Pace
Slow Enough to Win
Days before the 140th Kentucky Derby was run, Steve Coburn, the co-owner and breeder of California Chrome, made a prediction: “With a good break and a clean trip,” he said, “I think it’s a done deal.”
What was brash on Wednesday became fact on Saturday, as the Derby field rounded the stretch turn and the 5-2 post-time favorite put his head in front and then began to draw away. He got a clean break. He got a clean trip. (The same can’t be said of several other Derby starters.) He even got a reasonable pace to rate off when Uncle Sigh, wearing blinkers for the first time, took the early lead from Chitu and ran the first three-quarters in 1:11.80 (chart).
What he didn’t get was a triple-digit Beyer speed figure for winning the Derby. With a final time of 2:03.66, California Chrome was given a 97, “the lowest for any Derby or Preakness winner since Andrew Beyer has been making figures,” tweeted Randy Moss. His TimeformUS figure also came up slow — chief figuremaker Craig Milkowski gave him a preliminary 104. Both numbers are well off his previous 108 Beyer and 113 TFUS highs. [5/5/14 Update: TFUS has since revised his Derby figure to 110.]
Maybe that the Derby came up slow is part of a trend toward lower figures in classic races, but it was more likely a strong wind. Gene Kershner notes:
[There] was a fairly strong headwind going against the runners down the stretch, which when counting the first run to the clubhouse turn is approximately 40% of the race running …
Byron King also points out that the track (DRF+):
… appeared much drier than for early races and may not have been as well watered as it had been earlier in the day. There was a gap of 2 hours, 43 minutes from the preceding dirt race, the Churchill Downs Stakes.
The Derby fractions from DRF Formulator are interesting:
Runner-up Commanding Curve and seventh-place finisher Ride on Curlin are the only two running sub :26 final quarters, despite the moderate early pace. It’d be easy to be disappointed by California Chrome’s closing :26.21, except the fraction doesn’t match the visual. Watching the replay, he accelerates to take the lead at the top of the stretch, then jockey Victor Espinoza eases up (and puts away his whip) in what looks like a comfortable final sixteenth:
It was an utterly dominant performance not accurately measured by the final margin; California Chrome drew out to a five-length lead with less than an eighth of a mile to run before jockey Victory Espinoza geared him down, rising in the irons two strides before the wire and waving his crop in the air, much as he had done aboard War Emblem 12 years ago.
Going into the Preakness, there’s a case to be made that California Chrome comes out of the Derby a more formidable contender for the second leg of the Triple Crown in two weeks — after his big efforts winning the San Felipe and Santa Anita Derby, the Kentucky Derby wasn’t a peak performance, at least as expressed in figures. Maybe it didn’t need to be.
Much will depend on how the colt does over the next two weeks and who shows up at Pimlico. Trainer Art Sherman said on Sunday that California Chrome came out of the Derby in good shape, although he did leave a “handful” of grain in his feed tub and that, “He got a little tired, but not too bad.” Alicia Wincze reports his condition as “feisty” this morning.
The Derby winner will stay at Churchill Downs for a few days before heading to Baltimore. His schedule won’t be taxing. “We can light train him over here for a couple of days, kind of just jog him,” Sherman tells Jennie Rees.
Coburn is already looking ahead, past the Preakness, to the Belmont Stakes, his confidence confirmed. California Chrome was the first California-bred to win the Kentucky Derby since Decidedly in 1962. “When he wins the Triple Crown,†said Coburn, “he’ll be the first California-bred to do it.”
– – – – –
About those bad trips … Candy Boy was hard checked on the first turn after fourth-place finisher Wicked Strong crossed his path. Rider Gary Stevens was none too happy after the race, as quoted by the Churchill Downs press office:
“I had a horrible trip. On the first turn Rajiv Maragh came over on Wicked Strong and shut me off. Then he shut [Corey] Nakatani off, causing me to steady again. We’re both lucky we didn’t fall.”
Nakatani was on Dance with Fate, who recovered enough to finish sixth. Candy Boy was 13th; the race is a throw-out for him, whenever he starts next.
Third-place finisher Danza also interfered with Medal Count, veering into his path in the stretch. Sid Fernando helpfully illustrates.
In the Fractions
Handicapper Brad Thomas critiques the 2013 Whitney Handicap results:
“to any developing 3YO still ambulatory late in the year and to Royal Delta …“
Watching Cross Traffic and every other contender but Successful Dan drift, list, and stagger across the wire (replay), it’s hard to argue otherwise.
The DRF Formulator Whitney fractions:
Cross Traffic was given a Beyer speed figure of 108 for his Whitney win.
(Thomas tweets via @superterrific.)
Not So Slow
Left at the Gate posted a Preakness Stakes pace analysis that you should read in full, but the upshot is that on a slow track Oxbow:
… was a running fool and bottomed them all out, the way I see it.
Which is why Oxbow’s Preakness Beyer speed figure is 106, something Bill Oppenheim writes about in today’s Thoroughbred Daily News:
When I first saw the time of Saturday’s Preakness S. — 1:57:2/5, the slowest in 51 years … I thought the Beyer speed figure was sure to come back in the nineties. But when I looked at the times for the other dirt races — 1:10 and change for two six-furlong stakes, and 1:46 and change for and older filly-and-mare Grade III — it did look like the track was slow, and Andy Beyer confirmed there was a stiff headwind against the horses in the stretch.
Oppenheim also publishes a table (PDF), with data provided by Andrew Beyer, of the Beyer speed figures for all the Triple Crown races from 1987 to 2013 (minus this year’s Belmont Stakes, of course), documenting the decline in figures over those years, and in particular, the sharp decline in figures over the past five years, especially in the Belmont Stakes. “That has to be the result of lack of stamina in pedigrees,” Beyer tells Oppenheim.
Trends in breeding can’t be ignored, but the data suggest that there may be additional factors at work, such as changing training practices and the elimination of routine steroid use. If you look at the Belmont Stakes figures, until 2005, the Belmont speed figures are generally in line with or higher than the figures for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. Starting in 2006, the Belmont Stakes figure is consistently lower than both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness figures; from 2006-2012, no Belmont winner earns a higher Beyer than the winner of the Derby or the Preakness.
The most striking thing about the table, though, is that Belmont Stakes figures essentially collapse in 2008. That was the year Da’Tara earned a 99 after Big Brown faltered; no winner has been given better than 100 since. It may be chance, but the period beginning with 2006 coincides with a fresh-is-best training approach to the Triple Crown and a string of Kentucky Derby winners with two preps, and the period beginning with 2008 coincides with a Kentucky Derby winner weaned off Winstrol and an industry-wide steroids ban.
3:45 PM Addendum: Dick Jerardi explains how the 106 given Oxbow was determined: “The key horse in the Preakness was Itsmyluckyday …” (He was given a Beyer of 103 for finishing second.)
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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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