JC / Railbird

Derby Preps

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.

Posted in Racing on April 12, 2013 / Tagged Blue Grass Stakes, Derby Preps, Keeneland, Kentucky Derby, Synthetic Surfaces

Late Closers

Steve Haskin on pace and the Wood Memorial winner:

I’m not saying Verrazano is going to win the Kentucky Derby, and I’m not about to dissect his performance in the Wood other than to say he did show a new dimension regarding the ability to settle off the pace, and he did come home in splits of :23 4/5, :24, and :12 3/5, which not only are strong, but are fractions you see from late closers.

You can say the same about Vyjack, as Superterrific pointed out to me:

While Normandy Invasion was flashing a little more speed than either at the end, the winner and the show horse ran the same final fraction.

Posted in Racing on April 10, 2013 / Tagged Derby Preps, Derby Prospects, Fractions, Verrazano, Vyjack, Wood Memorial

The Missing Digit

That fewer Kentucky Derby prospects are earning 100+ Beyer speed figures in preps hasn’t gone unnoticed (see: Trending Down, 2011; Mike Watchmaker 2012), but it’s still a little odd to realize that not only did the last four Kentucky Derby winners not post a single triple-digit figure in their two-prep campaigns, but hadn’t done so in their entire pre-Derby career. Since 2009, only one starter with a 100+ Beyer as a 3-year-old (out of 13) has even finished in the money (Bodemeister, 2012).

With two significant preps remaining, the four highest winning Beyer figures of the Derby points races so far belong to Goldencents (Santa Anita Derby, 105), Itsmyluckyday (Holy Bull Stakes, 104), Verrazano (Tampa Bay Derby, 101, down from his previous high of 105), and Super Ninety Nine (Southwest Stakes, 101). The winning Derby Beyer has gone down by a point or two every year since Mine That Bird’s 105 in 2009, with I’ll Have Another getting 101 last year. Will the winner this year make like Giacomo and get 100?

Posted in Racing on April 8, 2013 / Tagged Beyer Speed Figures, Derby Preps, Derby Prospects, Kentucky Derby, Speed Figures, Trends

What the Winners Paid

Another 2011 classic, another upset.

Considering the Triple Crown season just ended, I thought it’d be interesting to look back at the win prices for the five Grade 1 Derby preps (Florida Derby, Santa Anita Derby, Wood Memorial, Blue Grass Stakes, Arkansas Derby*), and the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont for the past 10 years:

Winning favorites are indicated with a gray background.

This year stands out for the both the highest average win mutuel ($34.01) of the past decade and for being the sole year in which no favorite won in the five preps or a classic. The next highest average ($32.05) was 2004, when Smarty Jones dominated Oaklawn and the first two legs of the Triple Crown, while Friends Lake and Castledale sprung upsets in the Florida Derby and Santa Anita Derby, respectively, and Birdstone shocked everyone in the Belmont.

Price-wise, 2006 was the least surprising year, with the lowest average win mutuel ($11.68); chaos still had its moment, when Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro broke down shortly after the start of the Preakness Stakes. The $27.80 paid to Bernardini backers was the highest price of the season.

Of the three classics, the Preakness has the lowest average win pay ($10.40), with six winning favorites, four of those Derby winners. The other two winning favorites were Rachel Alexandra in 2009 and Afleet Alex in 2005, contenders rightly tabbed as superior to upset Derby winners Mine That Bird and Giacomo.

Only one favorite has won the Belmont Stakes in the past 10 years, and that was Afleet Alex in 2005. Handicappers look for longshots in the Derby, but the Belmont has delivered a higher average price ($43.61) and a healthy ROI in recent years — if you had bet $2 to win on all 110 Belmont starters since 2002, you would have almost doubled your money.

*Grade 2 through 2009.

Posted in Racing on June 12, 2011 / Tagged Derby Preps, Statistics, Triple Crown, Wagering, Win Prices