Kentucky Derby
2019 Kentucky Derby
Prep schedule: Includes leaderboard, charts, replays, speed figures
182 Days
Now that the Breeders’ Cup is over, we can all look toward the next big event on racing’s calendar: The 2006 Kentucky Derby. There are a mere 182 days remaining to the first Saturday of May. Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Stevie Wonderboy, whose owner has already displayed acute symptoms of Derby Fever, will be put into light training for the next couple of months and then return in January or February to prep for the Derby. “Unless something changes, the plan is to wait and start him in January or February. We haven’t decided which races … Maybe he’ll have a race in late January or February and late March or early April,” said trainer Doug O’Neill. I hope O’Neill realizes that since Stevie already has to fend off the Juvenile Jinx, he can’t possibly start in the run for the roses without at least three prep races. And so the madness begins …
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Stevie Wonderboy earned a Beyer speed figure of 104 in the Juvenile, “an excellent number for a Kentucky Derby wannabe in late October and a giant improvement on the 86 he got in the Sept. 7 Del Mar Futurity.” Numbers were not otherwise so impressive, says Dick Jerardi. Silver Train earned 114 in the Sprint, the best dirt figure. Shirocco did the same in the Turf. Saint Liam earned 112 winning the Classic.
Derby-Related Odds & Ends
Winning Suffolk superfecta winner revealed: “Turf club sources at Suffolk Downs yesterday identified Paul Braverman, a major player at the East Boston oval, as one of seven bettors in the United States to hit the lucrative superfecta in last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby.” Braverman is rumored to be on vacation in Australia and unavailable for comment. (Boston Herald)
John Pricci has one question for those disappointed at the outcome of this year’s Derby: “What race were you watching?” (MSNBC)
Jockey Mike Smith’s first post-Derby ride? An $8,000 claimer. (Courier-Journal)
Final Derby Comments
A friend who’s an occasional Railbird reader called yesterday to ask: “What do you think of Giacomo?”
Eh, and a shoulder shrug — that’s what I think. I liked Giacomo until the Santa Anita Derby, a race in which I thought he needed to show some improvement (read: win, or have a very good excuse for running second) if he was going to prove more than a sucker horse. I was disappointed at his Derby win, although that had more to do with the dismal performances of horses (Afleet Alex excepted) I’d backed than with Giacomo. I’m curious to see what he does in the Preakness.
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Why bother handicapping? That’s the question that comes to mind reading stories like this:
“I liked the names, that’s it,” she said. “Giacomo just kind of stood out to me, being foreign-sounding and all. And Closing Argument, I went with that because we have a lawyer in the office where I work.”
Another woman won “because she always bets the No. 10 horse — that was Giacomo on Saturday — and had Closing Argument because he was No. 18 and she was married on the 18th.” (Baltimore Sun)
Considering how well I did with the Derby, I might be better off picking horses with such logic. I am a little embarrassed that — despite knowing that history points to a winner with a race within four weeks of the Derby and three preps or more — I persisted in backing horses like Noble Causeway and High Limit. The only thing I was right about in this race was Bellamy Road. (And being right negatively isn’t as much fun as being right positively.)
One of the Worst Derbies Ever?
That’s what Andrew Beyer says:
The victory by Giacomo in Saturday’s Kentucky Derby came as a crashing anticlimax — a race that will rank among the worst Derbies of recent decades, along with Sea Hero’s win in 1993 and Gato Del Sol’s in 1982. Giacomo’s triumph produced more bewilderment than exhilaration. How did it happen that a 50-1 shot, who had won a single race in his career, edged out an equally undistinguished 72-1 shot in the nation’s most celebrated horse race? …
The final half-mile of this Derby was run in 53.16 seconds — the slowest such fraction over a fast track in the Derby since 1974. Yet horses who looked on paper like late-running threats (such as Wilko, Noble Causeway and Sun King) couldn’t make an impact.
Giacomo outfinished them all — and he’s not even a stretch runner. In his three California races this season, he did not pass a single horse in the stretch. It would be more accurate to say he outstaggered his rivals. His final time of 2 minutes 2.75 seconds translated into a Beyer Speed Figure of 100, the worst for the race in at least 20 years. (Washington Post)
Beyer takes time out of fulminating against Giacomo to praise Afleet Alex’s rider Jeremy Rose: “Nobody rode better than Rose. He threaded his way through the congested field, saved ground most of the way, got Afleet Alex into high gear on the turn and avoided any traffic that might have stalled his momentum.”
Rose did ride Alex well, and his performance was vindication for those who said he was too inexperienced. His ride wasn’t flawless, though (whose is in the Derby?). It was clear from the overhead shot that running on the inside cost Alex a little momentum when he hit a wall of horses at the top of the stretch; once through the traffic jam, he went to the rail again. It did save ground — but was that the wrong place to be? As Gary West noted in his Star-Telegram column yesterday: “All the winners on the main track Saturday at Churchill raced away from the inside rail. Battle Won, for example, raced four-wide; My Trusty Cat rallied four-wide to win the Humana Distaff, upsetting Madcap Escapade, the 2-5 favorite who raced inside; and so it went, race after race. The inside paths were clearly a disadvantage.”
Bob Neumeier praises Rose too in his assessment of Derby winners and losers:
The Derby rookie made no mistakes on Afleet Alex, but what was even more impressive was his cool and calm manner around national television cameras and newspaper columnists. Congrats to trainer Tim Richey and the owners for not “big-timing” the kid by giving the mount to a higher-profile rider. Rose looks like a future star. (MSNBC)
Mike Watchmaker dissects the Derby, extracts some lessons. (Daily Racing Form — sub. req.)
So the Derby wasn’t great for wiseguys. It was good for average fans:
This is all anecdotal, but when I stopped for lunch yesterday at one of those yuppie bread shops, the talk in the line in front of me was over the stratospheric payoffs that came out of the Derby.
A colleague told me that when she called her mom — who normally couldn’t pick a Derby horse from a rocking horse — dear ol’ mom couldn’t stop talking about the long-shot winner.
Heck, on the home page of MSN.com, the Kentucky Derby was the No. 1 search mover as of 1:47 yesterday afternoon, ranking just ahead of a Desperate Housewife (Teri Hatcher) and a woman (Jennifer Wilbanks) seemingly desperate not to be a wife at all. (Lexington Herald-Leader)
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Did you miss out on the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich? Bid on the Giacomo cookie. (eBay)
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Amazing: Lucky guesses and a lost ticket found mean big money for winning Derby superfecta bettors. (New York Times)
Some savvy and lucky handicappers at Suffolk Downs won big with Giacomo on Saturday: “According to Suffolk officials, there was $4,082 wagered to win on Giacomo ($102.60), 33 winning exacta tickets ($9,814.80), one trifecta ($133,134.80), one pick 4 ($164,168.60) and one superfecta ($864,253.50).” (Daily Item of Lynn)
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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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