause, (10) Daddy Nose Best, (13) Went The Day Well, (14) Hansen, and (15) Gemologist.

The big focus with this race every year (aside from the weather) is on the early speed, and how long it will hold. Hansen got a tremendous break coming out of the draw in the 14-hole. He'll be breaking well outside of the other two "speed" horses (Trinniberg and Bodemeister), and have about ten feet of empty air to his right coming out of the gate due to the break between stall 14 and 15. Bodemeister is in a little bit more precarious of a situation. He sits in the 6-hole, which in and of itself is not a bad thing...but it's inside of the other two aforementioned horses, which is. He needs a stalking trip from just off the pace, and he'll have to have the most perfect of perfect breaks, along with plenty of help from others to get lined up for it. It would have to be the perfect scenario for the morning line favorite, and despite that jaw-dropping performance in the Arkansas Derby, I just don't think he gets it. (#Stately Victor Fear). The one big oversight I see from handicappers so far has been limiting the "speed horse" conversation to those three horses. I think Take Charge Indy has just about as much of a claim as anybody else...and Calvin Borel...from the 3 hole. The Florida Derby Derby showed me a lot. It may not be the one to go from, but you have to pick something to key in on, and that's where I'm going. Youtube it when you get a chance. Seriously. If you add another 1/8 of a mile to that race, Borel probably ends up getting severely tested by Union Rags. What I don't know is if he has enough to hold him off the whole way. The trip could, at best, be described as complicated for Union Rags. I want to see that race finish out, and I think I'm going to get the chance.

Give me a first flight of Union Rags (4) and Take Charge Indy (3), fighting it out with Creative Cause (8) and Gemologist (15).

The only two horses that I have failed to touch on are Daddy Nose Best (10) and Went The Day Well (13). That is for one reason, and one reason only...they scare the crap out of me. Partially because I'm afraid they could blow up an otherwise great ticket, and partially because I entirely expect them to do just that. Group them with Dullahan if you're playing the exotics, because they are the same animal. Speaking of animal...Daddy Nose Best is the 'wise-guy' pick this year from many of the same folks that were on to Animal Kingdom in the weeks leading up to the Derby last year. He has been working out incredibly well, and has strong Dallas ties if that does anything for you. He was just another one who looked awful after his last outing in the Sunland Derby. He was completely spent against a soft field, and I don't think he wants the distance. Went The Day Well is an unknown commodity for me. He doesn't have the resume to pick through that some of the others do, and no one can claim to have an idea about what his ceiling may be. That being said, people whose opinion I value, value this horse.

So that's what I got. If you want bloodlines and track bias details, the pros have plenty of information out there. Most of it's free, and you can find stats or an angle that will support what your gut tells you if you look hard enough. For me, they have to pass the eyeball test first, and this is what I've seen with mine. Let's face it, this race is like no other. A field of 20 most often serves to be a clusterf**k of the highest order, and crazy things happen. I'd say above all else, go with your gut. It stings a lot worse seeing a horse that you really liked pay out, than it does to bet that same horse and have him come up short. We'll see how far apart Norm Hitzges and I are tomorrow, that's the real indicator!