JC / Railbird

Kentucky Derby

Genuine Risk, 1977-2008

Only two days after Proud Spell very likely clinched this year’s filly championship comes the news that Genuine Risk, the champion filly of 1980, died in her Virginia paddock this morning. Genuine Risk won 10 of her 15 career starts, including the Demoiselle and Ruffian Handicap, and never finished worse than third (PDF), but what earned the chestnut mare with the distinctive blaze her fame was being the second filly to win the Kentucky Derby:

She remains the only filly to have finished in the money in every Triple Crown race, placing four lengths behind Codex in the Preakness after the colt drifted into her path in the stretch and carried her wide (a controversial finish some horseplayers are surely still nursing grudges over) and losing by a nose to 53-1 Temperence Hill in the Belmont. As usual, the Sports Illustrated Vault is a trove of good stories, including William Nack’s recounting of the Firestones’ delirious rush to the Derby winner’s circle and the “talk show” that followed the stewards’ decision to let stand the Preakness order of finish. William Leggett was on scene for the Belmont, an upset so shocking it hushed the crowd.
Genuine Risk was retired from racing in 1981 with an injury; she was not a successful broodmare (PDF), although she was, as Maryjean Wall recalls, “a very loving mom.” Of her two living foals, Genuine Reward made it into training with Bill Mott, but both were unraced, and she was pensioned in 2000, kept in comfortable retirement by her doting owners.

Posted in Racing on August 18, 2008 / Tagged Genuine Risk, Kentucky Derby, Racing History / 2 comments

Tuesday Afternoon Notes

– Although several of my conversations since Saturday have been about the Kentucky Derby, impressive Big Brown and his connections, Eight Belles and her sad end, I’ve barely posted anything in this space. I tend to shut up when everyone else is shouting, which I suppose makes me a lousy blogger, but it seems so unnecessary to jump in when so many other sensible people are making the same points I would: Gender had nothing to do with Eight Belles’ breakdown, jockey Gabriel Saez is not to blame (regardless of what uninformed spokespeople for fringe groups say), racing is not in itself brutal or cruel but reforms across the board are needed to improve safety and the breed. As an industry, it’s time to take stock and figure out how to protect horses, whether they’re running in claiming races or the Kentucky Derby. Now, where’s the racing commissioner who’s going to make all this happen? Even Eight Belles’ owner Rick Porter is calling for one in the wake of the Derby.
– King Kaufman’s account of watching the Derby with his young daughter made me a little misty:

– If there’s a silver lining in Saturday’s tragic events for anyone, it’s trainer Rick Dutrow, whose colorful character and checkered past aren’t getting as much attention as they might have. At Woodbine, though, where Dutrow won the Queen’s Plate with Wild Desert after prepping the horse in secret, people haven’t forgotten his record.
– From claiming races to the Derby in five years. Easy.
– “The inmates officially are running the asylum.”
– Big Brown has been insured for $50 million.

Posted in Racing on May 6, 2008 / Tagged Kentucky Derby / 3 comments

Internal Dialogue

In the two years since Barbaro broke down in the Preakness Stakes, there have been seven breakdowns on racing’s biggest days: Barbaro, Fleet Indian, Pine Island, Mending Fences, George Washington, Chelokee, and Eight Belles.
That’s seven breakdowns on national television, but I didn’t need the boob tube to bring me the visuals. I saw all of them live.
A lot of people reach a breaking point when it comes to seeing animals suffer in this sport. Some haven’t watched a race since Ruffian or Go For Wand or Barbaro. For others, maybe Eight Belles was the last straw.
I’ll be back for more, though. I’m Baltimore bound in a week and looking forward to the race. Does that make me a bad person?
Part of me thinks I should feel worse than I do about this, and another part tells me that I mourned and that it’s time to move on. Is that callous?
I love this game, and as I saw Eight Belles go still on the track I loved that horse.
I tell myself that in heaven, she runs in a meadow with no pain. Horses gather around her, and she regales them with stories of how she took on the boys in the world’s greatest race.
In Heaven, she is peers with the bottom-level claimer who died in a slaughterhouse. They all run, and God help me, they all forgive us for what we put them through.

Posted in Racing on May 5, 2008 / Tagged Kentucky Derby / 7 comments

Just the Numbers

Kentucky Derby contenders, graphed according to their Derby and prep race BSFs. Big Brown, in blue here, floats above the competition. Click to view larger image.

Listed in order of finish; KD-B=Derby BSF, PR-B=previous BSF, D+/-=difference between KD-B and PR-B.
The final time for the Kentucky Derby was 2:01.82, for which Big Brown was given a Beyer speed figure of 109 (about average for the Derby). Fractions for the race break down into times of :23.30, :23.74, :24.10, :25.42, and :25.26. According to Formulator, Big Brown’s splits were :23.57, :23.94, :24.30, :24.75, and :25.26. Hardly spectacular — no records were threatened — but good enough for this field.
[Note: Data used in the graph is in the table above (or can be viewed here, along with past Derby BSFs). Line color = finish = horse. The rise and fall of each line follows the rise and fall of each horse’s prep campaign and ends with the Derby. Graph goes from left to right (or from Derby BSF back through prep races), as does the data in the table.]

Posted in Racing on May 4, 2008 / Tagged Kentucky Derby / 5 comments