FiveThirtyEight analyzes the 36-year Triple Crown drought:
The last 12 horses to win the Derby and the Preakness have failed to complete the Triple Crown. With a historical success rate of 33 percent, the current 12-race slump is unlikely: The odds of it happening by chance are about 1 in 130 — nearly the same as the 2011 Atlanta Braves failing to make Major League Baseball’s playoffs with 18 games remaining and an 8.5-game lead for the wild card.
Here’s another way of putting it:
The odds of all 11 horses that raced in the Belmont losing at their race odds (by chance) are only 1 in 20,000 — about the odds of a random pitcher throwing a perfect game on a given night.
California Chrome is expected to face a full field in the Belmont Stakes. NYRA reported the historically daunting number of 11 on Saturday:
No horse has won the Triple Crown facing more than seven rivals, which Seattle Slew and Citation did in 1977 and 1948, respectively. Secretariat in 1973 and Affirmed, the most recent Triple Crown winner in 1978, both defeated four others.
With Intense Holiday now out after suffering a condylar fracture while working on Sunday (trainer Todd Pletcher said the injury wasn’t life-threatening and may not be career-ending), the list of possible challengers stands at 10, including Wicked Strong, Tonalist, Samraat, and Commissioner. All four also worked on Sunday: Videos of their works, plus one of California Chrome galloping, are available on the NYRA YouTube channel.
5/28/14 Update: Medal Count, eighth in the Kentucky Derby, has been declared possible for the Belmont. “[His] Derby was better than it looks,” said trainer Dale Romans, making a case for his colt as Triple Crown spoiler. “History shows it will be difficult for California Chrome.”
Posted by JC in Racing on 05/26/2014 @ 8:45 am / Tagged Belmont Stakes, California Chrome, Intense Holiday, Statistics, Triple Crown / Follow @railbird on Twitter
From Glenye Cain Oakford’s interview with owner George Strawbridge:
“Then, you have the PETA video … maybe that was a turning point. I’m not saying it is, but it could be, because it takes the question out of the realm of just cheating. Maybe the majority of people don’t care about the cheating because maybe they just see it as racing insiders cheating each other, but when PETA shows up with this video, that expands the equation to cruelty to animals, which I think most people do care about. If you love horses, you don’t call them rats and treat them like commodities.â€
And you don’t “feed” them unnecessary drugs. More on that point, and the HBO Real Sports segment that aired earlier this week, from Tom Noonan:
The more disturbing reality, however, is that horses are given too many drugs, even if they are “legal.†They are often given, as HBO stated, to make a horse run faster or to mask a painful condition, and not because it is necessary to treat a diagnosed medical issue. One segment of the PETA video that was replayed by HBO was of a vet describing Lasix as a performance-enhancing drug. Almost every horse racing in this country is racing with Lasix. Thyroxine is being “fed†to horses not because it is necessary, but because it is viewed as a performance enhancer.
Posted by JC in Racing on 05/23/2014 @ 9:51 am / Tagged Cruelty, Drugs in Racing, George Strawbridge, HBO, PETA, Steve Asmussen, Thyroxine / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Ed DeRosa on the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner:
California Chrome was much the best in both races because of what I prefer to call “clean trips†rather than “perfect trips.†Clean because he stayed out of trouble but not perfect because — especially in the Preakness — he was fighting every step of the race and turned back all challengers.
That’s a useful distinction, especially in looking ahead to the kind of trip California Chrome might get in the Belmont Stakes. It won’t be perfect, because no one is going to cede a step to the dual classic winner. But clean might not be enough. If Victor Espinoza thought he was a target in the Preakness and had to ride defensively — “I had to start early because the outside horse was pushing me,” said the jockey after the race, “I thought I had the perfect position, but when the outside horse attacked me, I had to open it up at that point” — the Belmont is going to ratchet that pressure up.
Sam Walker remains skeptical of California Chrome’s Triple Crown chances:
The main worry with California Chrome is that he had his stamina exposed in the Derby two weeks ago, where he finished relatively slowly off a steady pace, producing a weak final time (over 1m2f). The expectation is that he will have even less in reserve at the end of the Belmont (over 1m4f).
So stamina is a concern, but so too is class. Sure, the colt has an edge over his contemporaries but so did every other failed Belmont favourite.
When he was trouncing his opposition in the Golden State he looked set to take the world by storm. Back then the sky was the limit, but he hasn’t continued that progress in the Classics. Indeed, his RPRs have plateaued.
At Santa Anita he ran to 124, in the Derby it was 125 and in the Preakness 125 again. We appear to be close to finding the limit of his ability — and in the Derby I think we found the limit of his stamina.
Danza is out of the Belmont. He isn’t 100%; he’ll get some time off.
Posted by JC in Racing on 05/21/2014 @ 1:51 pm / Tagged Belmont Stakes, California Chrome, Danza, Preakness Stakes, Triple Crown / Follow @railbird on Twitter
Change the Triple Crown, boost the Preakness undercard, says Tom Chuckas:
“… this idea is not just for the Triple Crown races. We have an obligation to the public to put our best racing on the table when the world is watching and we are not doing that. We could promote a Woodford-Dixie-Manhattan series for older turf stars and Triple Crown filly series with the Kentucky Oaks, Black-Eyed Susan and Acorn. All those things are possible but is going to demand a collaborative effort between the parties to make this happen.â€
Mike Watchmaker dispatches the idea that the problem is spacing:
Pimlico’s supporting stakes just aren’t as good, or as attractive to any rational horseman. Until Pimlico throws a ton of money into its supporting Preakness weekend stakes, which in time might attract better fields and result in higher rankings from the North American Graded Stakes Committee, it can’t blame a short turnaround for why their stakes aren’t attracting fields of comparable quality to their counterparts at Churchill.
Get creative, suggests Watchmaker. Nah, writes Pull the Pocket: “It doesn’t really matter.” So Pimlico feels like the odd jewel out during Triple Crown season — it still drew record attendance and increased handle on Saturday.
Posted by JC in Racing on 05/19/2014 @ 6:00 pm / Tagged Preakness Stakes, Triple Crown / Follow @railbird on Twitter
