JC / Railbird

Blue Grass Stakes

For the Last Time

Andrew Beyer, writing today:

When the Blue Grass Stakes is run at Keeneland on Saturday, it is unlikely to produce the next Kentucky Derby winner. Though it was once the most important 3-year-old prep race, it became irrelevant after Keeneland replaced its dirt track with a synthetic surface. None of the seven horses who captured the Blue Grass on Polytrack proceeded to win on Churchill Downs’s dirt; most ran dismally.

Jeff Scott, writing on Monday:

Some people think this race has lost relevance since it started being run on Polytrack in 2007. The fact is, though, that the Blue Grass has produced by far the most Kentucky Derby starters (26) of the five Grade 1 Derby preps since Polytrack has been in place. The Arkansas Derby is next with 20, followed by the Santa Anita Derby (17), Florida Derby (16) and Wood Memorial (14). Only the Arkansas Derby has had more Derby starters hit the board (four) than the Blue Grass (three).

Irrelevance

Nick Kling pushes back on the Blue-Grass-is-irrelevant crowd:

Strike the Gold (1991) was the last Blue Grass winner to go on and repeat in the Kentucky Derby. None of the next fifteen dirt or six Polytrack winners went on to Derby success.

Two Derby winners came out of those final fifteen Blue Grass Stakes run on dirt. Sea Hero (1993) and Thunder Gulch (1995) finished out of the money at Keeneland, perhaps victimized by the speed bias, before going on to Derby glory.

Polytrack runnings of the Blue Grass have been similar. Street Sense was narrowly-beaten in that 2007 Blue Grass, then went on to dominate the Kentucky Derby. Since then the Derby winner has come from other venues and Blue Grass graduates have not been a factor.

Matt Gardner, looking at Blue Grass results in the Polytrack era, found that “the top 3 finishers in the Blue Grass are 13-1-0-2 in the Derby since 2007.”

Compare that to the Santa Anita Derby over the same years: The top three Santa Anita Derby finishers are 13-1-1-0 since 2007. Or the Florida Derby: 9-1-1-0. If there’s an irrelevant Kentucky Derby prep lately, it’s the Wood: The top three finishers out of Aqueduct are 10-0-0-0 since 2007.