Churchill Downs
Sturm und Derby
Is there anyone who isn’t upset with Churchill Downs this Kentucky Derby week? Well, Steve Asmussen was smiling while paddock schooling Kentucky Oaks morning-line favorite Untapable and Derby contender Tapiture this afternoon, despite the PETA allegations. And trainer Art Sherman seems happy to be in Louisville, although who knows what he really thought on seeing California Chrome’s name misspelled on his Derby contender saddlecloth.
But nine out of 10 Horseplayers Association members polled reportedly plan to bet Churchill less or not at all, due to the recent takeout hike. Rick Porter of Fox Hill Farm is fed up with Churchill’s gracelessness towards horse owners on stakes days (fellow owner Bobby Flay tweeted his support). And Little Mike’s owner-trainer Carl Vaccarezza is furious that the track took a blood sample for out-of-competition testing from his stable star in advance of the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic. (Little Mike now won’t be running on Saturday.)
Call it the Angry Derby.
If there’s good news, it’s that the horses don’t care. Twenty will go to post at about 6:24 PM on Saturday, and one will be the Kentucky Derby winner at approximately 6:30 PM. Post positions won’t be drawn until late Wednesday afternoon, but it’s not too early to start geeking out on Derby handicapping. If you’re looking for the 2014 historical criteria spreadsheet, it’s here, and it’ll be fully updated after Derby past performances are available.
4/30/14 Addendum: Re: the above in the context of the rumor that the Breeders’ Cup will be at Keeneland in 2015 (and Del Mar in 2016): “Lately, however, Churchill Downs’ ability to generate cash has been running neck-and-neck with its knack for making enemies.” Ow. And Frank Vespe explains why we should care about Porter’s rage: “He’s mad as hell … and a lot of people around racing are feeling the same way.”
Pricing
Tom LaMarra on simulcasting fees and Churchill’s recent takeout hike:
I’m no math whiz, so correct me if I’m wrong. In the case of Churchill, if its host fee remains the same, a rebate shop and its customers get to keep the extra 3 percentage points when the exacta takeout goes from 19% to 22%.
If you operate a rebate shop or are a large importer of simulcast signals, higher takeout is money. That may explain why racetracks, rebate shops, and [ADWs] don’t complain about 30% trifecta rakes: If they pay the sender 3% for the signal, there’s 27 cents per dollar to play with before taxes.
Matt Hegarty on how those cents might get shared:
If simulcast rates do not go up at the same rate as the takeouts, then some players may not feel the full impact of the hikes. Many account-wagering operations, including Churchill’s mammoth twinspires.com and an offshore site the company bought several years ago, offer rebates to players, and some sites may elect to forgo the additional revenue to increase the rebates to their players on the Churchill signal. Many rebated players, including those who use automated systems employing algorithms to determine their wagers, are highly sensitive to takeout rates.
Breeders’ Cup Favorites
From Jeff Scott’s Breeders’ Cup tidbits:
Favorites won 32 percent (38-120) of races in the sample, a figure comparable to the record of racing favorites in general. The fact that BC fields are considerably larger than average may make the 32 percent strike rate higher than expected.
Favorites have had mixed success finishing in the money in the recent years. In 2012, favorites finished in the top three in five of six races on Friday, six of nine on Saturday. In 2011, three of six on Friday, four of nine on Saturday. In 2010, four of six on Friday, four of eight on Saturday.
10/26/13 Addendum: Breeders’ Cup contenders, by the numbers. “There are 121 group or graded stakes winners in the entries, including 71 winners of Group 1 or Grade 1 races.” And 74 of the 172 pre-entries won their last starts.
Super Saturday 2013
Today’s group and graded stakes with potential Breeders’ Cup implications from Newmarket to Churchill Downs, listed in order of approximate post time:
Race names link to summary results, winner names to replays.
There’s also the ungraded Unzip Me Stakes at Santa Anita (post time 9:14 PM ET), and almost a full card’s worth of maiden special weights for juveniles: Race two (1:36 PM ET) and race three (2:07 PM ET) at Belmont; race one (4:00 PM ET), race three (5:04 PM ET), and race four (5:37 PM ET) at Santa Anita; and race three (6:56 PM ET) and race six (8:30 PM ET) at Churchill Downs.
Among the many notable runners today are Pachelbel, the first foal of Music Note, winner of several stakes, including the 2008 Mother Goose and 2009 Beldame, making his first career start in race two at Belmont for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, and Take Control, the now 6-year-old son of Azeri and A.P. Indy making his first start in more than a year and just his fourth career start overall. What’s he been up to? That’s a good question.
1:00 PM: Hello Race Fans picks for today’s 10 G1 races are up.
Classic Orb
Kentucky Derby winner Orb is already on his way back to New York back in New York, where he may breeze once at Belmont Park before shipping to Pimlico early Preakness week. The colt was given a Beyer speed figure of 104 for his 2 1/2 length win over the sloppy Churchill Downs track — a nice jump forward off his matching winning figures in the Florida Derby and Fountain of Youth. “He hasn’t been overcooked,” trainer Shug McGaughey told Jay Privman, saying he expected Orb to run as well in two weeks as he did on Saturday.
For the third year in a row, the Thomas Herding team tipped the winner, calling out Orb as their “top rated horse” in this year’s Derby, for a slew of reasons that included grit, versatility, and what you might call will:
Orb always runs his own race. He doesn’t react to the other horses in his environment. They react to him.
That’s what it looked like when he geared up in the stretch to pass the five still in front. According to Trakus, “Orb’s final quarter mile winning the Kentucky Derby was :25.88,” the only sub :26 final quarter in the field. DRF has him at :25.97 for the quarter, which is still faster than next best Revolutionary, who closed in :26.02 DRF time (:26.09 Trakus time) to finish third.
Orb was the post-time favorite at 5-1, and is the first Derby favorite to win since Big Brown in 2008. (He’s also the first since Barbaro in 2006 to have more than two preps.) After a few years in which longshots seemed to rule, it’s refreshing to have the horse pretty much everyone agreed was the best going into the Derby emerge as the best horse out of it. Orb didn’t break any rules winning (not that there are many left), but he didn’t have to — he’s a Kentucky Derby winner in a classic mold (as are his connections).
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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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