Champions
Returning Champions
March 30, 2019 Update: Hello, and thanks for visiting. If you’ve landed on this page via Horse Racing Datasets, or after reading “The Skeptical Handicapper,” by Barry Meadow, please note that while the post below was published in 2010, the spreadsheets referred to have been updated through 2017. You can view the current Google Doc or download an Excel file.
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Noting that Kelso went to post as the favorite in four out of five of his returns as reigning Horse of the Year, commenter o_crunk remarked:
It makes me wonder if returning champions who go off favored in their return beat the average win percentage of favorites?
It turns out that, yes, favored returning champions do beat the average.
Champions from 1971-2008 (excluding steeplechase horses) made 210 first starts back the year after being honored, going to post favored in 177 of those races (84%) and winning 105 times (59%), a rate well above the standard 33.3% (or the 2009 average of 36.6%) As usual, the public is astute: All returning champions averaged odds of .97-1, but favored returning champions averaged odds of .68-1. Betting $2 to win on each favored champion would have returned $321.10 $285 to $354 wagered.
(View the spreadsheet/download the spreadsheet.)
A few observations based on quick analysis:
Thirty-nine champions returned in ALW/AOC company, winning 26 (66%) of those races. No champion not favored — with the exception of 2008 juvenile champion Midshipman, returning in a 2009 Belmont AOC — won at this level.
Fifty-two champions returned in ungraded stakes, winning 30 (57%) at average odds of .84-1. Only two, out of five, not favored won, but betting $2 to win on those five would have returned $13.20 to $10 wagered.
Most champions returned in graded stakes, winning 49 (41%) of 119 starts. Of the 98 that were favored, 44 won (45%) at average odds of .80-1.
Including Rachel Alexandra, returning Horses of the Year since 1971 (see chart below) made 20 starts. Favored in 19 races, they won 15 (79%) at average odds of .40-1. Betting only favored HOTYs would have returned $41.40* for $38.
*Only with a little luck would a player be on the plus side. John Henry, the highest-priced favored returning Horse of the Year, finished second in the 1982 Santa Anita Handicap and was bumped to first by the disqualification of Perrault. If the results had stood, favored come-back HOTYs would have won 14 (74%) out of 19 starts and returned $36.80 for $38.
Clarifying
Take care, race promoters, Steve Crist has a peeve:
The word “champion” has a very specific meaning in Thoroughbred racing: The winner of a year-end divisional championship. The Breeders’ Cup has done its best to devalue the word by referring to any winner of a Breeders’ Cup race as a “Breeders’ Cup champion” whether or not that horse also wins a championship. Now Monmouth Park is also misusing the word in promoting the principals in the Aug. 2 Haskell as “Preakness Champion Rachel Alexandra” and “Belmont Stakes Champion Summer Bird.”
Rachel Alexandra is 1-to-100 to be the champion 3-year-old filly of 2009, and Summer Bird is a possible contender for the male version of that award, but until the Eclipse Awards are announced next January, neither should be called a champion.
While on the topic of language usage, how about banishing the phrase “taking on the boys” (and its variations, “running against the boys,” “battling the boys,” “facing the boys,” etc.) from turf writing? It was a hoary phrase before the “Year Era of the Chick” began, but with Rachel Alexandra making a habit of stepping outside her division, and a number of other distaffers doing the same recently, its use has tipped from colloquial cutesiness into egregious abuse. I know it can be tough to write about a subject repeatedly without resorting to cliché — how many ways are there, really, to talk about a female horse racing in open company? — but this is one that needs a rest.
Related (if you’re into such things): A bracing excerpt from Kingsley Amis’ “The King’s English.”
Odds and Ends
– This is taking fear too far:
Rachel Alexandra became a household name last Saturday when she took on the best colts in the country, including the top four finishers of the Kentucky Derby, and when she crossed the finish line first, the point was well proven.
She is the simply the best, so please, do what is best for her and thoroughbred racing, not what’s best for the Belmont Stakes or TV ratings.
Let her final racing picture be in the Preakness winner’s circle.
– But if Rachel Alexandra retires now, we’ll never see her meet this challenge:
In order for fillies to be regarded as the greatest of their generation, they must prove their worth on two counts: knocking off colts, then disposing older females later in the season. Rachel Alexandra accomplished the former with her Preakness victory; however, the second part of the equation will be the tougher of the two tasks, as she’ll have to knock off undefeated champion Zenyatta, most likely on that one’s favorite surface at Santa Anita.
– Jess Jackson is looking forward to the two meeting at the Breeders’ Cup.
Let’s be clear about one thing: If Rachel Alexandra isn’t at her absolute peak, she shouldn’t run in the Belmont. If she struggles at all to recover from the Preakness, if she shows any lingering fatigue, if she is in the smallest way unfit, she should race another day. But if the argument against it amounts to “she’s a filly, and the Belmont is too hard,” well, that’s nonsense. The reason her owners bought her and entered her in the Preakness in the first place was to prove that she is “a champion horse, not a champion filly.”
– Taking bets on whether she’ll go, or not. Mike Smith says no:
“I bet you they won’t run her against him again,” Smith said. “I bet you she doesn’t run in the Belmont. I can almost predict it.”
– What’s certain is that Mike Smith won’t be riding in the Belmont. He’s jumping off Mine That Bird to honor a commitment elsewhere.
– Undeniably true (see: Superfecta re: the first point, Beyer for the second):
Still, it’s been hard not to detect a slightly patronizing tone in some of the coverage of the jockey, as if he’s some magical bayou Zelig, a la Forrest Gump. What’s gotten overlooked is what a ruthless, Jordanesque competitor he is.
– What might have been … Larry Jones has it right: “That might have been our Triple Crown winner if they had run her in the Derby.”
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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