Good to see some life coming back to the board with a more normal triple crown trail ahead this year. I came across this stat I saved from Jerry in my old research and wondered if anyone has info to fill in the more recent years. It deals with horses that have run a negative figure at any time in their life leading up to the Derby and where they finish. Seems pretty important this year since I think there\'s only one horse who has that distinction. Keep up the great work!
[Re: Worst Derby ever - New Rules For the Derby? (360 Views)
Posted by: jerry (IP Logged)
Date: May 03, 2015 12:12AM
Going back 13 years it\'s 39 negs, 8 in the money with a couple of close 4ths. A few paired their top neg number but still missed the board. Most X\'d.]
I\'ll take the bait.
Assuming Jerry\'s comment already includes the 2015 running:
In short: since 2016 (excluding 2020): 12 neg figures. 2 winners. and 2 more ITM. So 4 ITM. Of these 4, the negative number going in was not faster than negative 1.
So adding to JB\'s 13 year tally, 51 negative figures. 12 ITM... I think the takeaway is that you it might be OK to have a negative figure, but you do not want it being lower than negative 1 (ideally, you want it to be no faster than -0.2, when you exclude Justify). As a lot of the faster figs going into the gate did not fire in May.
Here is the \"math\"...
2016:
Number of neg figs: 1
Destin (-0.3) - finished 6th
2017:
Number of neg figs: 4
Always Dreaming (-0.2) - winner, paired neg fig.
Practical Joke (-0.2) - 5th; Gunnevera (-2.2) - 7th; Irish War Cry (-2.3) - 10th.
2018:
Number of neg figs: 6 (3 of the 6 rounded out the tri.)
Justify (-1) / Good Magic (-0.2) / Audible (-1.0) Each neg fig was in their final prep and each fig paired.
Mendelssohn (-4.2) â€" 20th; Bolt D Oro* (-1.0) - 12th; Vinno Russo (-1) - 9th.
*neg fig was at 2YO
2019:
Number of neg figs: 1
Improbable (-1.1) - 5th
Edit: typo (2x)
I believe any - figure run as a two year old has never been in the $$
Last one Bolt D Oro
And yes good to see action on the board
GL
John
Street Sense won the \'07 Derby pairing his negative 2yo top established winning the BC Juvenile.
Thanks my mistake
I do not think this will help you at the windows, but I find it interesting. As far as I can tell, negative numbers associated with the Derby were not even a thing before the year 2001 â€" that’s when Monarchos won with a negative number and Millennium Wind had a negative number for his Blue Grass coming in. The archives do not go back before 1997, but based on the figures of the Derby winners, it is unlikely to me that there were any negative numbers run in any of the preps before 2001. It seems like something changed significantly for 3YO in 2001 â€" they ran faster preps than before, Based on TG figures, it was a very strong year.
3YO top for fastest horses in Derby preps:
1997 â€" 4’s + 5’s
1998 â€" 3’s + 4’s
1999 â€" 2’s + 3’s
2000 â€" 2’s + 3’s
2001 â€" neg 0 +1’s (more than half the field had a top of 2 or under)
2002 â€" 0’s + 1’s
2003 â€" 0’s + 1’s
2004 â€" neg 3 + neg 1’s (first 2YO negative I noticed with Read The Footnotes)
While the figures have oscillated after 2004 with some years on average being faster than others for the most part the figures seemed to have leveled out.
Have TG performance figures been slower in the last few years, both among the elite and the average/median horse, due to banned steroids and smaller populations and nanogram testing?
Or are the TG performance figures NOT slower than before?
For a long while, since they\'d gone to regular 20 horse fields, the horse that ran the biggest fig in the Derby was the winner. Which is a bit odd, as you\'d think ground loss would factor more in determining the winner. Says a bit about what kind of horse wins this race and how to bet it. But I think the last handful of years has changed that up a bit.
BANDINI ran a -3 to win the 2005 Blue Grass at Keeneland (of course, in a performance expertly aided by Pletcher\'s The Good Doctor). Then, he ran 19th in the Derby and thereafter became a terrible sire.