Ugly and Uglier in this year's Derby...

[derby1592]

Which of the following lines are \"less ugly\" heading into the Derby?

- A 6pt jump to a near-zero level immediately prior to the Derby (1 big effort)?

- A 6 pt jump to a near-zero level followed by a pair-up prior to the Derby (2 big efforts)?

- Two consecutive 3 pt jumps to a near-zero level prior to the Derby (1 big effort and 1 pretty big effort)?

- A 5pt jump followed by a pair-up followed by another 1.5pt move to a near-zero level all in a 6-week span (3 big efforts)?

The dilemma is that 7 of the 9 fastest horses slated for this year\'s Derby have had recent ugly tops in the form of one of the above patterns and all of them had similar 2yo tops (in the 6-8 range) with solid lines prior to their jumps. The other two fastest horses include the fastest (if you include sprint tops when evaluating a 1, 1/4M race) that you could argue has one of the weakest patterns heading into the Derby and one other who is the only fast horse heading into the Derby off what appears to be a strong line (the only concern is that fast race as a 2yo). For any of the other slower entrants to win, they would have to jump and all 9 of the faster horses would have to regress, which seems unlikely but not impossible.

I cannot recall a Derby that had so many fast horses heading into the race with such questionable lines - potentially very chaotic.

So what do you do with these 7 question mark horses? Which line is stronger? It seems like the answer to that question is one of the keys to cashing big in this year\'s Derby.

Any opinions?

Cheers.

Chris

[RICH]

Chris, you have it exactly right, my opinion for what it\'s worth.

Brancusi: 2 consectutive 3pt moves, yes, some concern with the 7pts of development from his 2yr top. However, at 20-1 I\'m betting there is a small move left. The line looks good hasn\'t gone back since the 2 race blinker try. With seven horses that have the number to win, the odds will dictate my position.

Offlee wild: If you can put your finger over the last number the line looks good. Can you find an excuse for the last? He was sick, needed the race. What I really like is he has won at CD. I like the fact that off the 2yr old top last year he went back just a little and rebounded with a 4 pt move then another small move. AT 30-1 I am excusing the last and hoping for the small move off the 2! top.

Eye of the Tiger: Yes maybe a stretch, but at 50-1, I see a foward moving, albeit, slower line. With an inside position and only 2pts of development since 2yr old(sire shows 6) there is room for the jump-up. Hollendorfer can\'t hurt.

I am looking at keying Brancusi/offlee wild.

[HP]

I think Chris is on the right track. Who will pair or run a little better than their top (after you toss EMaker)?

Funny Cide has good spacing and started the year stronger than the others. For some reason I can see him backing up a little just as easily as pairing up his last. He\'ll be a price so I should be more enthused. Not thrilled with running without a work over the CD strip, but Tagg\'s comments on the NYRA website made some amount of sense. Gelding curse gives me pause as well.

By comparison Brancusi has done more then FCide in a pretty short period, so I think he\'s more likely to back up off his last. In his favor is that the price is right and he\'s fast enough. Also may have run against a bias in last (3w at KEE). I\'m not big on jockey angles, but the rider in a big field like this can make a difference and that seems like an obvious knock. Offlee Wild has done nothing in months, and I don\'t think he\'s going to wake up all of a sudden and run a new top and blow by them in the Derby. I\'m leaning against these two.

I think Baffert\'s Indian will pair up. He\'s been getting his horses to run for the past few years and I don\'t see any big reason to doubt this one. Looks like he\'ll be a square price too (8-1?).

Day is a good bet to work out a trip with Ten Most Wanted and he should have something to run at, but the price will be less than great. Will enough of the pace/press types fall apart in front of him to make up for his ground loss? There are a lot of fast horses in here and it\'s hard for me to see all of them collapsing enough in the last furlong. His top is \"ugly\" but he gets four weeks off coming in.

Buddy Gil may end up forgotten. I don\'t like him much on the top end, but he can back up a bit and still end up in there. Another one who gets an extra week off to recover.

Scrimshaw will probably be a nice price and can\'t be tossed.

If I play tris (it will probably be hard to resist at least one stab at it), I will probably use Lone Star Sky a little. He\'ll be a bomb, has a nice pattern, and a new top may get him 3rd.

The draw and the workouts are always big, but this looks like about it for the TG end of it. Good luck to all.

P.S. -- Anybody know anything about Weld\'s horse?

HP

[OPM]

Welds\'s horse is not running.
I am going to play the fastest horse to run in the money.  If Empire Maker is as strong as Frankel says then he should win the Triple Crown easily but I just can\'t play him except put in on top in the superfectas.
Ten Most Wanted:  I don\'t see him running better than 1 3/4.
ATS:  should have bounced in the last but didn\'t now has 4 wks in and is the horse most likely to run a new top.  If I get 10-1 then I have 2 horses for the super.
Brancusi: don\'t think he will run better than 1 1/4.
Buddy Gill: have to play him to repeat the 1/2.
Eye of the Tiger:too slow.
Funny Cide: small chance to move again but was toyed with in Wood.
Indian Express: have to play for repeat.
Lone Star Sky: this year\'s Dollar Bill.
NY Hero: hope he runs, he has no chance but I think they are point to Preakness.
Offee Wild: last was bad, doubt if he\'ll go past top in Derby, maybe Preakness.
Outta Here: very fast as 2 yrs old but don\'t see a new top here.
Peace Rules:  has already developed 11 pts off first setback, will play for bounce.
Scrimshaw: can run a new top here, hopefully will get 20-1.
Senior Swinger:can also run a new top but not likely to get to 0 needed to win Derby.
Sir Cherokee: horse bounce off a 2 1/2 pt top, thus will most likely bounce big today but if he is 50-1...
Suprah Blitz: little too slow, may go to 2 but not fast enough
Ten Cents a Shine:hope Lukas runs him, no shot.

[kev]

1.Brancusi---I think that last number is the end of the line, can he pair it up is the big question. Nice forward moving line this year, but something tells me he\'ll bounce a bit off this line maybe can run a 3.1 but i\'m going with more of a 6.1 range.
2.Atswhatimtalknbout---This horse has me doing this ? never bounce, three of the same number\'s in a row means, he won\'t be running a 4th you just never hardly see that. So does he move forward?? Less likely than backing up to about a 3.2
3.Buddy Gil---I\'ve got to say after looking over and over i think buddy gil bounces off that last move into the 4 to 5 range.
4.Ten Most Wanted---This is my derby horse, even before i looked over the TG numbers today. Pairs up first two races of his life backs up a bit (which is good) breaks threw his two yr. top by a point (which is also good) pops in tha big number in the last race, this horse has one more left in him. Another 1.3 is what i will looking for on derby day.
5.Indian Express---It\'s Baffert, its a big number in the last race, a must use on any ticket.
6.Offlee Wild---At 30-1 or more a must use on my tickets, thats it.
7. Scrimshaw---Ran a big number at 2 and then takes him three races to come back to it, i don\'t like the line even if it is Lukas, a pair up will not win this race for him either, your going to need to run atless a 2.0
8. Supah Blitz---Can\'t even break threw his two year top, pass.
9. Eye of the Tiger---at his best a 3.3 will not win it for him.
10. Empire Maker---Like the fact he bounce only a little in his first start ( see ten most wanted ) came back around and then ran a monster top, pops in another one, sorry folks thats it for him, unless hes a supper horse i don\'t even see another pair and no way i see him moving forward. So where does he go from here to the 2 to 3 range. At 7-5 no way from a horse who is going to be backing up.
11. Funny Cide---Very hard read on this one so at long odds he will be on my tickets.
12. Kafwain---Goes back to the 4 to 6 range, pass.
13. Lone Star Sky---Looks solid to run back to his top which he can\'t break threw, which is also not going to help him in here, pass.
14. New York Hero---Is he even going to run?? if he does i\'ll pass.
15. Outta Here---Big number at 2, one race this year, no way.
16. Peace Rules---Bounces out of range, pass.
17. Senor Swinger---not fast enough for this group.
18. Sir Cherokee---Tough call for me, ran big top in his last which makes me respect him and the 25-1 and up odds. His three year old line looks good.
19. Ten Cents A Shine---Too slow.

[derby1592]

In a prior post (see above for complete post), I made some observations about the patterns of the fastest horses heading into the Derby noting how \"ugly\" most of them looked. I thought it might be worth going back to that post and evaluating how the horses with the various patterns fared and see what conclusions, if any, we can draw.

- A 6pt jump to a near-zero level immediately prior to the Derby (1 big effort)?

The horses that fit this pattern were Sir Cherokee, Ten Most Wanted and Indian Express. Sir Cherokee was injured training up to the Derby. You might infer that injury resulted from the stress of the big effort. Ten Most Wanted had a very wide trip but never really made any sort of a move and did not have any apparent excuse for his poor finish so, despite the rave morning reviews, maybe he was feeling the stress of the big effort. Indian Express broke poorly and had a rough trip but a poor break often signals a problem and maybe the big effort also took its toll. It\'s hard to tell with this one. So the big jump pattern just prior to the Derby did not fare to well again this year. Looking back at past Derbies, you see very similar results for all such horses with the big expection of Charismatic who was of course trained by Lukas.

- A 6 pt jump to a near-zero level followed by a pair-up prior to the Derby (2 big efforts)?

The horses that fit this pattern were Peace Rules and Empire Maker. A complicating factor is that both are trained by Bobby Frankel. Both horses probably ran back to their tops or maybe even improved. Note that War Emblem had the same pattern last year. Of course, he was trained by Baffert. If nothing else, we might conclude that a pair-up of even extremely ugly tops for these two trainers certainly does not appear to be a big negative.

- Two consecutive 3 pt jumps to a near-zero level prior to the Derby (1 big effort and 1 pretty big effort)?

The horse that fit this pattern was Brancusi. He flashed speed and then faded badly and came out of the race with a quarter crack. It looks like he may indeed have reacted from those two efforts. So maybe two tightly spaced 3 pt jumps is really not any stronger than 1 big 6 pt jump.

- A 5pt jump followed by a pair-up followed by another 1.5pt move to a near-zero level all in a 6-week span (3 big efforts)?

Buddy Gil fit this pattern. He ran an OK race but came out with an injury so it looks like all those big figures may have finally taken their toll.

- The other two fastest horses include the fastest (if you include sprint tops when evaluating a 1, 1/4M race) that you could argue has one of the weakest patterns heading into the Derby.

The horse I was referring to there was Kafwain. He also was injured while training up to the Derby indicating that indeed he was tailing off after all those big effors including the monster figure in the San Vicente.

- and one other who is the only fast horse heading into the Derby off what appears to be a strong line (the only concern is that fast race as a 2yo). Of course, in this case I was referring to the eventual Derby winner, Funny Cide who indeed did run a big race off that strong line.

- For any of the other slower entrants to win, they would have to jump and all 9 of the faster horses would have to regress, which seems unlikely but not impossible.

This included the rest of the field. Only one of them ran a competitive race: Atswhatimtalkingabout and I think most would have rated his line the strongest of the rest and indeed he probably did run a new top.

So what can we conclude from all of this? Not much given the very small sample. You might argue that you should avoid a horse coming into the Derby off an ugly top or pair-up of an ugly top unless it is trained by Frankel, Baffert or Lukas but I assume that most of you probably figured that out a while ago.

You can also probably conclude that if after you narrow down the field to those horses fast enough to win (in this case 7 of the above actually made it to the starting gate), you find that only one of them has a strong pattern and on top of that the horse is likely to save ground while several of the other contenders are likely to lose ground and that the horse also has longer odds than all but 1 of the other 6 contenders then he might be a pretty good value play...

On to the Preakness.

Cheers

Chris

[Mall]

Then again, maybe the unbelievably hard track at CD had something to do with both the injuries & less than peak performances of the horses who trained over it. There were 4 or 5 horses in addition to Sir C who apparently broke down in training in the days leading up to Sat, not to mention the horse in one of the early races on Fri. One change you might see next yr is a lot more horses, like FC, training away from CD & shipping in late.

[MO]

Chris ,

I enjoy your analysis and you make some very good points.

Since Funny Cide was one of those horses who ran \"too fast\" at two, and broke the jinx, I am curious as to how you might approach next year\'s (and subsequent Derbies)?

I saw a very weak field this year with no dual qualifiers (dosage - exp. hcp). Now, people have beeen saying for a few years  that this theory and the stats surrounding it are no longer applicable. Some say they never were.  Yet one could still have tossed Peace Rules as a non qualifier on dosage, despite his figs which I, for one, was afraid of and so included (though weakly) on my tickets.

Fact remains that the percentage of winners who did qualify on dosage is much higher than those who did not, which brings me back to my original question. Was this year a fluke regarding FC\'s running too fast at 2 or is there a new trend on the horizon?

[Catalin]

Buddy Gil was dead lame in the post parade, and never warmed up out of it, looking choppy up to the time they led him to the gate.  Indian Express wasn\'t as bad but walked a little short as if he were sore.  As Mall pointed out they may have been feeling the effects of having trained over the CD strip for the past two weeks.  Add them to the list of Derby entrants that had negative comments the last week of training (Offlee Wild, Ten Cents A Shine, Domestic Dispute, Lone Star Sky, Scrimshaw, Outta Here).

[HP]

Catalin,

All the comments I read about Indian Express in training were about how great he looked. HP

[Catalin]

I saw all his work activity on TVG, and had gotten the same feedback from CD clockers.  He did look good all week.  At least until Saturday at about 6 PM.  I was bummed when I saw him walking a little short in the post parade.

P.S.  Buddy Gil looked good all week as well.  I was shocked to see him so choppy. He could barely move at all behind. Goes to show how quickly they can go bad.

Catalin

[HP]

I read that Buddy Gill worked well but seemed unfocused and didn\'t gallop out well (Mike Welsch? on the drf homepage).

According to the drf comments, they singled out AtswhatImtalkinabout and Ten Most Wanted as making the best visual impression.

The \"hard track\" explanation is one possibility. In handicapping the race, another possibility was that a lot of contenders (incl. the winner) could back up off tops.

One thing for sure, trainers can relax about not training at Churchill next year. HP

[derby1592]

Mall - The hard track may indeed have been a factor. I have never figured out why a trainer would want to ship early to the Derby circus anyway unless you loved the limelight ala Lukas or Baffert. I think you are right that Funny Cide\'s success will probably lead to a lot more late shippers in future runnings.

MO - I was waiting for someone to call me out on the \"Too Fast Too Early\" business. I still think it is a valid guideline and I never suggested it be anything other than - just another factor to consider in the context of the overall picture of the Derby. Anyone who tries to turn handicapping into a series of hard and fast \"rules\" is destined for failure. The best handicappers consider all the factors and data and make their decisions in the proper context.

I have to admit that given the data, I could never have played Funny Cide in the Future book pool several months ago even at 93-1 (congrats to the many hundreds of thousands who now appear to have done just that - only kidding :-) but it was not that hard for me to make a strong case that he had a good chance of winning the Derby after all the preps were in and you could compare his overall line to all the other Derby entrants.  

If I owned or trained top 3yos I would carefully read the post-race comments by Funny Cide\'s trainer regarding all the patience and tough choices that the connections made once they knew they had a potential Derby horse. Decisions that helped mold the future Derby winner including passing on the Breeder\'s Cup and passeing on the Remson and passing on the Great State Challenge. All to avoid too much early stress and let the horse develop at his own pace. Lots of lessons to be learned there.

Cheers.

Chris

[TGJB]

I know you were kidding, but someone else might not, so-- I posted on 2/17 on this site (still there) that I bet 5 horses in the first future pool, the three you bet, plus FC and one other.

Having said that, I really liked this Derby, and went after it pretty good. When the smoke cleared that was the only ticket I cashed, and I ended up making only about 8/5 on the race.

I would really like to know what would have happened if Brancusi didn\'t get the quarter crack, if Indian Express didn\'t get in all that trouble.

[magicnight]

Empire Maker not on any of your tickets either, eh?

I missed it at the luxurious Hyde Park OTB. What would the FC/PR exacta have paid?