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.