Drawing Conclusions

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The horse world has been thinking Kentucky Derby for months with an acceleration of attention that approaches, and then surpasses, compulsion. During the past week and a half, thoughts of the Derby have been eclipsed only by brief considerations of the mint harvest, and spot checks of the stores of good brown liquor. Just when you think Derby fever has reached its breaking point, it gets hotter. As of last night’s postposition draw, it’s officially Derby, and now, there’s nothing to do but make your simple syrup, start crushing ice, and talk horse racing.


The postposition draw is compelling because it lends a new level of farcical statistical analysis to our imaginary race scenarios.


There’s so much history to think about. For instance: no horse has won from the inside post since Ferdinand in 1986; before that it was Chateaugay all the way back in 1962. You have to go back to Affirmed in 1978 to find a victory from the 2-hole, but there’s a string of them preceding that one. Over the course of history, there have been many victories from the inside – 21 between those two posts since 1900 – but if you go back far enough in the century, you’ll see that many of the races had only a few starters. In 1905, there were only three. It’s promising to be on the rail in a short field, but now you’re just crushed by the 19 horses to your right, asked to run to the front to escape the pressure immediately and get sucked up into a speed duel, or pulled back and caught behind a wall of traffic.


There haven’t been a lot of victories from the far outside, either, but that fact is subject to the same historical adjustment as the inside post: The further back you go, the smaller the fields get. The majority of Derbies have been run with fields of 15 or fewer, so it’s not surprising that the 16-20 slots have produced only five winners.


This year, the two favorites are stuck in posts from which a victor has never started. Will those two, Brother Derek and Lawyer Ron, be stranded in their far outside post positions and get hung up wide on the first turn, or will the eager Lawyer Ron pull Brother Derek up into something too hot while they try to position themselves on the first stretch run? Will Keyed Entry, in the 3-slot, get hooked up with Sinister Minister, his neighbor, and sacrifice himself in a speed duel? Would that speed duel be good for the closers? It would certainly keep Sinister honest.


Bob and John and Barbaro, in the seventh and eighth slots, respectively, seem perfectly positioned. Neither trainer wants those two on the lead, but rather rating just off of it, and the horses look perfectly placed to settle in behind Sharp Humor, out of the 9-hole, who will jump out of the gate to run with Sinister. The problem will be ignoring the jumpy pacesetters shooting out on either side.


But the truth is, it’s not about the slots: it’s about the horse.Your horse either is or is not a Derby horse. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know. Why? Because the Derby is a ridiculous horse race.


The 3-year-olds are still young horses; none of them have run 1 1/4 miles. That’s said a lot. But what isn’t discussed as much is the transition that now faces them.


These horses have been running in races around the country, stomping on their own ground. Maybe they came over from California to run in the Wood memorial at Aqueduct, as did Bob and John, or perhaps they moved from Laurel to Aqueduct to Hawthorne, as did Sweetnorthernsaint.


It’s not that these ponies have never seen a van. It’s that the Kentucky Derby is not the Illinois Derby.


Sure, the Illinois Derby is a big race, a lot of people go, and it’s worth a lot of money. But the mutual pool alone ought to tell you something: There was a total of $955,838 in the kitty at Hawthorne on that race. Last year’s Derby saw a pot of $42,296,149.


Two horses from the Illinois Derby are starting in Kentucky, three from the Arkansas Derby, four from the famed Blue Grass Stakes. The Wood Memorial sent four. The also-rans are still back home, no doubt dominating local stakes races and high-level allowances.


The Kentucky Derby is the beginning of national horse racing for these horses – for some, it will also be the end. After all, after this, it’s the Preakness, then the Belmont Stakes, then the Travers, and the Breeders’ Cup classic. They’ve never run against each other until now. They’ve never run at this level. They’ve never run past a crowd this big. They’ve never sensed a vibe in the air like the one they’ll feel in the paddock at Churchill, with 40,000 people crammed in with hats on and a guy dressed up like a bottle of Early Times dancing around.


To make matters crazier, the track itself is completely different. Instead of the customary half hour between races, there’s an hour and a half leading up to the Derby. All day, in fact, there’s a long time between the races. If it’s sunny, the water truck sprays down the surface and it gets raked again. Then it dries out. Then the water truck comes. It gets raked, it dries out. Rinse, repeat. If it rains, they push it down with plates. Many times. They fight the slop, and they rake it and seal it and pack it down. Either way, by the time they are done with the surface on Derby day, it’s packed solid. They’ve basically been making cement all day. (I’m not knocking the superintendents – if they didn’t give you 45 minutes between races, and twice that in front of the derby you wouldn’t be able to buy a hot dog, much less place a bet, without missing two races.) This is not the same racing surface these horses have run over, it’s not even typical surface for Churchill Downs.


Everything they’ve done is irrelevant. All the tools you would typically use to handicap a race are irrelevant. The 20 horses here are all very good. Some of them are excellent. Are they Derby horses? Can they use what they’ve learned in the minor leagues now that they’re in the Show? I can’t wait to find out.


mwatman@nysun.com


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