Pletcher did win the 2yo stake that was NOT graded. His horses flopped all weekend in GRADED stakes. Supertesting is being done ONLY ON GRADED STAKES.

Amazingly, Pletcher says he will not be starting any of his half dozen recent 3yo stakes winners in the Preakness. I am assuming that Pimlico will also be doing supertesting in the Preakness (not sure about that - if anyone knows please let us know).

I think this last point speaks volumes even if you want to make excuses for all of Pletcher\'s other horses that ran poorly at CD this weekend in GRADED stakes.

Supertesting just might be working. At least for a while...

Chris

Mall,

I thought in mid stretch that we were going to hit a big pick 4 just like we did last year on Derby day but it was just not to be this time around. Next year...

Chris

Check the results of all the graded races run at CD this weekend. Not just the Derby.

Chris

Supertests 1  -  Supertrainers 0

Cheers.

Chris

Lots of questions again this year in no particular order.

Will BR rate? Will BR bounce? Will BR Freak?
Will J Rose work a trip on AA?
Will Bandini go 4w4w and make his connections regret their strange choice of post?
Will Jerry Bailey win on possibly his last Derby mount?
Will Joe Bravo on the rabbit try to race ride BR wide on the first turn?
Will HL get a perfect trip on the rail stalking the speed?
Will Sun King circle back to a good number like Invisible Ink did in the derby a few years ago?
Is Kee really that quirky and could we see a turnaround similar to Sis City and Summerly in the derby?
Are the supertrainers way ahead of the supertests?
Can GG run another big one and cash the biggest wager on this year\'s derby (1/4 mil entry fee)?
Will the track be supped up on Derby day?
Will Wilko end the so-called BC jinx?
Will HF or NC end talk of 5-week layoffs?
Will BR or HL end talk of needing 3 preps?

And finally, can Andy Beyer get off the derby snide?

Hope you all cash some big tickets on Derby day.

Good luck.

Chris

Jimbo,

Good post.

The tough part this year is that 3 of the 4 fast ones come in off huge new tops and such horses have bounced at a very high rate in past derbies (see a previous post on the topic which would indicate that a 40% chance of bouncing may be much too low) so the \"all 4 of them bounce\" in the Derby outcome is not as improbable as it may seem.

In the past, you could usually assume the winner (and probably the exacta and trifecta) would come out of the top 4 or 5 fastest horses that did not come into the Derby off a big new top in their final prep (Charismatic and Proud Citizen were the 2 exceptions since 1997 that ran well in the Derby off a big jump).

This year, so many had huge final preps and they are so much faster than the rest that it becomes very murky.

As seems to be the case every year in the new millennium, we are once again in uncharted territory for the Derby.

It definitely seems like the top trainers have been purposely trying to save the best effort for Derby day this year (much more so than in the past) with lighter campaigns and very few big efforts in Feb/March. Note that the big final-prep efforts have all been with horses that either urgently needed graded earnings to be assured of making the Derby (e.g., Bandini, Bellamy Road, Greeley\'s Galaxy and Coined Silver) or had to prove they were still sharp and worthy of running in the Derby (i.e., Afleet Alex after his dismal Rebel and supposed lung infection and even Don\'t Get Mad in the Derby Trial on Saturday.)

One interesting contrarian angle worth considering this year is that all of these horses ran their big race one race too soon but that several others that had already punched their ticket to the Derby BEFORE their final prep (and therefore may not have been fully cranked) might return the favor on Derby Day. Some obvious horses on that list could include High Fly, High Limit and Sun King and maybe a few others. If they were not fully cranked then and they are fully cranked on Derby day, why shouldn\'t they be able to turn the tables on Derby day and make the same sort of jump the others may have made one race too early?

High Limit is the most intriguing of the 3 to me. I was surprised when Frankel chose the Blue Grass over the Wood as HL\'s final prep given the short 3-week timing to the Derby. Why would a trainer who has always valued good timing make such a move? It did not make sense to me but just maybe it was because he was not looking for anything near a peak effort in the BG and was treating it strictly as a prep for the Derby. A prep where he could train at CD and not have to ship back and forth out of state and get a nice tightener and pick up a tidy check and maybe even still win – keep in mind that if Bandini had run in the Fla Derby as planned, then High Limit would have been an easy winner in the BG and would be heading into the Derby undefeated and as one of the favorites.

I am not predicting that High Limit or one of the others will jump up in the Derby or even that the trainers/owners in question could have been so patient and single-minded as to send their horses out in prestigious and rich graded prep races significantly less than fully-cranked (seems unlikely) but, what if they did?...it is an interesting angle to ponder.

Good luck.

Chris

Mall,

I guess sometimes it does pay to be a little insane in this game. Now if either the trainer or the rider would be just a wee bit saner...

Happy to hear you cashed.

Chris

Hello Mall,

\"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.\"

I guess I\'m insane...

Hope you finish up Kee on a high note.

Chris

Jimbo,

To me, Colonial Colony looks like the obvious key in the race at anything close to the morning line.

Be careful with Pies Prospect, he is the classic xoxo type and almost always follows a poor effort with a good one. Also his last x was better than his prior x\'s so I think you definitely should use him in the exotics.

Good luck. I hope you hit it.

Chris

If Going Wild goes, he is likely a rabbit intended to soften up Bellamy Road. Lukas has done this several times before in the Derby and it often leads to fast early fractions.

He has not done it lately but probably because it would not have helped him much. Past examples going back a ways include Total Departure, On The Line, Real Cash and Honor and Glory - all of which set the early fractions at long odds apparently in an effort to set it up for their stablemates.

Chris

It looks like we had a lot of horses jumped up in their final Derby preps this year. So what can we expect from them in the Derby itself?

I used the same method as I used to look at the \"2 preps or less\" and \"more than 28 days\" questions to see what the \"facts\" tell us.
 
I compared the \"big jump in final Derby prep\" sample to the \"did not jump\" sample to compare them using the TG stat categories of top/pair/off/X and I looked at all the Derbies for 1997 to 2004. (I did not have any complete sheets before 1997. Sheets from 1997 through 2004 are available in the TG archives.)

Note that I defined a \"Big Jump\" as a new top that is 3 or more points better than the previous top. I also limited the sample only to horses with a top of 5 or better (this only eliminated a couple of slow horses).

The sample size for the \"Big Jump\" group is small (only 20) but the results are so striking that I think they provide some definite insight.

Here are the results:

First for the \"NO big Jump\" group (sample size of 111):

New top: 7%
Pair: 28%
Off: 30%
X: 35%

And, now ...drum roll please... here are the results for the \"Big Jump\" group (sample size of 20):

New top: 5%
Pair: 5%
Off: 15%
X: 75%

Wow! Only 1 horse ran a new top (Proud Citizen) and only 1 paired his top (Charismatic) – note that both were trained by Lukas. That is it. All the others crashed and burned on Derby Day. Some prominent names from top barns included: Indian Charlie, Stephen Got Even, War Chant, Millenium Wind, Indian Express, Tapit, The Cliff\'s Edge and Ten Most Wanted.  

I will let you all draw your own conclusions but many of the favorites in this year\'s Derby were likely big jumpers including Bellamy Road, Afleet Alex and Bandini, which could make this a very challenging Derby to handicap.

Cheers.

Chris

P.S. I am sure someone will ask specifically about those that jumped to a negative fig. There were only 2 and both X\'d (Millenium Wind and The Cliff\'s Edge).

Big,

If that is the case, I suggest you book any bets on CA in the BG...:-)

Chris

P.S. Not surprised to see the rider switch on Mr. Sword, that last ride in the Spiral cost me (and I am sure others) some money...

If you plan to take a stand against one or more of the faves in the exotics and you are looking for a longshot to help boost the price, you might want to consider the one horse that nobody has mentioned - Closing Argument. He has a live line and comes into the race fresh and other than High Limit looks to me like the horse in the race most likely to improve. The obvious negative is the hiccup in his training that caused him to miss the Fla Derby.

CA is already faster than Bandini and Bandini has already developed quite a bit this year and is not that likely to move forward for Pletcher in the 4th race of his 3yo campaign.

CA is a couple points slower than Consolidator but note that Consolidator has reacted to every one of his efforts in the past and his last (the big fig) was earned on a funky wet fast track. Of course, the Lukas horses always seem to run well when they ship in the spring from CA to Kentucky so you have to factor that in with this one.

CA is slower than Sun King but it looks like SK may have reacted to his big effort off the bench. Zito is certainly on fire and high on the horse and maybe you can excuse his last but it is usually not a good idea (from a betting standpoint) to make excuses for the likely favorite in the race.

Anyway, a small field but an interesting race nonetheless and it sounds like it will be the ROTW this week and likely to get a lot more discussion on the board prior to post time.

Good luck to all.

Chris

P.S. Keep in mind that the Blue Grass is probably the most prestigious race in America after the TC, BC and Travers; so, even though these guys all would love to win the Derby and don\'t want to see their horses peak too soon, don\'t expect them to send their horses out at 80% for this race (despite what they may say before or after the race). If that was the plan, then they would have chosen a different path to the Derby.

Sneaking horses on and off the track was something they were supposedly cracking down on this meet.

As I noted in a post quite a while back, hyperbaric chambers can be performance enhancing as well as therapeutic (i.e., \"increased tissue oxygenation\" means increased stamina and the residual effects of such treatment have been used to enhance performance in human athletes for quite a while). Makes you wonder how many other \"ponies\" have been sneaking off in the dead of night to that same clinic for similar treatments...

Chris

Jimbo,

In response to your first point: Going Wild will have no trouble going 45 and change and 1:09 and change in the Derby if that is what the connections want to do (and as Silver Charm also mentioned, Wayne has used this tactic several times before in the Derby).

In response to your question: I am sure that I am not the only one on this board that thinks High Limit is likely to improve in the Blue Grass. The question is by how much?

Is he an early developer that is not likely to develop much at 3? If so, he may only improve a point or so (or maybe none at all).

Or is he another freak similar to Smarty Jones who is fast at 2 but still capable of the additional development you normally see in healthy, high-class colts from late summer in their 2yo year to the spring of their 3yo year. If so, given the trainer, he could jump 3-5 pts in the Blue Grass which would put him in the pre-derby freaky fast category along with Smarty Jones and the new star on the block - Bellamy Road.

To have 2 such horses in the same Derby both of which seem to prefer making their own pace (with other quality speed including a possible rabbit thrown into the mix to make it a bit more interesting) along with a quality group of second tier horses (from a figure standpoint) such as High Fly, Sun King, Blues & Royals, Bandini, Noble Causeway, Consolidator and Greely\'s Galaxy (many of which would be first tier in a typical year) could make for a great Derby and TC this year from both a betting and racing fan standpoint.

Chris

P.S. If High Limit does run a big race in the Blue Grass, keep this in mind on Derby day – a horse owner and friend of mine once had Frankel autograph a TG sheet of one of his horses and this is what he wrote next to his name, \"My horses don\'t bounce.\"