Hangin' With Haskin : Shackleford

Vox Populi Gets It Right

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 19:39:00 GMT

Only in Thoroughbred racing can one of the greatest champions in the history of the sport share the same stage with a former $5,000 claimer from Penn National.

The first two recipients of the new Vox Populi Award, Zenyatta and Rapid Redux, were perfect examples of what the award, created by Penny Chenery, represents – the melding of popularity and achievement and bringing attention to the sport. This award is all about the place a horse holds, not in the record books, but in the hearts of the fans.

Here are two horses who put together unforgettable, history-making winning streaks, but did it on two distinctly different stages. There was Zenyatta, master thespian, performing in front of packed houses on Broadway, and Rapid Redux reciting his lines in a 50-seat theater in the West Village. The Zenyattas of the world will bring people to tears and win the Tony Award. The Rapid Reduxes also will touch people in a profound way, just on a much smaller scale.

The Vox Populi Award, unlike the Eclipse Awards, strips away the theater marquee and jam-packed lobby and focuses only on the actor’s performance and his or her ability to reach deep inside the audience and stir the emotions. Add to that the ability to showcase the sport in the brightest spotlight.

So it was that this year’s nominees for the award consisted of an array of talented horses, all of whom are leading contenders for an Eclipse Award. It did not, however, do justice to the integrity of the award to limit the inductees to Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and Jack Nicholson when you have someone equally as talented, but less accomplished, who infiltrated people’s hearts like few before him.

This is the quality that separates the Vox Populi Award from other awards. Therefore it was reassuring to see the list of nominees expanded to include Paynter and Shackleford following a flood of protests from the public, especially those who became so emotionally involved in the life and death struggle of Paynter, who overcame overwhelming odds to battle back from colitis, laminitis, and surgery to remove an abscess from his colon.

The son of Awesome Again proved to be one of the most brilliant horses in the country following his stunning victory in the Haskell Invitational and gutsy second in the Belmont Stakes, but it was his miracle recovery when most everyone had given up hope that earned him a place among the most popular horses of his time.

Not only were Paynter and the crowd-pleasing Shackleford added to the list of nominees, the voting was opened to all horses, allowing the brilliant Australian heroine Black Caviar to receive votes, which is only appropriate, considering the presence of the freakish English star Frankel on the list. They could not make a case for Frankel receiving votes without also including a filly that had become such a renowned global celebrity as Black Caviar, who captivated an entire nation and then brought English racing fans to their feet at Royal Ascot.

Credit must be given to Penny Chenery for conceiving this award. Chenery realized that she not only owned one of the greatest racehorses of all time, but one of the most popular as well. Here was this golden mythical-like horse who came along and raised the equine genus up several notches at a time when the sport was going through a 25-year drought without a Triple Crown winner. There have been a number of great horses since Big Red, but none of them have become a part of the English vernacular as Secretariat has. After 40 years, he still is the barometer by which all great horses are measured.

Even as recently as this past October, we had Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland comment after taking out his star pitcher Justin Verlander in the ninth inning. “Normally, you don’t take Secretariat out in the final furlong.”

Chenery said of the Vox Populi award, “Horse racing already has established avenues to award outstanding accomplishments, and we certainly should honor superior performance. But achievement can be measured in many ways, and fans occasionally feel a disconnect when the horses who most impacted the public are not recognized through the traditional equine awards. The industry is long overdue in annually acknowledging the star horse who brings the most excitement and attention to the sport. It is my hope that the Secretariat “Vox Populi” Award willbe an honor that reflects the heart and soul of racing and will help build upon the devotion the public has for a horse they love.”

Chenery has always had a close connection with the public and handled Secretariat with the class and sportsmanship befitting a horse of such stature. After four decades of memories, a full-length motion picture, an informative and entertaining website, and now the Vox Populi Award, Secretariat and Chenery continue to give back to the public and expose new generations of racing fans to the beauty of the sport, while reminding everyone what true greatness is.

2011 Crop No Flop

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:53:00 GMT

Few classic crops have been maligned more than the class of 2011. Well, perhaps it is time for the critics to re-evaluate their position.

The truth is, there have been few classic crops recently that have accomplished more over the next two years. It should be noted that we are differentiating classic crop from 3-year-old crop. Every year, we often see late-developing 3-year-olds become the dominant forces in the division, as many of the classic starters fall to injury or fail to maintain their form from the winter and spring due in many cases to the arduous nature of the Triple Crown trail.

This past weekend emphasized the impact made by last year’s classic horses, as two of its major stars – Shackleford and Stay Thirsty – made successful farewells in grade I stakes and now go to stud with unlimited potential, bringing with them an enticing blend of speed, class, and stamina.

The following demonstrates the overall impact of the horses who made their presence felt in last year’s Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.

Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, with only one start in 17 months, turned in a spectacular performance to finish second to Horse of the Year favorite Wise Dan in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and now is considered one of the leading contenders’ for next year’s Dubai World Cup.

Preakness winner Shackleford captured the Met Mile, Clark Handicap, and Churchill Downs Stakes this year and finished second in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Haskell Invitational, and Indiana Derby and this year’s Kelso Handicap.

Belmont Stakes winner Ruler On Ice finished third in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, second in the Pennsylvania Derby, and third in the Haskell Invitational.

Belmont Stakes runner-up Stay Thirsty won the Travers and Jim Dandy and was third in last year’s Jockey Club Gold Cup. This year, he captured the Cigar Mile and was second, beaten a head, in the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Mucho Macho Man, third in the Kentucky Derby, won this year’s Suburban Handicap and Gulfstream Park Handicap, was second, beaten a neck, in the Woodward Stakes, and ran his heart out to finish second, beaten a half-length, in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Kentucky Derby runner-up Nehro returned from an injury to finish second, beaten a nose, in this year’s Oaklawn Handicap before reinjuring himself.

Brilliant Speed, third in the Belmont Stakes, won the Saranac Stakes and placed in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, Woodford Reserve Turf Classic, Sword Dancer, and Jamaica Handicap.

In summation, the horses who finished first, second or third in last year’s classics have gone on to win or place in 16 grade I stakes, including five Breeders’ Cup races – BC Classic twice, BC Turf, BC Mile, and BC Dirt Mile.

Also, Master of Hounds, fifth in the Kentucky Derby, went on to win a grade I stakes in Dubai and grade II stakes in Turkey this year, while placing in three other graded stakes in Dubai.

If you extend the premise into the summer, Haskell winner Coil went on to finish third against older horses in the Goodwood Stakes and this year captured the grade I Santa Anita Sprint Championship, was second in the grade II Pat O’Brien stakes, and third in the Cigar Mile.

Even looking at the horses who participated on the Derby trail, but didn’t make the Run for the Roses, To Honor and Serve came back to win last year’s Cigar Mile and Pennylvania Derby and this year’s Woodward Stakes and Westchester Stakes.

As we have been saying for years, the quality of a classic crop should not be determined until the following year after we’ve had a chance to evaluate the talent level and accomplishments of the horses who participated in the Triple Crown races. The fact that so many of the major players from last year’s classics are even still around and competing at the highest level is impressive and unusual enough. But considering how successful they’ve been in the year and a half following the Belmont, it should convince the skeptics that last year’s classic horses were much better than first thought.

The fairest of the fair

Having just returned from a magical three days in New Orleans, during which my daughter’s boyfriend of six years proposed to her outside Jackson Square, I have to mention the exhilaration felt by all of us attending opening day at Fair Grounds on Thanksgiving, which is racing’s best kept secret outside the state of Louisiana.

In addition to the warm hospitality by everyone at the track, especially Sandra Salmen, head of horsemen’s relations, and a magnificent Thanksgiving buffet feast (I’m still drooling over the cornbread stuffing), I was surprised what a festive tradition opening day has become. The grandstand was packed with enthusiastic fans, many of them parents with their children, and the ladies’ hats rivaled those seen at Churchill Downs on Derby and Oaks day. To top off the proceedings, the Thanksgiving Handicap featured several top-quality sprinters, including the victorious Delaunay, an up-and-coming star who has won five of his last six starts; Smile Sprint Handicap winner Gantry, coming off the Breeders’ Cup Sprint; and the hard-knocking multiple stakes winner Cash Refund. The final time of 1:08 4/5 demonstrated the speed and quality of the field.

What made this visit so nostalgic and gratifying was to see how beautiful the new plant has become since the devastating fire that destroyed the old grandstand in 1993. That just happened to be the last year I visited Fair Grounds. I was sent there in 1992 and ’93 at the request of ESPN to promote a new Daily Racing Form feature I had conceived, along with colleague Steve Feldman, called Derby Watch. That was 20 years ago and Derby Watch, with some conceptual changes, is still a popular feature in the DRF.

I remember suffering from such a bad case of nerves at the thought of being on TV, ESPN’s Bob Neumeier, who was interviewing me, had to give me a glass of water and massage my shoulders to calm me down. Thank goodness it was being taped and not live. And this was the second year I was doing it. The first time was with Dave Johnson and I had come down with a cold and we had to film it on the roof in the rain. I thought I had done great until I was told that the interview had run over nearly three times its allotted length and that I had drifted from one end of the platform on which we were standing to the other. It may have been the first ESPN interview in which the guest sniffled throughout the entire interview.

But even with all that, the memories I had of Fair Grounds were fond ones, and now to return two decades later the day after my daughter’s engagement made this a moment to cherish always. At least this time it was my future son-in-law who had been suffering from nerves and not me.

Magic According to Coil

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:55:00 GMT

Bob Baffert has performed so many extraordinary feats of magic over the years nothing he does should ever come as a surprise. But since the White-Haired Wonder hooked up with new jockey, Garcia the Great, even he is amazed at what he and Martin Garcia have been able to accomplish.

That amazement reached a new high in the $1,020,000 Haskell Invitational Handicap (gr. I) July 31 as Baffert seemingly watched his streak of four consecutive Haskell victories go up in smoke when his speedy colt, Coil, broke slowly from the rail and dropped back to last in the eight-horse field, some eight-to-10 lengths off the pace. This is a horse who had been on or just off the pace in every one of his starts.

Baffert’s “trip from hell” getting to Monmouth Park was going to have a hellish conclusion. But he was forgetting Martin the Magnificent’s penchant for pulling rabbits out of a hat. And sure enough, presto chango, there was Coil circling the field like his sire, 2001 Haskell winner Point Given, and charging down the stretch to a game neck victory over 3-2 favorite, Shackleford, winner of the Preakness Stakes (gr. I).

Garcia had even amazed Baffert, who yelled over to him as he returned to the winner’s circle, “How did you do that?”

Baffert stood there, still in disbelief. “That little Mexican, I don’t how he does it. The kid is incredible. The horse is a really good horse, but Martin won the race. He does it over and over; it’s amazing.”

When Baffert told him he thought the race was over down the backstretch, Garcia put it straight and simple. “You don’t win the races back there; you win the races on this side.”

The trip from hell Baffert kept referring to began when he and owners Mike Pegram, Karl Watson, and Paul Weitman delayed their flight to New Jersey to watch their promising 2-year-old Drill make his career debut at Del Mar. Unfortunately, the colt finished eighth as the even-money favorite.

“We got in our (Gulfstream IV) jet and were scheduled to land in Belmar (N.J.),” Baffert said. “But the lights on the runway wouldn’t go on and we had to fly around for 45 minutes looking for an airport to land at. We finally landed somewhere in Northwest Philadelphia and then had to wait an hour and a half for the car to pick us up. We’re waiting at the airport at 3 o’clock when one of the wives says, ‘This damn horse better win.’ I have no idea where we were, All I know is that we went through five toll booths and didn’t get to our hotel until 5 o’clock in the morning. We left first-class on a G4 private jet and we arrived like gypsies. Then we discovered we were short a few rooms and we had to double up.”

But by early afternoon on race day all was back to normal, as Baffert paid his usual visit to Max’s Hot Dogs. And why not? Baffert’s record in the Haskell: four visits to Max’s Hot Dogs and four Haskell victories. Make that five for five now.

The Haskell shaped up as a classy, competitive race, headed by Preakness winner Shackleford and Belmont Stakes (gr. I) winner Ruler on Ice, who was accompanied by stablemate Pants on Fire, winner of the Louisiana Derby (gr. II). Also in the field were Illinois Derby (gr. III) winner Joe Vann, Federico Tesio winner Concealed Identity, Bay Shore (gr. III) winner J J’s Lucky Train, and Astrology, a close third in the Preakness.

Baffert, on the advice of Garcia, decided to take the blinkers off Coil, who had never run on dirt. Having now won on dirt at first asking, won without blinkers at first asking, and won coming from far off the pace at first asking, racing has no doubt found a new star.

The son of Point Given – Eversmile, by Theatrical was bred in Florida by Glen Hill Farm, who raced the colt in their name. After he finished a solid third in his career debut at Hollywood Park last October, Baffert, who beat him that day with Awesome Patriot, made an offer to buy the horse. He met Glen Hill’s price and has never regretted it.

“I bought him privately on gut feeling,” Baffert said. “I saw him in the paddock and I thought, ‘I’ve never seen a Point Given look like this.’ He was better looking than his sire. I chased Silver Charm for years and that never worked out. I chased Point Given, and immediately after we bought (Coil), I said, ‘This is going to be the last Point Given I’m ever going to buy.’

“After he broke his maiden he chipped a knee and we gave him a couple of months off. We brought him back at Hollywood on Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) Day and he ran real fast that day (earning a whopping 106 Beyer speed figure).”

Then came a win in the Affirmed Handicap (gr. III) in his first two-turn race, then a head defeat at 1-2 in the Swaps Stakes (gr. II), in which he was rank early, and then off came the blinkers in the Haskell and on to the list of Eclipse contenders came Coil.

In the Haskell, Joe Vann set the early pace, carving out fractions of :23.38 and :47.02, while being stalked by Shackleford. Pants on Fire, Concealed Identy, and J J’s Lucky Train were together right behind, followed by Ruler on Ice, Astrology, and Coil, who was sent off as the 3-1 second choice.

Down the backstretch, Garcia took Coil off the rail and settled him outside Astrology. As they swung into the far turn, Garcia began his move and it was obvious he was going to have to go very wide circling the field. But Coil kicked into another gear and quickly moved into contention at the head of stretch.

“Don’t tell me he’s going to win this race,” Baffert said to himself.

Shackleford had taken over the lead and looked strong as he turned for home, but Coil soon was right alongside him and had all the momentum after a strong :23 4/5 quarter from the three-quarters to the eighth pole.

Shackleford, however, who is known for his toughness and tenacity, fought back after Coil had taken over the lead and the two battled to the wire, with Coil winning by a neck. It was another 2 1/4 lengths back to Ruler on Ice in third. The final time for the 1 1/8 miles was an excellent 1:48.20.

“The ride this kid put on this horse was unbelievable,” Baffert said. “I told him before the race, ‘You know, you always wanted to take this horse back and take the blinkers off, I’m going to let you ride him the way you want to ride him. When he stepped back at the break and broke last, all I’m thinking is, ‘This trip from hell is not over yet.’ I was disgusted and kept thinking about the trip home. When he made that big move on the turn it was unbelievable. I was really shocked what he did today, especially beating all those good horses the way he did.”

Said Garcia, “They took a little while to break and when they did, my horse took a step backwards. I didn’t want to be up near the front anyway, so when he didn’t break sharp I figured I’d just made the one move. They were going pretty fast the first half-mile and I didn‘t want to burn my horse. I just wanted to put him where he was comfortable and happy. Plus, speed wasn’t holding today, so I wanted to be back off the pace. When he made that move at the three-eighths pole, I felt I was going to win. When I asked him at the top of the stretch he just took off.”

Dale Romans was proud of the way Shackleford battled back.

“We got a great trip,” he said. “He took the lead turning for home and dug in once Baffert’s horse came up. It looked like he was digging in very gamely in deep stretch. I thought he was going to come back and win it.”

Trainer Kelly Breen, who saddled both Ruler On Ice and Pants On Fire for George and Lori Hall, said he will continue on to the Travers (gr. I) with the Belmont winner.

“Jose (jockey Valdivia Jr.) said he was good,” Breen said. “They just kind of quickened in the third quarter and it took him a while to get going.”

Look for him to improve off this race in the Travers.

Pegram never takes any of these big stakes victories for granted, even having won dozens of them since the early days with Thirty Slews and Real Quiet.

“It never gets old,” he said. “You keep getting reminded just how lucky you are. I hooked my wagon to the right star.”

That star was beaming long after the race, still amazed at what his horse and jockey had accomplished.

“With everything,” Baffert said, “it was a happy ending.”

The Travers

So, after everything, the Travers comes down to a battle of the titans – Baffert vs. Pletcher, with the 3-year-old title on the line.

We won’t go into the same song and dance again about Stay Thirsty’s oddly structured career and his attempts to get out from the shadow of Uncle Mo, who has pretty much dictated Stay Thirsty’s 2-year-old and 3-year-old campaigns. We’ll save that in case he wins the Travers, a race for which he may very well be favored. This has always been a talented horse who needed only to break free from his more illustrious stablemate.

Even after his huge effort in the Belmont Stakes, in which he battled hard along the inside to finish second, many of the experts dismissed that effort, saying it was the slop that helped him and they just couldn’t buy into him.

With the 3-year-old crop being maligned pretty much all year, Stay Thirsty needed to bring his “A” game in the Jim Dandy to silence his detractors. And silence them he did, winning by four emphatic lengths in a sharp 1:48 3/5.

He now will attempt to emulate his sire, Bernardini, who won the Jim Dandy and Travers in 2006. Javier Castellano rode Bernardini and now finds himself on his son.

There has been talk about Shackleford running in the Woodward instead of the Travers. That no doubt will depend on how the Whitney plays out. The 1 1/8-mile race on Saturday could very well catapult one horse to the top of the list for Horse of the Year honors and establish him as the early favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Although the 1 1/8-mile distance of the Woodward might seem more appealing, the feeling here is that the Travers still is the logical spot for Shackleford, unless the Whitney falls apart and produces a mediocre result. We don’t see that happening, but who knows in a year like this. Shackleford has already won the Preakness at 1 3/16 miles and ran well enough in the Kentucky Derby. Although the Travers is an extra furlong, the pace likely will be significantly slower than the Haskell, in which they went the first three-quarters in 1:10 3/5. With a slower pace, Shackleford, who keeps showing he is a tough nut to crack in the stretch, could control the pace a lot better than he did in the Haskell, where he was battling every step of the way, yet still came home his last eighth in a solid :12 3/5. And you have to figure he will move forward off this race.

Of course, Coil and Stay Thirsty will relish the mile and a quarter, but if Shackleford can have an easier time of it on or near the front end in slower fractions, he could be tougher to run down. And a victory in the Travers would put him right back at the top of the 3-year-old division.

Again, the Woodward’s distance looks more to his liking on paper, and perhaps Romans likes the five weeks better than the four weeks between races, but depending on what happens in the Whitney, having tough older horses like Tizway, Rail Trip, Mission Impazible, and Friend or Foe breathing down your neck the whole way might not prove all that inviting. And if you’re going to go down fighting, it might as well be against your fellow 3-year-olds, with whom you are battling for the Eclipse Award.

Haskin's Belmont Report: Is It Finally Nehro's Time?

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 21:14:00 GMT

When Nehro’s connections decided to skip the Preakness and wait for the Belmont Stakes (gr. I), the first thought was that the son of Mineshaft–The Administrator, by Afleet was going to be the buzz horse in the Test of the Champion.

Despite having run second in his last three starts–the Louisiana Derby (gr. II), Arkansas Derby (gr. I), and Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I), there surprisingly hasn’t been much buzz surrounding Nehro, at least to the extent originally expected.

If you can overlook the fact that Nehro has won only one race in his career in six starts, he has as much going for him in regard to being an ideal Belmont Stakes horse as anyone. His female family doesn’t exactly shout mile and a half, but there is certainly enough to suggest he will have little problem with the distance.

What he does having going for him is temperament, versatility, and consistency. Actually, when you think of it, what he has accomplished in his last four starts has been pretty remarkable.

First off, however, his temperament is as close to perfect as you can hope. This horse is extremely laid back, will eat grass all day if you let him, does everything you ask of him, and you can’t school any better in the paddock than he did on Wednesday when he never so much as turned a hair in sweltering temperatures.

It is that temperament, along with his natural ability, that enabled him to turn in the four efforts we alluded to.

In his maiden race going a mile at Oaklawn, he came from far back, and with one devastating move on the far turn, inhaled his opposition before drawing off to win by 4 ½ lengths.

That race was good enough to prompt his connections, especially owner Ahmed Zayat, to try him in the Louisiana Derby, despite the big jump in class.

This time Nehro sat right behind the leaders in third, while caught in traffic, and then rallied along the inside to finished second, beaten only a neck by Pants on Fire.

In the Arkansas Derby, he again came from far back, but this time didn’t get in gear until he was in the stretch. Although Archarcharch made a big move nearing the eighth pole to blow by the leaders, Nehro was getting to him with every stride, again losing by a rapidly diminishing neck.

Finally, in the Kentucky Derby, he had to break from post 18, raced closer up in fifth, while wide every step of the way, and was the first horse to make his move and go after the pace-setting Shackleford, who was setting extremely slow fractions.

Nehro collared Shackleford turning for home, but as we saw in the Preakness, Shackleford is not an easy horse to put away. Nehro kept coming at him, finally wearing him down and taking over the lead inside the eighth pole. But a fresh Animal Kingdom came sweeping by him, and although he began to draw clear, Nehro continued to run on well to finish second.

There are few who would argue that Nehro ran close to a mile and half in the Derby, going five-wide into and around the first turn, five-wide the length of the backstretch, and six-wide turning for home. For him to finish second was an extraordinary effort.

So, in his last four starts, Nehro has rallied from far back with a sweeping outside move on the turn, rallied from close up on the inside, rallied from far back on the outside, and rallied from fairly close up again while racing extremely wide every step of the way.

You have to admire this colt’s versatility and his ability to launch a powerful move from anywhere on the racetrack.

We have no idea where he’ll be in the Belmont Stakes, but does it really matter? You can be sure regardless of where he’s running he’s going to put in his usual big move. And for that he must be respected, and most of all admired.

In other Belmont news, there were some anxious moments this morning concerning Master of Hounds, who arrived at Belmont from Aqueduct at 6:45 and proceeded to cause quite a ruckus, especially whenever a filly walked by his stall. He was quite studdish walking the shed, and it was only until he went to the track for a jog and a mile trot that he settled down.

Despite the blistering heat he did not get hot at all on the track and was calm and relaxed walking back to the barn, and was much better once back in his stall.

At Ballydoyle, the colts and fillies are separated, and coming from two days of solitude in quarantine at Aqueduct, it took the colt a while before he got used to the new surroundings, with horses walking past his stall and grazing in the paddock.

Assistant trainer T.J. Comerford, said they’ll get the colt’s training out of the way early on Friday, sending him out at 6:30.

Animal Kingdom looked great on the track this morning and simply has done nothing wrong since he arrived at Belmont last weekend. Shackleford also is his holding his flesh extremely well, and while some people feel Mucho Macho Man looks on the thin side, he actually seems to be thriving at Belmont and looks like as happy horse. He is a naturally thin horse, especially with his 17-hands-plus frame, but he has shown no indication he will not be in top shape for the Belmont, where his humongous stride should help him.

Another laid-back horse who takes everything in stride and looks to be doing very well is Santiva. This tenacious little horse should be fairly close to the lead, and if he can again show the same tenacity of his sire, Giant’s Causeway, he could be an intriguing longshot for the exotics.

Haskin's Belmont Report: How the Race Shapes Up

Blood-Horse Staff — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:31:00 GMT

The last pieces of the puzzle in the Triple Crown races are the post positions, and horsemen cannot wait until they can get that out of the way.

The main drama in Wednesday’s draw for the June 11 Belmont Stakes (gr. I) came when two post positions remained in the 12-horse field – Post 1 and Post 9. One of the two horses who still had not drawn was Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Animal Kingdom.

With a brilliant work over the track behind him and a superb gate-schooling session Wednesday morning, during which he was the consummate pro, all that was left to possibly de-rail the Derby winner was an unfavorable post position, and the rail was the not the ideal place from which to break, especially with the nightmarish memories of Big Brown’s fiasco from Post 1 in 2008 still fresh in people’s minds.

Well, it couldn’t have worked out better. Animal Kingdom drew Post 9 and the Irish invader, Master of Hounds, drew the rail. But with Master of Hounds it was a totally different story.

Trained and campaigned mainly in Europe, Master of Hounds is used to racing with cover. Not only has he shown excellent tactical speed, especially in his gutsy nose defeat in the UAE Derby (UAE-II), he proved in the Kentucky Derby he can handle the dirt and the kickback, and has the ability to weave inside and outside of horses in order to extricate himself from traffic problems. He also is more of a grinder, and he’ll have plenty of time to find his openings under Garrett Gomez, who knows him a lot better now and told trainer Aidan O’Brien after the Derby he would love to ride him back in the Belmont Stakes.

The other topic of conversation was Preakness (gr. I) winner Shackleford drawing the far outside in the 12-horse field.

But here again, of all the horses in the race, Shackleford should be the least affected by breaking from the far outside. As the only true speed horse in the race, al he has to do is break fairly alertly and then ease on over to the inside. How far will depend on hos the track is playing. Sometimes, the rail has a tendency to be dead and jockeys will fan their horses wide on purpose.

What Shackleford brings into the Belmont that he didn’t in the Derby and Preakness is a reputation. Having established his tenacity on the lead and the ability to control the pace, and with his game score in the Preakness, no one would be foolish enough to take him on early unless they are intent on going on a suicide mission.

Shackleford takes horses out of their game plan and makes them play his game, whether he’s going slow or fast. As a jockey, you don’t want to lull him to sleep by slowing the pace down to a crawl, but he appears to have the ability to slow it down for the first mile and then kick for home early and try to catch the others by surprise and make them use every bit of their stamina.

Expect to see Santiva, Prime Cut, Mucho Macho Man and possibly Master of Hounds and Nehro sitting behind Shackleford, watching his every move. Ruler on Ice shouldn’t be too far back either. The big decision for the riders will be when to pull the trigger. This track is made for Mucho Macho Man’s gargantuan strides and you sure don’t want to see him too far off and being given a lot to do in the last three-eighths of a mile. This is still pretty much a baby (he won’t actually turn 3 until four days after the Belmont) and you have to use the one physical strength he has – his stride.

As for Animal Kingdom, let’s remember he showed excellent speed breaking his maiden going 1 1/8 miles at Keeneland and wasn’t that far back in a grass optional claimer going a mile. But he’s going to do what got him here, although there is no way he’s going to be as far back as he was in the Preakness. He showed in the Spiral Stakes and in a lesser way the Kentucky Derby he has the ability to make a strong early move down the backstretch and sustain it. And sustaining that kind of move proved successful for Afleet Alex, who just kept coming and coming around the far turn before blowing away his opposition. It also proved successful for another late closer, Jazil.

Stay Thirsty is another who can grind his way into contention. The big question with him is whether he’s good enough. His half-brother, Andromeda’s Hero, finished second to Afleet Alex in the Belmont by just coming and coming while others were backing up.

The other horse who is going to come from relatively far out of it is Brilliant Speed, and we wrote on Monday about his amazing Belmont Stakes pedigree. The key to him is whether he handles the dirt. He seemed to have no problems in the Derby, in which he was beaten only 5 ½ lengths after having to go nine-wide.

The longest prices in the field, Isn’t He Perfect and Monzon, don’t really have any specific running style.

So, that’s pretty much the Belmont Stakes in a nutshell from a post position and strategy aspect. There should be plenty of time to make your own luck as long as the rider and horse are patient and don’t do anything silly.

Haskin's Belmont Report: It's Macho That Worries Irwin, Not Shackleford

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:47:00 GMT

If you’re going to play catch with Team Valor’s Barry Irwin, don’t assume if you lob the ball to him he’s going to lob it back to you.

New York Racing Association’s Andy Serling lobbed one to Irwin while emceeing Tuesday’s Belmont Stakes (gr. I) media luncheon, asking him if he’s concerned about the pace scenario, with Shackleford appearing to be the controlling speed in the mile and a half race.

But Irwin, who always speaks his mind, is never dull, and isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers, came back with a big sweeping curve.

“My horse has high cruising speed,” he replied innocently enough before firing his strike-out pitch. “I’m not worried about Shackleford. I’m worried about Mucho Macho Man. I think he’s the horse to beat.”

Shackleford’s trainer, Dale Romans, wasn’t about to let that snub go unanswered. When it was his turn to come up to the microphone, he fired back at Irwin.

“I’ll meet (Animal Kingdom) anywhere, any track, any distance,” Romans said. “That wasn’t the dumbest thing I’ve heard Barry say, but it’s one of them.”

As Irwin was being interviewed by the media after the proceedings, Romans stopped briefly, pointed to Irwin, and in his best Muhammed Ali impersonation, yelled “I want you!”

Irwin explained, “I think (Mucho Macho Man) is going to love a mile and a half. I thought he ran great in the Derby. He’s a big, growthy horse and he needs a big track. He’s the one that scares me the most. He’s obviously had his little unfortunate things along the way, but I’m impressed with that horse.

When the word controversy was brought up in regard to his Shackleford comment, Irwin said, “What’s so controversial about it? I just gave my opinion.”

Irwin went on to say that he doesn’t “see Shackleford going a mile and a half, being by Forestry.” He added, “It would stretch the limits of credulity.”

Romans has heard from several other rivals in the past few days how Shackleford can’t go a mile and a half.

“Every time I turn around, someone is knocking my horse,” he said, “I had to defend him today. I know I wouldn’t trade horses with any one of them.”

A short while later, Irwin and Romans posed for photos, with St. Patrick’s Cathedral as a backdrop. They then engaged in a friendly conversation, knowing they had added a little spice to the day’s lunch.

Anyone who doesn’t think Barry Irwin is great for racing must have is or her head in the sand. This sport needs people to say what they feel, and back it up, and not follow the same boring scripts that most follow. Irwin is the king of improvisation, and if there is something the sport needs, especially during the high-profiled Triple Crown, it is spontaneity.

In other Belmont news:

Brilliant Speed had the exact kind of work trainer Tom Albertrani was looking for. What was most impressive about the half-mile breeze in :50 3/5 was how the son of Dynaformer closed while on a very loose rein from exercise rider and assistant Dan Blacker, and the way he galloped out, getting another eighth in :13 flat.

Shortly after 3:30 this afternoon, the vans carrying Santiva and Prime Cut pulled into the Belmont Park backstretch.

Santiva looked as if he had just traveled around the block. He didn’t turn a hair, his coat was radiant, and he settled right in, taking a roll in his new bedding and then attacking his hay rack.

He is just as we remember him from his days before the Derby standing at the gap after the renovation break without moving a muscle. He is such a cool little horse. Nothing bothers him and he has a personality you can’t help but love.

His race in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) was deceptively good, and that will be discussed in greater detail as the week progresses.

The weather forecast now calls for temperatures in the mid to high 90s over the next couple of days, followed by a chance of thunderstorms Friday night and 60% chance of showers on Saturday. That will bring back the old handicapping in the slop section in our Friday column.

Preakness Telecast Aftermath: No Sweat

Blood-Horse Staff — Sun, 29 May 2011 00:51:00 GMT

I was going to leave this sleeping dog lying where it was, but the dog is being kicked so often, it’s time to come to its defense.

There is no denying that NBC analysts Donna Brothers and Gary Stevens both became concerned by the way Shackleford was sweating and acting up before the Preakness. So the horse wins, still dripping sweat crossing the finish line, and everyone is in an uproar for being misled by the experts.

Well, guess what? Brothers and Stevens are indeed experts and know how to look at a horse as well as anyone. They are getting paid to provide viewers with their observations and that’s all they did. They both observed Shackleford sweating and kicking and bucking in the saddling area. Well, guess what again? He WAS sweating and kicking and bucking, and it was not exactly earth-shattering news anyway considering everyone watching the telecast could see it clearly.

What Brothers and Stevens did was inform the viewers that he had continued to sweat and get worked up in front of the stands and on the far turn heading to the gate. Not at any point did either of them tell you the horse was going to lose, just as they would never state flat-out that a horse who looks fantastic is going to win. Folks, they’re horses, and they react to things in different ways. There is no guide book that states emphatically if a horse is sweating up before a race he automatically is going to lose. Go back to the 1977 Kentucky Derby telecast and listen to Eddie Arcaro all but dismiss Seattle Slew’s chances in the race as he went to the post looking as if he were in a car wash.

In short, Brothers and Stevens did their job by relaying their observations. What you do with those observations is up to you. Anyway, if you had already bet the horse, what are you going to do with only a few minutes to post? Bet someone else in addition to Shackleford? Well, if you had, no big deal; you won anyway. If you didn’t bet Shackleford, it shouldn’t have been of any concern to you that the horse was sweating and acting up. You had your own horse to worry about. If you were merely rooting for Shackleford, so you had a minute or two of concern. Think how much happier you were when he won. Winning with lower expectations is always more fun.

Some have criticized Brothers and Stevens for not knowing ahead of time that Shackleford also got hot before the Florida Derby. Sure, they could have gone to all 14 trainers before the race and asked them to tell them every one of their horses’ pre-race habits, quirks, and idiosyncrasies. Of course, they would have had to do that for all 20 horses in the Kentucky Derby as well. In a perfect world that would have helped when they made their comments in the Preakness, but now that the rare horse has surfaced who defied his pre-race antics I’ll bet Brothers and Stevens will learn from it and get more information on the horses. It’s not easy to be considered an expert at something and put your reputation on the line in front of millions of people

And Shackleford may have gotten washy before the Florida Derby, but not like this. Some horses do not like being saddled out in a large open area in front of a packed grandstand of screaming fans and masses of people hovering over them, especially in 80-degree weather. They are used to the confinement and privacy of saddling stalls. Even the ones who don’t like saddling stalls, the Preakness is a drastic alternative. Remember when Alternation went ballistic in the starting gate of the Rebel Stakes, flipping over and thrashing about? Well, few know that had already gotten hot and agitated saddling in a similar environment as the Preakness.

Oh, and I didn’t hear anyone comment on Brothers’ and Stevens’ observations about Sway Away totally washing out. His race reflected that. I guess no one noticed.

Brothers also commented that Mucho Macho Man looked lighter than he had in the Derby. Did that contribute to his sixth-place finish or was it losing his front shoe? Or maybe he just got beat, period. Does it matter? Again, it was merely an observation. It didn’t mean that Mucho Macho Man wasn’t going to win the Preakness. He’s 17 hands and all legs and has been going through growth spurts. He won’t even turn 3 until June 15. So, if he looked lighter to Brothers, that was her observation. The colt’s connections were thrilled with the way he was doing. That was their observation.

So, after the race a message board lit up with people complaining the racing fans were cheated by not knowing that Mucho Mucho Man lost weight. Cheated? Brothers did not weigh the horse. This wasn’t official. Maybe to another set of eyes he didn’t look lighter. Do these same people feel cheated losing a bet on a $10,000 claimer who may have lost weight going into the race? How many horses that lose a race were lighter than they were in their previous race? Wanna bet a lot more than you think? The only difference is, you don’t have Brothers or Stevens or any other experts around to give their observations. The money you bet in that $10,000 has the same value as the money you bet in the Preakness.

That asks the question: should all horses’ weight be made public in the past performances? They do it in some other countries and it sure sounds like a good idea if you can coordinate such an undertaking. We have slightly more horses competing at once than Hong Kong for example. And who is going to supervise the weighing? A track official? The horse’s trainer on the honor system? Where do you do the weighing? How many scales do you need? Do you weigh all 75-90 horses at each track the day before they race? Multiply that number by five or six and that’s a lot of weighing in a one-week period, every week. Anyway, in a perfect world, it’s a good idea.

Getting back to the subject at hand, stop with the post-race second-guessing. NBC is fortunate enough to have an astute horseman in Stevens and an equally astute horsewoman in Brothers sharing their observations. It’s up to you to do with them what you like in the couple of minutes available to you. But don’t jump all over them when, on the rare occasion, a horse does something most horses are not supposed to do.

Haskin's Derby/Preakness Wrap-up: Fortnight Follies

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:56:00 GMT

The next time a trainer mentions his or her concerns about running back in two weeks after the Kentucky Derby (gr. I), can we pay no attention to it? It is now 25 of the last 28 Preakness (gr. I) winners that ran in the Derby, and one of the ones who didn’t was Rachel Alexandra, who ran two weeks earlier in the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I). Despite the fantastic performance turned by Bernardini in the Preakness, let’s remember, the Derby winner, Barbaro, only ran an eighth of a mile before suffering an injury. The only other new shooter to win the Preakness was Red Bullet in the mud.

This year, horses coming out of the Derby (five of them) finished first, second, and fourth, and another horse finished sixth after losing a shoe and getting cut up in the race.

Is it possible that today’s Thoroughbreds are more resilient than most trainers think? The belief here is that horses get on a roll, or an adrenaline high, which is why the majority of Derby–Preakness winners run more impressively in the Preakness. If the Derby takes such a toll on a horse how come Funny Cide and Smarty Jones were able to come back in two weeks and win the Preakness by nine and 11 lengths, respectively? How could Afleet Alex have come back in two weeks after a hard race in the Derby to run one of the most amazing races in Triple Crown history? Where was Big Brown’s regression in the Preakness after his stunning Derby victory in only his fourth career start? After his gut-wrenching stretch battle in the Derby, how could Silver Charm have come back in two weeks and score another gut-wrenching victory? Why were Real Quiet and Charismatic able to come back in two weeks and improve off their Derby victories?

And we’re just talking about the so-called “fragile” horses of recent years. Did finishing 16th in the Derby prevent Louis Quatorze from equaling the stakes record in the Preakness? Did finishing 10th in the Derby as the favorite prevent Hansel from winning the Preakness by seven lengths?

Isn’t it time for trainers to stop worrying about coming back in two weeks, especially when they run their horses in the Derby off five- and six-week layoffs? In the 1940s and ‘50s, of the 20 Kentucky Derby winners, 12 of them ran four days before the Derby, and many of them worked a half-mile in between. The Blue Grass was nine days before the Derby and the Wood Memorial and Arkansas Derby were two weeks before the Derby.

We’re not criticizing trainers for voicing their concerns about coming back in two weeks. That is the conservative thinking that is ingrained in many of today’s trainers.

The bottom line is five trainers this year did indeed come back in two weeks, concerns or no concerns, with mainly successful results, and however reluctant they were to do it, they at least did and deserve credit for that. All we’re saying is that perhaps it is not as excruciating a task as one might think, as long as the horse comes out of the Derby in good shape. After all, the horses keep proving year after year they are more than up to it. And if they do get past the Preakness, then trainers can start concerning themselves with keeping them going in the Belmont. That will take more skill and horsemanship than getting them ready for the Preakness.

Pace perception

Sometimes there is more to pace than just the bare numbers. One of the main topics of conversation since the Derby was how slow the pace was, and how Shackleford set the slowest three-quarter fraction (1:13.40) since 1947. There is no disputing that time, as that is what the teletimer read.

But there are times when your eyes and brain contradict what the teletimer says. It has been widely acknowledged by several trainers that the Churchill Downs surface on Derby Day was very deep and cuppy as it dried out following more than a week of rain. They felt the surface, while obviously safer, wasn’t as tight as it used to be when we had several years of blistering fractions. Those were the days when they had deep and often-times cuppy surfaces in the days and weeks leading up to the Derby and then a rock-hard surface on Derby Day.

The point we’re trying to make is that from a visual standpoint, it did not look as if they were going in 1:13.40. Going that slow you would expect the majority of the field to be pretty well bunched up. Instead, the field was strung out nearly 20 lengths, hardly an indication of an extremely slow pace. That would mean the favorite, Dialed In, ran his three-quarters in almost 1:17. This is a horse whose average three-quarter split going into the Derby was 1:12.20. Did Dialed In really run 24 lengths slower than he’d ever run before, legitimately?

It’s true that the field as a whole came home very fast, but we still have our doubts that pace-setting Shackleford and his closest pursuers were merely loping along and not expending any energy. If they were, then the Derby was the oddest looking slow-pace scenario we can recall seeing. In short, the eyes contradicted the tote board.

As for the Preakness, the slow second and third fractions following a rapid opening quarter was said to be the main contributing factor to Animal Kingdom’s and Dialed In’s defeat. Although they went in :22.69, :46.87 and 1:12.01, let’s not forget that in the 1 1/16-mile William Donald Schaeffer Stakes (gr. III), solid older stakes horses like the pace-setting Colizeo went in :24.38, :48.83, and 1:13:19, and Colizeo was caught in the stretch by Apart. The bottom line here is, the three-quarter split, as slow as it may have been following such a fast opening quarter, still was a full second faster than older horses went going an eighth of a mile shorter.

Crop dusting

OK, so this is a mediocre crop of 3-year-olds, one of the slowest ever. What else is new? We hear that almost every year. One of those years we heard it was in 1987 after a stumbling Alysheba picked himself up and still ran down a weaving Bet Twice to win the Kentucky Derby in a sluggish 2:03 2/5, the slowest Derby in 13 years. Alysheba’s jockey, Chris McCarron, in defending his colt, put it best when he said, “He’s still just a kid.” When Alysheba breezed a half in :50 3/5 before the Preakness, the media all but threw him out for working so slowly. Now, most horses don’t even work between the Derby and Preakness.

Fast forward to the fall of 1987 and just about everyone is proclaiming that very same crop one of the greatest ever, with the likes of Alysheba, Bet Twice, Gulch, Java Gold, Lost Code, Gone West, Cryptoclearance, Afleet, and Polish Navy.

As a point of interest this year, we’re all aware that Animal Kingdom came home the second-fastest final quarter and half-mile in the history of the Derby, second only to Secretariat. Well, for good measure, he came his final three-sixteenths in the Preakness in about :18 3/5, again one of the fastest in the history of the race. And Shackleford’s :19 1/5 was one of the fastest closing fractions by a horse on the pace.

How about if we wait for these kids to grow up before putting the stamp of disapproval on them?

****

Our condolences to Shackleford’s co-owner and co-breeder Mike Lauffer who celebrated his colt’s Preakness victory on Saturday knowing he’d be attending the funeral of his future son-in-law on Monday. His daughter’s fiancé had died unexpectedly in his sleep several days earlier at the age of 25.

****

It looks as if five horses from the Derby who skipped the Preakness will come back in the Belmont Stakes, where they will square off with the three hearty souls – Animal Kingdom, Shackleford, and Mucho Macho Man -- who dared to compete in all three races. They are Nehro (second), Master of Hounds (fifth), Santiva (sixth), Brilliant Speed (seventh), and Stay Thirsty (12th). Look for Nehro and Master of Hounds to take heavy action at the windows.

****

Going a bit off topic, is there any chance that in the year of the Royal Wedding, Carlton House is not going to give The Queen her first ever English Derby victory? Good luck betting against that one. If you want to see the wildest celebration ever at Epsom make sure you tune in to the Derby telecast this year.

Haskin's Preakness Recap: Shack and Awe

aspradling — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:56:00 GMT

Two days before the May 21 Preakness Stakes (gr. I), trainer Dale Romans was standing outside the fence by the grazing area telling Shackleford’s co-owners and breeders Mike Lauffer and Bill Cubbedge how revved up their colt was since arriving at Baltimore the day before. As he spoke, Shackleford was in his stall ripping into his hay rack with great vigor.

“He got off the van high as a kite,” Romans said. “When I had him out grazing, he wanted to buck with me. He came out of the Derby sharper than he went in; it’s unreal. He’s been a man since he came out of that race. I’ve never seen him like this. When he was out on the track yesterday, he started bucking in the middle of his gallop.”

Just then, a loud noise could be heard from Shacklelford’s stall. Romans and his partner in life and assistant Tammy Fox went over to check it out. As if offering visual proof to back up his trainer’s words, the big chestnut, right on cue, had lunged forward breaking the crossbar above his webbing. He stood there sheepishly as the screws were reinserted in the wall.

Two days later, Shackleford again lunged forward, this time as he was turning back the challenge of Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Animal Kingdom. It was that final lunge with 70 yards to go that enabled the son of Forestry – Oatsee, by Unbridled to capture the second leg of the Triple Crown and provide Romans with his first classic winner.

The script for the Preakness had been played out perfectly. Romans knew the pace of the race would be the key factor for Shackleford, who had the swift-footed Flashpoint directly inside him and the talented stalkers Midnight Interlude and Dance City two stalls away on his outside.

Although it seemed to many that Shackleford’s only chance was for him and Flashpoint to slow the pace down, Romans had a different take. He felt Shackleford had too much stamina and class for Flashpoint and eventually would assert his authority and take control of the race. By letting his colt establish a quick pace early he could take his pursuers out of their comfort zone.

“You go slow and you let them in the game,” Romans said the day before the Preakness. “When I had Roses in May, I always told the jock to let him roll and kill off everyone behind him. He had speed and wanted to go on, just like Shackleford. When I sat down with (jockey) John Velazquez before the Dubai World Cup (UAE-I), the natural inclination was for Johnny to slow the pace down. I said ‘Bull; this horse is fast and could keep going and they can’t keep up with him.’ He just gunned him out of there and let him go fast the whole way. It looked like Choctaw Nation (a powerful closer) was going to blow right by him in the stretch, but he hit a wall, because he had worked so hard just to get up to him.”

Romans had just written the script for the 136th Preakness. When Shackleford and Flashpoint tore through an opening quarter in a rapid :22.69, most everyone felt they both were cooked. But by running that quickly early, it forced his main threat, Animal Kingdom, to retreat to the back of the pack in 13th, nearly 20 lengths behind the dueling leaders.

Shackleford and Flashpoint then were able to slow the pace down, and as Romans expected, Shackleford roared by Flashpoint on the far turn. Midnight Interlude, Astrology, and Dance City, who had been racing in third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, tried to close in, but Shackleford was now in complete control of the race. He was able to open a clear lead in the stretch, while closing his final three-sixteenths in a quick :19.25.

Animal Kingdom came charging at him, but had to make up that 18-length deficit in doing so. That, combined with Shackleford’s tenacity, led to the Derby winner’s downfall. Just like Choctaw Nation and Roses in May in the 2005 World Cup, Animal Kingdom had worked hard just to get up to Shackleford and couldn’t get by the gutsy colt, who had plenty left to repulse the challenge. Romans’ perfect script again had a perfect ending.

Up in his box, Romans stood up and began pounding on his chair as they neared the wire. After Shackleford had held on for the victory, Romans fell over Tammy and their son 15-year-old Jake and 18-year-old daughter Bailey, and then picked all three of them up in one massive bear hug.

“I’ve never seen him get that emotional,” Bailey said. “He literally fell over all of us. He gave us a hug like you could never imagine. My mom, my brother, and me, he grabbed us and picked us up at the same time. It was amazing.”

Jake added, “He was going crazy. He was pretty nervous before the race. I could tell, because I said something to him and he wouldn’t answer me.”

One of the reasons why Romans seemed to be a bit out of sorts prior to the race was because he had just received a phone call while crossing the track after saddling Shackleford informing him that Paddy O’Prado, who had just won the Dixie Stakes (gr. II) the race before, was limping in the test barn, located on the backstretch. The veterinarian asked if he wanted to van him back to the barn or walk him. It was decided to van him back.

Following the Preakness, there was Shackleford attacking his hay rack as visitors snapped photos of him, while Paddy O’Prado stood in the stall next to him, his injured foot in an ice bucket. Two days later he would be retired.

“It’s unreal, the ups and downs of this game,” said Romans, whose horse, by finishing second in the Florida Derby (gr. I) and winning the Preakness, had just won a $550,000 consolation bonus, sponsored by Magna International Developments.

Those ups and downs held true for Mike Lauffer, who rejoiced over Shackleford’s victory while having to cope with the unexpected death of his future son-in-law several days earlier. Although he'd be attending the funeral on Monday, Lauffer kept the tragedy to himself and tried to soak in every moment of what likely will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“My wife and daughter are doing fine; they’re absolutely ecstatic about the race,” Lauffer said, wanting to focus on the victory. “Our little town of Paintsville, Ky. has been so excited about the Derby and now the Preakness. It’s just unbelievable how lucky I’ve been in this business. I’ve only been involved for six years and I’ve already been part owner of Rachel Alexandra, and now Bill and I win the Preakness with the first colt we’ve ever raced.”

Lauffer’s son Seth added, “It's been a rough week, but right now I’m so excited my legs are still numb. I remember Dale telling me and my dad after he had Shackleford about two weeks, ‘We’re going to have a lot of fun with this horse.’”

The victory also was emotional for jockey Jesus Castanon, who lost his father, a former trainer in Mexico City, last November. “When I crossed the wire he just came to me,” he said. “I know he was up there watching me.”

Romans still found it hard to believe how far he’s come since he and his brother, Jerry, were emptying out muck baskets and filling up water buckets for their father at the age of 8.

“It’s unbelievable,” Romans said. “I’ve been on the racetrack my entire life and I never thought training stakes horses was a realistic goal starting out, much less having a classic winner. Since starting with my father (who died in 2008 at age 58), I’ve been in the same barn at Churchill Downs for 40 years, and we lived only three miles from the track. Getting a horse like this wasn’t even a dream. All I was looking to do was make a living in this business in some way.”

From a career that began with mostly claimers, Romans has now finished in the top four in five consecutive Triple Crown races (third in the Kentucky Derby with Paddy O’Prado, second in the Preakness with First Dude, third in the Belmont with First Dude, fourth in the Kentucky Derby with Shackleford, and first in the Preakness with Shackleford).

Jerry, who works for R.J. Reynolds and owns the stakes-winning Sassy Image, trained by his brother, added, “Our father (also named Jerry) had us walking hots and rolling bandages when we were 10 and we both had our trainer’s license at 16. He just had cheap claimers his entire career. He didn’t like babies, because he said you had your money tied up too long, and he couldn’t bring himself to spend $100,000 of some guy’s money and then look him in the eye and tell him his horse ain’t worth $10,000. He liked claiming horses, because you could turn right around and see them run. Dad accommodated the average man; he’d seen too many owners go broke in this game. Shackleford is probably worth more than the total value of all the horses our dad ever trained. He’d be immensely proud if he were here today.”

“I think he’d be blown away,” Dale said. “I don’t think he won but two or three stakes his entire career, but it was a good enough career to raise us all.”

Romans, Lauffer, and Cubbedge knew early on that Shackleford had the potential to be something special after buying him back for $275,000 at the Keeneland September yearling sale. But he first had a good deal of maturing to do.

“He needed time to be the best he could be,” said Webb Carroll, who broke the colt and put him through his early training at his facility in St. Matthews, S.C. “He kept getting better and better and better. He always had the ability to think things through. In the beginning he was reluctant to get in the gate, but we never pushed him. I just got in his mind and finessed him and played with him. Then one day he amazed us. Out of the clear blue sky he just walked in on his own and was never a problem again. Dale has done a fantastic job with him by allowing him to mature. We always treated him like a class horse and that’s what he’s become.”

Shackleford broke his maiden going seven furlongs at Churchill Downs last Nov. 27 in his second career start, and showed his gameness and tenacity even then by battling head and head on the lead, getting passed at the eighth pole, and coming back to win by three-quarters of a length. He then stretched out to 1 1/8 miles in a Gulfstream allowance race and stalked the pace before drawing off to win by 2 ¼ lengths, despite racing greenly through the stretch.

Although he ran a poor race in the Fountain of Youth (gr. II), getting beat by more than 23 lengths after hitting his head hard in the starting gate, Romans still had confidence in him and wheeled him back in the Florida Derby, where he was beaten a head at 68-1 by Dialed In, battling back after being caught at the sixteenth pole. In the Kentucky Derby, he set all the pace and opened up a clear lead in the stretch, while down on the rail, but was overtaken in the final sixteenth by Animal Kingdom, Nehro (second), and Mucho Macho Man (third), who all made their run well out in the middle of the track.

Romans had no reservations about running him back in two weeks at Pimlico. “He’s training like the two weeks won’t bother him at all,” he said. “He tries all the way to the wire, so we’ve got to keep swinging.”

Shackleford did the swinging in the Preakness and hit it out of the park, despite stumbling coming out of the gate. After that torrid opening quarter, he and Flashpoint were able to slow the pace down, getting the half in :46.87 and the three-quarters in 1:12.01.

“That middle part of the race made it for the winner,” said Animal Kingdom’s trainer Graham Motion, who had kept his colt at the Fair Hill training center, some 60 miles from Pimlico, until the morning of May 21, thus leaving the traditional Derby winner’s “Stall 40” empty until race day for the first time in memory.

Astrology, one of the nine new shooters who did not run in the Derby, saved ground all the way in third, followed by Midnight Interlude and Dance City. Mucho Macho Man was in tight quarters between horses down the backstretch, and as he did in the Louisiana Derby (gr. II), he lost a shoe in the race and came back with several cuts. Dialed In, second choice at 4-1, again brought up the rear, right behind Animal Kingdom, who was sent off as the 2-1 favorite.

Animal Kingdom began to pick off horses around the turn, but had a lot of ground to make up on Shackleford, who was still going along easily with his ears cocked. Turning for home, Shackleford kicked on, opening a one-length lead over Astrology at the eighth pole, with Animal Kingdom bearing down on them. Mucho Macho Man somehow had wound up widest off and didn’t have his usual kick. Dialed in was in traffic and making a belated run.

When Shackleford began drifting in down the stretch, Castanon went to a left-handed whip, which resulted in the colt drifting back out. Castanon then switched to a right-handed whip as Animal Kingdom came charging up on his flank. That right-handed whip caused Shackleford to jump back to his left lead. Whether or not it was the change of leads, Shackleford found more and regained the momentum, turning back Animal Kingdom’s challenge. At that point, it became obvious there would be no Triple Crown attempt this year.

The margin of victory was a half-length, with Animal Kingdom 1 ¼ lengths ahead of a stubborn Astrology, who finished 2 ½ lengths in front of Dialed In. The last named was running for the big $5.5 million pot of the Magna bonus. The final time for the 1 3/16 miles was 1:56.47 over a drying out fast track.

Back at the barn, Motion came over to congratulation Romans. “Sonofagun,” he said putting his arm on Romans’ shoulder.

Romans shook his head and said, “It’s unbelievable,” to which Motion replied, “It’s a funny game.”

Romans took it one step further: “It’s a great game. Hopefully, we can have a great rivalry the rest of the year.”

Motion had to be grateful to Romans for his assistance following the Kentucky Derby.

“After the race, Graham and I both came down the hall to go to the track and he was going in the wrong direction,” Romans said. “I stopped to congratulate him and we hugged. I told him he was going the wrong way. He grabbed the back of my jacket and said, ‘I’ve got to hold on to you; I don’t know where I’m going.’ He followed me and he had a tear rolling down his face. He said, ‘Thank God, someone knows where they’re going.’ I led him down the steps and you could tell he was just in another world.”

Romans needed no guidance finding his way to the track at Pimlico, although one could say he also appeared to be in another world. He couldn’t help but think back to where he had come from.

Barns 4 and 5, the latter eventually becoming Romans’ barn, at Churchill have always been run like a family affair, just as it was when Romans and Jerry were growing up in Barn 4, which is now Romans’ second barn. “I spent more time there than I did at home,” Romans said.

“We have a great team from top to bottom,” he added. “We have hotwalkers that have been with us for over 10 years. My assistants have been together since we were 19 and 20 working for my father. And Tammy is a huge part of the stable. She breezes all the horses, and there is nobody that gives a better line on a horse than she does.”

Back at the stakes barn, Lauffer had nothing but admiration for his horse, his trainer, and his jockey.

“I’ll tell you what, there’s no quit in that horse,” Laufffer said. “He just doesn’t want to get beat. I am so tickled for that man (pointing to Romans) right there and also for Jesus Castanon.”

Lauffer’s family moved from Marietta, Ohio to Paintsville in Eastern Kentucky, about five miles from Butcher Hollow of “Coal Miner’s Daughter” fame. His father was a petroleum engineer and Lauffer eventually went into the oil and gas business, where he met Cubbedge, who has a dry, in-your-face sense of humor, but prefers letting Lauffer do most of the talking.

After going into partnership on Rachel Alexandra with the filly’s owner and breeder Dolphus Morrison, Lauffer and Morrison sold her following the Kentucky Oaks (gr. I) to Jess Jackson for $10 million.

“I told Dolphus and (trainer) Hal Wiggins, ‘Look, you guys have been in the business for over 30 years, so you all can call the shots,’” Lauffer said. “It’s hard to turn down that kind of money.”

Lauffer and Cubbedge decided to name their Forestry colt Shackleford after Shackleford Island, located off the coast of North Carolina.

“There have been wild horses on the island since the 16th century,” Lauffer said. “Some people think a Spanish ship sunk off shore and several of the horses jumped off the ship and swam to this island.”

As for Animal Kingdom, Motion’s wife Anita said, “We’re incredibly proud of him. He backed up his Derby win.”

Motion added, “It wasn’t meant to be. He came pretty darn close, though. He got a lot of dirt kicked in his face today, which was different from the Derby. Johnny (Velazquez) said he was a little closer to the other horses in the Derby, so he took most of the dirt on his chest, whereas today he got a lot of it in his face, so it took him longer to get in gear. This is a remarkable horse. What he has accomplished in such a short period of time is extraordinary. He performed brilliantly.”

Romans expects to take a lot of kidding when he gets back to Churchill Downs, especially from the locals who have shared the trainer’s stand by his barn for years.

“They’ve been giving me hell since before the Derby,” Romans said. “They told me if I win the Derby or one of the other classics they’re gonna have to build me a separate stand, because my ego won’t fit in that one.”

Romans said he would meet with the media the morning after the race at 7:30. At about 7:15, he called Jennie Rees of the Louisville Courier-Journal to say he and his family were running about 15 minutes late, and in typical Romans fashion, asked if any of the media wanted coffee from Starbucks. Rees took the orders from the nine journalists there and relayed them to Romans, who even threw in a hot chocolate as a bonus.

“I went to bed for an hour or two,” said a disheveled Romans, looking as if he had just gotten out of bed. “I don’t know how Todd Pletcher and Wayne Lukas do it. They look so pristine all the time. I walk out of my house to my car and I’m sweating and wrinkled and my shirttail’s out. Dan Bork at Churchill Downs (assistant racing secretary) said I was the best at making an expensive suit look cheap.”

But that is one of the endearing qualities that makes Romans one of the most amiable and well-liked trainers in the country. Perhaps he best described himself through Shackleford.

“He’s just a big easy-going horse,” he said. “I guess they take on the personality of their trainer.”

Haskin's Preakness Report: Initial Observations

Blood-Horse Staff — Thu, 19 May 2011 18:40:00 GMT

With Kentucky Derby (gr. I) winner Animal Kingdom not scheduled to arrive at Pimlico until Saturday, the focus was on…well, everyone else.

First, let’s look at the post position draw, which was fairly uneventful. The most interesting aspect of it was the placing of the four speed/pace horses, Flashpoint (post 4), Shackleford (post 5), Midnight Interlude (post 7), and Dance City (post 8).

With all four horses bunched together, Flashpoint, by drawing inside the others, will be the controlling speed, and jockey Cornelio Velasquez will dictate what the others do. Although it was the intention of Peachtree Stable owner John Fort and trainer Wesley Ward to sit back a little and try to settle in the garden spot, the colt likely will have to commit first, and the others will react accordingly.

If Velasquez decides to reel Flashpoint in at the break, then Shackleford and Jesus Castanon should be happy to do an encore of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands and dictate the pace, preferably slowing it down as much as possible.

There is also something to be said for the reverse psychology. Shackleford is one horse who has matured both physically and mentally and is now experienced enough to set a faster pace in the Preakness and try to take the others out of their game. If you string out the field and make the others run faster early than they’re used to, you could take away some of their closing punch.

Shackleford has an advantage breaking right outside Flashpoint and clocking him right from the start. The other two who are expected to be close to the pace are Dance City and Midnight Interlude, who trainer Bob Baffert said will be showing more early lick than he did I the Derby and will try to return to the strategy that won him the Santa Anita Derby (gr. I). So that is your pace setup.

As for the extreme posts, 1 and 14, if Astrology can break cleanly and sharply coming out of the 1–hole, and not get bothered by Norman Asbjornson in post 2, he actually could have an excellent trip, saving ground right behind the top four. The 3-horse, King Congie, will drop back, so he should not be of any concern. Astrology is more of a long-striding horse than a nimble-footed horse, so he is going to need a little luck easing off the rail. But remember, Pimlico is a track where you want to save as much as possible, so it could work out well for him.

Mr. Commons has to overcome two obstacles from the outside post. First, Victor Espinoza is going to have to be well prepared at the break and try to prevent the colt from ducking to the outside fence, which often happens, especially at Pimlico, where the outside horse is on the other side of the crown of the track. The second obstacle is the first turn, and you definitely want to try to avoid going too wide on this turn. Therefore, Espinoza is going to need some luck finding open paths to his inside during the long run down the stretch for the first time.

Astrology and Mr. Commons are two of the more handsome colts in the field and made quite an appearance on the track this morning. Astrology has a beautiful alert head and stood for nearly a minute at the barn entrance yesterday staring at the photographers outside the barn and taking in his new surroundings.

There isn’t much to say about Mucho Macho Man, Dialed In, and Animal Kingdom, who all drew well in posts 9, 10, and 11 respectively. Mucho Man Man, who looks to be filling out and finally growing into his 17-hands frame, is the grinder of the field, and if he can put himself into contention earlier than he did in the Derby and try to out-muscle and out-stay his opponents without racing greenly, he could be a formidable presence to deal with down the stretch..

He is a horse who just keeps running his race and seems to have great lung capacity.

Several Preakness horses jogged this morning, their first morning at Pimlico, but of those who galloped, the two who looked most impressive were Midnight Interlude and Shackleford, who also schooled at the gate.

Midnight Interlude, according to trainer Bob Baffert, is sharper now than he was going into the Derby, and looked particularly impressive out there, moving with powerful strides, his head straight and focused, and ears straight up. He is a colt who was packing a great deal of flesh before the Derby, and while he still is, he looks to be more finely tuned.

Shackleford was extremely impressive in his gallops at Churchill Downs and has picked up right where he left off. He covers a great deal of ground and moves with tremendous power and authority. He also has been sharp and on the muscle since arriving, and it is apparent the Derby took very little out of him.

The Derby horses as a whole all seem to have come out of the race in great shape. Mucho Macho Man, as we said, is doing super mentally and physically, and Dialed In is as dappled as ever.

As for Animal Kingdom, his muscle tone is still pronounced and has been galloping with authority over the Tapeta and dirt surfaces at Fair Hill.

So, all in all, from a physical standpoint, we’re dealing with an extremely impressive group of horses.

Haskin's Derby Recap: Kingdom Come

aspradling — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:29:00 GMT

Graham Motion stood outside Barn 22 the morning of the $2,171,800 May 7 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) and admitted he had no idea what to expect from Team Valor International’s Animal Kingdom, who was about to make his first career start on dirt. Motion was well aware that no horse had ever won the Derby making his dirt debut.

“I just don’t know,” Motion said. “The statistics are all against him, I feel good about running the horse, but it’s such an unknown. I love the horse, I love the way he worked over the dirt, and I love his attitude. He’s got everything going for him. It’s just that unknown.”

But as Jim Morrison said, “There are things known, and there are things unknown. And in between are the doors.”

Later that evening, Animal Kingdom burst through one of those doors, and awaiting him on the other side was Kentucky Derby immortality. By powering down the Churchill Downs stretch to a 2 ¾-length victory in front of a record crowd of 164,658, the unknown had become known. Racing had a new star and a legitimate Triple Crown threat.

But most of all, his victory unleashed a flood of emotions, a great deal of it resulting from the improbable victory by John Velazquez and the unusual circumstances that led to him winding up on Animal Kingdom.

In the past three years, Velazquez has seen his Derby favorite Quality Road withdrawn a week before the race because of a quarter crack, the heavy Derby favorite Eskendereya withdrawn several days before the Derby with a career-ending injury, and this year’s early favorite Uncle Mo scratched the morning before the race due to an intestinal ailment.

Although disappointed and frustrated, Velazquez understood that this sport can rip your heart out at any time and you have to learn to come to terms with it.

“What can you do; it’s part of racing,” Velazquez said later that day in the quiet of the backstretch. “One year we’ll win it when we least expect it.”

Never could he have imagined this would be that year.

When Robby Albarado, who was named to ride Animal Kingdom in the Derby, suffered a broken nose after being kicked by a horse and felt he was unable to ride the day before the Derby, it was decided not to take any chances, and they replaced Albarado with Velazquez.

“That call to Robby was a tough one make,” Motion said. “But when he took off his mounts on Friday that was a concern, and when Johnny became available, we decided to go with him.”

The Derby gods had made an uncharacteristic 11th hour appearance on the scene. Destiny had somehow brought together Motion and Velazquez, whose families have been close friends for years.

“We met Graham when he worked for Jonathan Sheppard,” Velazquez’ wife Leona recalled. “After he became a trainer and went to Florida for the first year, Johnny rode for him and they struck up a friendship. We became very close to Graham and (his wife) Anita. Then Anita and I became pregnant at the same time and our sons (Michael Velazquez and Chappy Motion) were born two weeks apart, and they’re best friends. You can’t make it up.”

Anita added, “We have dinner together and go to each other’s houses. When Animal Kingdom won, the first thing Chappy said to me was, ‘Does this mean I get to play with Michael tonight?’”

So, for the first time in Derby history, a jockey lost the mount on one of the favorites the day before the race and wound up being named on the eventual winner.

Add to the script Motion losing his big Derby horse, Toby’s Corner, winner of the Wood Memorial, four days before the race due to injury. Motion described the loss of Toby’s Corner as “brutal.”

The colt was scheduled to leave Fair Hill Tuesday morning when it was noticed he was lame. Toby’s Corner’s owners, Dianne and Julian Cotter, were already en route from Florida to pick up their daughter Carrie and her family in North Carolina when they received a call from Motion saying that Toby’s Corner had an injury would not make the Derby. They now had to decide whether to turn around and go home or continue to Louisville. They decided to keep going and try to enjoy the Derby experience and their new rooting interest, Animal Kingdom, who they visited almost every morning they were there. They were nothing but gracious and supportive their entire time in Louisville.

It was no wonder that emotions poured so freely following Animal Kingdom’s rousing victory, in which he closed his final half-mile in a spectacular :47 1/5, the second-fastest closing half ever in the Derby behind Secretariat.

Following the race, a stunned Leona was in tears, as was her 12-year-old daughter Lerina. Clutched in Leona’s hand was a wooden cross.

“The only other time I clutched this in my hand was when Rags to Riches won the Belmont Stakes (gr. I),” she said. “I still don’t believe this is happening. Up and down. Up and down.”

In the jockey’s lounge after the race, Lirena was still beaming through her braces, as Michael was off in the corner playing ping-pong. “I wasn’t expecting this,” she said. “I’m in shock. It was really awesome. My brother is only 8 and I hope he remembers this; he was crying hysterically.”

Perhaps no one was more emotional than Velazquez’s agent, Hall of Fame jockey Angel Cordero.

It was Cordero who discovered Velazquez from a videotape of the apprentice rider in action in Puerto Rico. Cordero brought Velazquez to America and mentored the young rider, eventually taking over his book. From the time Velazquez came to this country, he has looked up to Cordero as a father figure. After the tragic hit-and-run death of Cordero’s wife Marjorie in Jan. 2001, he felt his life was over. All he had to live for were his children and Velazquez, who he was determined to make one of the great riders of all time. Cordero said it was Velazquez and that quest that helped keep his life together.

Now both are inscribed in the history books as Kentucky Derby winners.

“He’s like my son,” said a visibly shaken Cordero. “I know how much I’ve dreamt this for him and how much I’ve wanted it. After what’s happened the last three years I could see he was down. When I saw him coming down the stretch I wished I could fly down there and ride that horse with him. When he crossed the wire I had tears in my eyes. I was yelling so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It’s just destiny. It’s like a movie script.”

But the real hero was Animal Kingdom, who was bred by Team Valor, which keeps only eight broodmares. Another Team Valor-bred horse from the same crop was Pluck, who captured last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf (gr. IIT) for Todd Pletcher. It was after that race that Team Valor president Barry Irwin decided to keep all their horses at Fair Hill with one trainer and sent them to Graham Motion, who he regarded as a “helluva trainer.” One of those was Animal Kingdom, a son of Leroidesanimaux – Dalicia, by Acatenango, who was trained by Wayne Catalano.

Standing by the gap on the Monday before the Derby, Catalano recalled the immature chestnut colt sent to him by Team Valor.

“He came from Randy Bradshaw along with another colt who was more advanced,” Catalano recalled. “Barry said to take my time with him. He was just a big, green, backward Baby Huey type of horse, so we took our time with him. He didn’t want to do much until we put a set of blinkers on him.”

Bradshaw always felt Animal Kingdom would handle dirt by the way he trained over it as a young horse. “I told Barry both were really nice horses, but my gut feeling told me Animal Kingdom will be better on dirt,” Bradshaw said.

In his career debut on Sept. 18, he came from 10th and last in a 1 1/16-mile maiden race at Arlington to finish second before breaking his maiden going 1 1/8 miles at Keeneland on Oct. 23.

“When he won the second start of his life the way he did going a mile and an eighth I knew he was a Derby horse.” Bradshaw said.

But that race marked the end of Animal Kingdom’s stay in Catalano’s care.

“A short while later, Barry called me and said he wanted to have all his horses in one spot and was sending them to Graham Motion,” Catalano said. “You’re always disappointed when you think you’ve got something special. But I’m happy to see him do well and that we kept everything good and didn’t mess him up.”

Motion put Animal Kingdom on the grass and he was beaten a head in a one-mile allowance/optional claimer at Gulfstream. It was time for the fates to take over once again. The plan was to run another colt, Crimson China, in the Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes (gr. III) on the Polytrack at Turfway Park and run Animal Kingdom on the same card in the listed Rushaway Stakes. But when Crimson China didn’t have sufficient earnings to get in the race, they switched and ran Animal Kingdom in the Spiral and Crimson China in the Rushaway.

Animal Kingdom’s 2 ¾-length victory put him in the Kentucky Derby. “In life, everything has to fit together,” Irwin said. “It’s nice to have the goods; it’s nice to be intelligent, but unless things go your way and you’re lucky, it’s not going to happen.”

Riding Animal Kingdom in the Spiral was Alan Garcia, his fourth rider in as many starts. After dismounting, an excited Garcia stated emphatically, "Wherever they want to go with this horse I want to be there."

Garcia was there alright, but unfortunately for him, not from the same vantage point. The next time he would see Animal Kingdom was from the back of Soldat as his former mount was blowing by him on his inside nearing the quarter pole at Churchill Downs.

It didn’t take long for Animal Kingdom to become a favorite in the barn. “He’s such a character and has the coolest personality,” Heather Craig, who began exercising the colt just before the Spiral, said a week before the Derby. “Originally, his exercise rider in Florida, Jodie Petty, would kick him in the belly to get him to go, and he would just turn around and go, ‘Really?’

“But since the Spiral, he’s been training like a machine, with these huge, bounding strides. Now he’s a true racehorse and tugs his regular exercise rider David Nava around the racetrack.”

Those bounding strides didn’t escape the eagle eye on Bob Baffert, who had Santa Anita Derby (gr. I) winner Midnight Interlude. “That’s the horse,” Baffert said emphatically after having watched Animal Kingdom work six furlongs in 1:13 on April 30 and observing his subsequent gallops.

It was that six-furlong work, following an unproductive work that didn’t go as planned a week earlier that convinced Motion and Irwin to point for the Kentucky Derby.

“If he hadn’t shown us what he did, we wouldn’t have run him in the Derby,” Irwin said.

The 137th Kentucky Derby, provided its share of human interest stories. The most publicized was trainer Kathy Ritvo, who had been near death before receiving a heart transplant that saved her life, and Mucho Macho Man, who was believed to be dead at birth, but miraculously jumped to his feet and ran off across the paddock. Then there was longtime local favorite Jinks Fires and his son-in-law and jockey Jon Court competing in their first Kentucky Derby with Arkansas Derby (gr. I) winner Archarcharch. There was 23-year-old jockey Rosie Napravnik with a legitimate chance to become the first female rider to win the Kentucky Derby on Louisiana Derby (gr. II) winner Pants on Fire.

One trainer who has been dreaming about the Derby since he was a child was Dale Romans, who grew up only three miles from Churchill Downs and between him and his father have been in the same barn for 40 years. Romans was confident in his colt, Florida Derby (gr. I) runner-up Shackleford, who he was planning to send to the lead and dare someone to try to catch him.

“My father trained mostly claimers and I started working in the barn when I was 8 years old, emptying muck baskets and filling up water buckets,” said Romans, who finished third in last year’s Derby with Paddy O’Prado. “I’ve spent more time in this barn than I have at home. We never thought about the Kentucky Derby back then. It wasn’t even a dream, because it couldn’t happen.”

One owner looking for a change in luck in the Derby was Ahmed Zayat, who saw his Santa Anita Derby winner Pioneerof the Nile finish second to longshot Mine That Bird in 2009 and then lost his red-hot Derby favorite Eskenderya in 2010. After a lengthy court battle with Fifth Third Bank later that year, Zayat bounced back in 2011 with several top-class 3-year-olds, but had to watch his best colt, Jaycito, fall off the Derby trail in mid-April.

But Zayat still had another classy colt in the late developing Nehro, who suffered narrow defeats in the Louisiana (gr. II) and Arkansas Derbys, closing fast each time. Zayat’s confidence soared as he spent the Thursday before the Derby with Nehro, kissing him while he was grazing, kissing him in his stall, and kissing him while he was being schooled. The colt was looking better physically by the day and was attacking the grass and his feed tub.

Kiaran McLaughlin, trainer of Fountain of Youth (gr. II) winner Soldat, has fond memories of watching his first Derby in 1979 from the roof of Barn 10 where he was working as a groom.

There also was a European connection, as trainer Aidan O’Brien sent over Ms. John Magnier’s UAE Derby (UAE-II) runner-up Master of Hounds.

Team Valor had come close in the Derby in 1997 when Captain Bodgit was beaten a head in the Run for the Roses by Silver Charm, and Irwin has been waiting ever since to return for another chance with a legitimate contender.

The big story all week was the condition of 2-year-old champion Uncle Mo, as rumors of his withdrawal from the Derby spread throughout the backstretch. Those rumors became reality the morning before the race when Todd Pletcher and owner Mike Repole announced that the Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (gr. I) winner would not run in the Derby.

With Uncle Mo out of the Derby, the clear-cut favorite at 5-1 was Florida Derby and Holy Bull (gr. III) winner Dialed In, trained by Nick Zito and owner by Robert LaPenta, who had teamed up to finish second in last year’s Derby with Ice Box.

At the start, Dialed In was squeezed and immediately dropped back to last, falling far off the pace, and on the inside it was apparent Archarcharch was in big trouble, as be continuously swerved, steadied, and bobbled. As Romans had predicted, Shackleford established a clear lead, followed by Comma to the Top and Soldat on the outside. Animal Kingdom broke alertly and was able to get a good position in midpack, while racing four wide into the clubhouse turn.

Shackleford continued to wing it unchallenged on the lead. After a solid opening quarter in :23.24, he was able to slow the pace down, getting his half in :48.63. Nehro, who had come from far back in the Arkansas Derby, was racing well off the rail in sixth, but in good striking position, with Mucho Macho Man right behind him.

Velazquez had Animal Kingdom in a comfortable spot and was able to ease up gradually while following Mucho Macho Man. Shackleford, meanwhile, was able to slow the pace down to a crawl, the three-quarters in 1:13.40, the slowest opening three-quarters since 1947, with Comma to the Top and Decisive Moment still right behind taking up the chase.

Around the turn, Corey Nakatani, on Nehro, wanted no more of the slow pace and gunned his colt into contention. Nehro now loomed menacingly on the far outside. Several lengths behind him, Animal Kingdom was reaching a critical point in the race. The traffic jams were forming and Velazquez was able to split Midnight Interlude and Watch Me Go to get out of one potential hazard, but there was one more move he had to make. As he cleared those two he had to outrun and clear a tiring Soldat and ease to the outside before a rallying Brilliant Speed could trap him in behind Mucho Macho Man.

He flew by Soldat and found a seam to the outside, giving him clear sailing out in the middle of the track. By now, Nehro was charging up on even terms with Shackleford, but was well to the outside of him. Shackleford, game as usual, held on tenaciously, but probably never saw Nehro.

The pace had picked up with a mile in 1:37.49. After turning for home, Animal Kingdom began to show his greenness, as he drifted in on Mucho Macho Man. Although there was no contact, it forced Mucho Macho Man in toward Pants on Fire, who was putting in a steady run. Velazquez threw a cross on Animal Kingdom and he began to drift in again, this time on Nehro. Velazquez had to go to a left-handed whip to get him off Nehro, and Animal Kingdom drifted back out. Velazquez then had to switch back to a right-handed whip, but by this point, Animal Kingdom was already in the lead and drawing away. This performance demonstrated how much raw talent this colt has, to be able to run a race like this in a 19-horse Derby field while racing greenly.

With his victory he became the first horse since Exterminator in 1918 to win the Derby with only four career starts; the first horse since Needles in 1956 to win the Derby off a six-week layoff; and the first horse ever to win the Derby having never started on dirt. With his pedigree, his versatility, and his powerful closing punch that he can sustain for over a half-mile, there is no doubt this colt’s future in limitless.

There also were a number of firsts regarding his pedigree. Leroidesanimaux became the first Brazilian-bred horse to sire a U.S. classic winner. Dalicia became the first German-bred mare to produce a U.S. classic winner. And Acatenango became the first German-bred broodmare sire of a U.S. classic winner.

Mucho Macho Man, who had been a bit late changing leads, began to show his best stride inside the sixteenth pole, passing Shackleford and nearly catching Nehro for second. From out of the pack, where he was surrounded by horses, Master of Hounds came flying late, weaving in and out as if he were a running back dodging linebackers. Once finally in the clear, he leveled off down on the inside and managed to get fifth in a three-horse photo with Santiva and Brilliant Speed.

As for Dialed In, he remained well back in last for the first three-quarters, and basically had no shot after a half in 1:13 2/5. He did pass horses in the stretch to finish eighth in the 19-horse field.

The final time was a respectable 2:02.04, with Animal Kingdom coming home his final quarter in :23 4/5, second only to Secretariat’s :23 1/5. This followed a :23 2/5 quarter, giving him his powerful :47 1/5 final half-mile.

One of the first ones on the track was Aron Wellman, vice-president of operations for Team Valor.

“Oh, my God, this is unbelievable,” he said. “He ran like a champion. This is what we dream about. It’s surreal.”

Watching back in Maryland at her aunt’s house was Becky Kelly, foreman at Fair Hill.

“That was just amazing,” she said. “We’ve always had a lot of confidence in this horse’s ability. My aunt used to be a trainer and I grew up having the dreams and knowing the importance of winning the Kentucky Derby. So it’s such an honor now to be affiliated with a Derby winner. We all work so hard and it’s an incredible team effort. And Graham makes it fun by creating such a great atmosphere.”

The only major casualty in the race was Archarcharch, who had that horrible trip early, had his saddle slip on the backstretch, and then was pulled up after the wire with what was diagnosed as a condylar fracture of the left foreleg, which is not considered life-threatening. But it did mark the end of a promising career. In addition, Pants on Fire bled significantly and Comma to the Top returned with a small ankle chip.

In another ironic twist to the story, Toby’s Corner’s jockey Eddie Castro wound up winning the $100,000 Beaugay Stakes (gr. IIIT) at Belmont Park on Derby Day with Daveron for Motion and Team Valor. Daveron’s dam, Darwinia, is a full-sister to the dam of Animal Kingdom.

No jockey – trainer team has been closer and more successful for so many years than Velazquez and Todd Pletcher. So, how fitting that one year after Pletcher wins his first Kentucky Derby without Velazquez, Velazquez wins his first Derby without Pletcher.

No such thing as the Derby gods, huh?

With the victors in the National Museum of racing for the traditional winner’s party, Ahmed Zayat and his son Justin were heading out of the track, exiting by the museum.

“How do you run second twice in three years and lose the favorite the other year?” a naturally disappointed Zayat asked. “That’s hard to take. It was Pioneerof the Nile all over again. He was doing so well and was so ready. But I’m very proud of my horse.”

Justin added, “We dream of winning this some day.”

Kathy Ritvo continued her amazing journey, and now has a classic-placed horse.

“He’s only going to get better,” she said. “He’s a June 15 foal. Hopefully, he’ll come back in a couple of weeks (in the May 21 grade I Preakness) if he’s doing well and we’re ready to go. He was fabulous today. He gave his all and finished strong. It was really exciting. When I saw him turn for home and he was running, I was jumping around and cheering him on.”

And so, one of the wildest and most confusing Kentucky Derbys is in the history book. Sometimes destiny takes a roundabout way of getting somewhere, but in the end it all makes sense.

Haskin's Derby Report: Thank You, George Costanza

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 06 May 2011 17:24:00 GMT

Do you remember the episode of “Seinfeld” where George Costanza decided to do everything the opposite of what he normally would do even if it defied all logic, etiquette, and political correctness?

Well, it worked for him, so we felt, with the utterly confusing state of this year’s Kentucky Derby, this was the perfect time to test that approach. When logic and analysis gets you nowhere, be a contrarian and try to defy logic an analysis.

So, we did just that and guess what? We liked the results.

In addition to this odd method of handicapping the Derby, we will revisit our exotics box based on our March 9 rankings of the top 15 horses we felt most looked like a Derby winner.

And finally, we’ll break all this down and attempt to come up with a winner and a few savers, as futile as it may seem.

OK, Costanza, take it away:

Here is our exacta, trifecta, or superfecta box.

Midnight Interlude – Because no horse since Apollo in 1882 has won the Derby without having started at 2.

Archarcharch – No one wins from post 1, the least desirable post. The last horse to do it was Ferdinand 25 years ago.

Nehro – Most of the clockers felt he had one of the least impressive, or maybe even THE least impressive, final Derby work.

Soldat – No horse has ever won the Derby from post 17.

Animal Kingdom – No horse has ever won the Derby who had never run on dirt.

So, there you have the George Costanza five-horse box. We actually like this group a lot and give every one of them a good chance to win, especially considering all have been looking great physically. If you have the funds you can throw in Master of Hounds, who also qualifies by never having run on dirt.
OK, now for our more serious bet. For our March 9 column flashback, before any of the major preps had been run, here are the horses we felt had the look of a Derby winner, based on the attributes it takes to win the Derby and what they had shown in 2011. Unfortunately, Toby’s Corner (#13) is out and he would have made this a much stronger group. But we still have six of our top seven in the Derby, and this our serious exotics box.

They are: #1--Dialed In, #2--Mucho Macho Man, #3--Soldat, #4--Santiva, #5--Stay Thirsty, #7--Archarcharch.

Again, this is a pretty solid group and some or all of these would make an enticing exotics box.

Now for the nitty gritty. Not having seen most of the works, I can’t name my top work or even base my selection on works, From an observational standpoint, we can only go by gallops and overall physical condition.

The top group consists of Pants On Fire, Animal Kingdom, Shackleford, Archarcharch, Brilliant Speed, Soldat, and Stay Thirsty. We also like the way Mucho Macho Man is coming around physically and he had an excellent gallop this morning. You can do with list this as you wish. We just mention it as a point of interest.

Current observations: One horse in particular who has started to blossom physically and mentally in the past few days is Nehro, and despite his so-called unappealing breeze, he looks like he could be sitting on a big race.

Another horse who looked fantastic this morning is Brilliant Speed, as he has the last couple of mornings. He looks extremely focused and coiled, and has the look of a true stayer. If he can run to his looks watch out for him at a huge price.

Now let’s sort through all this and see what we have. We’ve already gone over the exotics plays.

Narrowing it down to one pick, we have been a fan of Archarcharch all year ever since he won the six-furlong Sugar Bowl Stakes in 1:10 2.5. He possesses the most explosive turn of foot on the far turn, he has a strong pedigree, and he’s been training super. Despite his drawing the dreaded rail, we have to stick with him and just hope he can overcome it. No horse’s coat looks better than his and if Court can get him back to midpack and avoid serious trouble he could still wind up getting a good trip. But he is in a precarious spot and needs a lot of luck and help from the Derby gods.

Because of the uncertainty of Archarcharch’s post, we’re also going to focus on Nehro because of the way he’s been looking and acting. It just depends on his odds.

Four horses we definitely are going to save with at a huge price are Brilliant Speed, based mostly on how good he's looked on the track, Master of Hounds because of the unknown factor, his big effort at 1 3/16 miles against a top-quality field, and getting Garrett Gomez, Shackleford because of his powerful works and gallops and the amount of time he’s been training at Churchill, and Animal Kingdom, who also has looked super in his gallops and his last work. This morning he galloped in blinkers for the first time, which is an interesting touch. He wears them in his races and works and trainer Graham Motion wanted to do a little experimenting with them this morning. Like Shackleford, he is improving at the right time and still has more room for improvement. The big question with him is how he’ll handle the dirt in a 20-horse field.

We’re not sure how the public will be playing horses like Nehro, Pants On Fire, Midnight Interlude, and Soldat. Check their odds throughout the day and see if any of them appear to be overlays, especially Nehro and Pants on Fire.

So, to recap the sure bets, it’s Archarcharch to win (and Nehro if he's a decent price), with longshot savers on Brilliant Speed, Master of Hounds, Shackleford, and Animal Kingdom. We might add Pants on Fire if his odds are high enough, but we're getting into too many horses.

In the exotics, there is the flashback box of Dialed In, Mucho Macho Man, Soldat, Santiva, Stay Thirsty, and Archarcharcharch.

The George Costanza box was mostly in fun, but you know what? It’s a pretty good group and looks strong enough to bet.

Finally, in case of a sloppy track, we have a different scenario. Here in our opinion are the best bets in the slop – Pants On Fire, Soldat, Shackleford, Brilliant Speed, Nehro, Stay Thirsty, and Twice the Appeal. There are going to be some awfully big prices among this group. And you have the grass/synthetic horses Animal Kingdom and Master of Hounds to consider.

Of these, you won't find a better pedigree for the slop than Shackleford. He is inbred to Dr. Fager and In Reality, and has Aspidistra three times. His broodmare sire is Unbridled. Other major slop influences in his pedigree are Pleasant Colony/His Majesty, Speak John, and Buckpasser. This also is the family of slop influence Gone West. He also has the right running style for a sealed sloppy track.

Haskin's Derby Report: Shack Attack

Blood-Horse Staff — Wed, 04 May 2011 17:40:00 GMT

It has been stated here on several occasions how well Shackleford has looked each morning in his gallops and his dominating physical presence. How that equates to his performance on Saturday is anyone’s guess, just as it is with every other horse in the race.

With a 30 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms Friday and Saturday, it may be time to start thinking about handicapping the race for an off track, just in case one those storms happens to find its way to Churchill Downs.

The two obvious horses based on past performances are Soldat, who won a 1 1/8-mile allowance race in the slop at Gulfstream by 10 ¾ lengths, earning a 103 Beyer speed figure, the highest Beyer fig by any Derby horse this year, and Pants on Fire, who broke his maiden by seven lengths in the slop at Delaware Park last year. Another horse who would move up in the slop is Sunland Derby (gr. III) winner Twice the Appeal, who won over a wet fast track at Santa Anita, and who has a terrific “slop” cross with the Valid Appeal/In Reality line on top and the His Majesty line on the bottom.

Which brings us back to Shackleford, whose pedigree is inundated with slop influences. In addition to having Pleasant Colony/His Majesty on top, he is inbred to In Reality on the bottom and inbred top and bottom to Dr. Fager, who relished the slop and is a major slop influence. In fact, if you go back one more generation, he is inbred three times to Dr. Fager’s dam Aspidistra, twice through Dr. Fager and once through her daughter Magic, a daughter of another major slop influence Buckpasser.

If you go to Shackleford’s tail-female line, you will find Tamerett, the dam of Tentam, who won the Met Mile (gr. I) in the slop, and Speak John, who is a yet another major slop influence from the Elmendorf Farm family and the sire of mud lover Verbatim.

He also has a strong 418 Tomlinson wet-track figure. The highest Tomlinson figure in the field goes to Twice the Appeal, with a 423. By the way, did we mention that Twice the Appeal is being ridden by Calvin Borel, who has won the last two Kentucky Derbys in the slop?

With his running style, Shackleford could run a Smarty Jones-type race on a sealed sloppy track, where speed often holds up. But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves, considering the weather forecast changes around here constantly. But it is good to know just in case we are indeed confronted with an off track.

If we are, you want to pay close attention to Shackleford, Twice the Appeal, Soldat, and Pants on Fire, and, yes, Uncle Mo, who has a number of slop influences, especially in his female family through Delta Judge, Cyane, and Rollicking. You will find Cyane in the pedigree of Smart Strike, sire of Curlin, who romped in the slop in the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I). and Uncle Mo has a 419 Tomlinson number, second to Twice the Appeal.

Now that we’ve just assured a fast track for Derby Day, let’s briefly get back to Shackleford, who not only has flashed excellent speed both sprinting and routing, but has shown a great deal of maturity with each race. That he was able to make the jump from a seven-furlong maiden race to a 1 1/8-mile allowance race and win as impressively as he did, despite racing greenly, shows what kind of ability he has. And he has on two occasions demonstrated his heart and willingness to fight by coming again after being passed in his maiden victory and by battling back when confronted by Dialed In in the Florida Derby (gr. I). And you had to love how strongly he galloped out in that race.

If you are concerned by his Fountain of Youth (gr. II) performance, he was not the only horse to run an inexplicably bad race in a major Gulfstream prep this year, and he did get worked up in the starting gate and banged his head to the extent that jockey Jesus Castanon said he appeared to be in a daze and had nothing that day. The fact that he bounced back with such a powerful performance against the early Kentucky Derby favorite in the Florida Derby makes that a throw-out race.

He then came to Churchill Downs and turned in a pair of bullet works, one in 1:00 1/5 breezing in the slop and his final work in a blazing :58 4/5. And he has put in powerful gallops every days since.

So, with a decent post and a good stalking trip, all the ingredients are there for a big performance on Saturday.

Who is catching the eye

We’ll just focus on a few of the horses who caught the eye this morning, as the horses finally had an opportunity to gallop over a fast track. Despite his lack of dirt form and only four career starts, Animal Kingdom, who we wrote about extensively on Monday, is looking better by the day, physically and in his gallops. He is looking more and more now like the “now” horse. If he can incorporate that into dirt form we’re looking at a live longshot.

The other horse who looked terrific this morning and who turned in his best gallop to date is Pants On Fire, who we also wrote about extensively last week. He was really into the bit and full of life as he glided over the track with powerful strides.

Archarcharch galloped by himself this morning after yesterday’s gallop/work and is still looking strong out there.

Haskin's Derby Report: An Animal on Dirt?

aspradling — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:59:00 GMT

Perhaps none of the past weekend’s workouts was more anticipated than the main track work by Animal Kingdom, who has never run on dirt or worked over it all year and who had his first scheduled dirt drill canceled last week due to bad track conditions at Churchill Downs.

The good news is that his work was exceptional. He was able to make a couple of moves to put himself where the rider wanted and leveled off beautifully after having a single cross thrown on him. And best of all was his strong gallop-out. He certainly seemed to move over the dirt well.

What we like about this horse is his ability to quicken, but unlike some horses who can give that big burst for an eighth of a mile, he quickens and then just keeps going. He showed in the Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes (gr. III) that he can put himself into contention quickly and then sustain his run, wearing down his opponents rather than blowing right by them.

He was always an awkward, immature colt, but has matured and improved, and according to his exercise rider at Keeneland, Heather Craig, has become more competitive and is developing into a real racehorse. He does have to overcome his lack of racing, with only four career starts, and a six-week layoff, but he still has the potential to surprise a lot of people.

Most will look at Animal Kingdom’s pedigree and see grass and more grass. Although that is understandable, there is a lot more to his pedigree than just the obvious names in his first four generations.

There is no doubt that Animal Kingdom’s pedigree is inundated with grass horses, mainly European, which is as grassy as it gets. But let’s look and see what’s beneath all that German, English, and French blood, and a touch of Irish.

We’ll start on the sire’s side. Leroidesanimaux, as we all know, was a top-class grass horse, who was actually bred in Brazil, despite his French and English heritage. His sire, Candy Stripes, sired on the of the great dirt horses of the past few decades, Invasor, who won the Breeders’ Cup Classic, Dubai World Cup, and Whitney among others, as well as the Uruguayan Triple Crown. Candy Stripes also is the broodmare sire of Candy Ride, who was brilliant on both grass and dirt, winning the Pacific Classic in track-record time.

Leroidesanimaux’s dam, Disemble, is a half-sister to the great Juddmonte broodmare Hasili, who produced five grade I winners and two Breeders’ Cup winners – Banks Hill, Heat Haze, Intercontinental, Caciques, and Champs Elysses. The only one given an opportunity on dirt was Champs Elysses, who finished second and third in the Santa Anita Handicap.

Leroidesanimaux’s broodmare sire, Ahonoora, was a top-class European sprinter, but sired Dr. Devious, who captured the English Derby and Irish Champion Stakes, yet also closed from 17th to finish a respectable seventh in the Kentucky Derby.

On the female sire, Animal Kingdom’s broodmare sire, Acatenango, was strictly a grass horse who was the Horse of the Year in Germany three times and champion sire four times. He passes along tremendous toughness and stamina.

Animal Kingdom’s maternal great-grandsire, Dancing Brave, won the Arc de Triomphe, 2,000 Guineas, and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, but it is important to note that he is a full-brother to the classy French filly Jolypha, who captured the French Oaks and Prix Vermeille before coming to America, where she finished a fast-closing third behind A.P. Indy and Pleasant Tap in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, beaten only 2 1/2 lengths and a half-length for second.

Dancing Brave’s and Jolypha’s dam, Navajo Princess, also excelled on dirt and grass, winning the Molly Pitcher and finishing third in the Apple Blossom, both on dirt. Navajo Princess’ sire, Drone, was undefeated in four starts for Claiborne Farm before an injury ended his career. He became a classic influence at stud as the broodmare sire of Kentucky Derby winners Grindstone and Charismatic.

To add to this classy resume, Animal Kingdom’s fourth generation tail-female sire is Rheffic, another tough, hard-knocking horse who captured the French Derby and Grand Prix de Paris.

So, as you can see, there are a great number of top-class dirt influences hidden beneath all that classic European blood. And there is no question about him getting the mile and a quarter.

He should actually be even more formidable if the track comes up wet and packed down, which is a distinct possibility, judging from the long-range forecast. Because of its heavy clay content, the Churchill Downs surface is conducive to grass horses (just remember how Barbaro moved way up over it compared to Gulfstream). And if it is wet and packed down, there will be less kickback, which is always a concern when a horse is running on dirt for the first time. Another horse who looked impressive working Monday was Brilliant Speed, who also is a grass/synthetic horse that appeared to handle the Churchill surface beautifully.

It might be worth it to keep an eye on Animal Kingdom, a rapidly improving colt who is capable of making some noise on May 7.

Finally, if you have some concerns about Animal Kingdom having accomplished enough, but are as totally confused as most people because of a lack of a standout, you might want to remember these words: If the proven have proven little, go with the unproven, because you never know what they will prove.

A few observations

The most jaw-dropping horse in appearance has to be Shackleford, who looks like a Clydesdale compared to most of these, but moves like a show horse.

If there is a better looking horse than Dialed In, we haven’t seen him yet. As he walked the shed Sunday afternoon, you had to be impressed with way he was dappled out and his incredible muscle tone. He’s not a big horse by any means, but he has a powerful shoulder and his hind quarters are rippling. Watching his demeanor, he looks like he’s coiled and ready for action.

We haven’t seen many of the horses close up yet , but the other one we did see who stood out was Soldat. His coat looks great and has a nice shine to it and we loved the way he looked galloping this morning, with smooth strides and great purpose. And he did seem to get a bit competitive when an Oaks filly galloped up on his inside. He looks like he couldn’t be doing any better.

Ky. Derby Trail: Tickets Going Fast

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:13:00 GMT

No, not seats; tickets to the starting gate. Spaces are filling at a rapid rate and there aren’t many left for all the horses scheduled to run over the next two weekends.

In case no one has noticed, half of the 20-horse starting field already have the graded earnings and have stamped their tickets to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I).

Those horses are Dialed In, Shackleford, Soldat, To Honor and Serve, Stay Thirsty, Pants on Fire, Mucho Macho Man, Twice the Appeal, Animal Kingdom, and Decisive Moment. All are heading for the Derby, leaving only 10 spots still open. Throw in Uncle Mo and that leaves nine.

Of course, it doesn’t matter that six of those 10 horses lost their final Derby prep, with three of them finishing out of the money. It is tough to get within one race of the Derby and give up the dream, and it appears not many are willing to do that. Can you blame them? With the majority of 3-year-olds now having only two or three starts prior to the Derby, it seems it really doesn’t matter anymore what they do in their final start. A regression in form, no matter how drastic, is now considered merely a throw-out race. Although To Honor and Serve was beaten 6 3/4 lengths in the Florida Derby (gr. I), Soldat 10 3/4 lengths, and Stay Thirsty 16 3/4 lengths, their trainers have all said the Kentucky Derby is still in their plans.

As Stay Thirsty’s trainer, Todd Pletcher, said, they have decided to go by his body of work, rather than the one race.

All three are graded stakes winners and all have good races in their resume. It is those races that are taking precedence over the not-so-good races, even when the not-so-good races are the all-important final prep. So, are the connections of these horses heading to Louisville pretty much on a hope and a prayer? Do they feel their horses have a realistic chance to win the Derby off those final preps? Only they can answer that.

The Derby trail used to be a pretty straight path. Venture too far off that path and lose your way and you’re gone. But now, there are so many side streets that lead back to Churchill Downs from all directions, it doesn’t really matter what the old road map says. If you can somehow find your way there, that’s good enough. When a horse like Mine That Bird can blaze a new trail from New Mexico to Kentucky, it gives hope to anyone who has a horse with sufficient graded earnings

You can ask yourself: Was Soldat exposed in any way? Can To Honor and Serve get a mile and quarter after faltering early in both his races? Is there a reason why Stay Thirsty never was in the race at any point? The answers are all the same – “I don’t know.” And these days, “I don’t know” apparently is good enough.

We'll leave you with this question: Of the 10 horses mentioned above who have earned their way into the starting gate and are planning to run, how many do you really really feel can win the Derby?

As for the Florida Derby itself, some are knocking the slow closing fractions, but in defense of the only two horses who did anything in the race, Dialed In overcame a speed biased track, on which none of the other winners came from farther back than 1 1/2 lengths. He had to run a :47 flat half within the body of the race just to maintain his position, which was at least a dozen lengths off the pace. He then unleashed a powerful run on the far turn, but had to swing six-wide turning for home. Shackleford was well into the stretch while Dialed In was still on the turn. He shaded :13 for the final eighth, with jockey Julien Leparoux giving him only three left-handed whacks and hand-riding him most of the way. In short, Dialed In won this race on his own talent and determination.

Some say Soldat’s main excuse was that he was down on the inside on the worst part of the track. Yet he was three paths off the rail down the backside, while Dialed In was right on the rail, well inside him. Soldat apparently didn’t care for the dirt being kicked in his face, but he will have to learn to deal with it when he encounters a 20-horse field, unless he goes back to running on the lead or can stalk from the outside.

Shackleford had to go five-wide into the first turn and proceeded to set stiff fractions of :46 1/5 and 1:10 3/5, which was two full seconds faster than the fractions of the Skip Away Stakes (gr. III) for older horses the race before. He is still very green and like he did in his allowance victory he failed to maintain a straight course, this time ducking out badly from a left-handed whip. But you had to like the way he dug in when challenged by Dialed In and how he galloped out. He will need to keep improving mentally and race more professionally. And we have no idea if he can be effective sitting off the pace. But he does have a lot of ability.

His sire, Forestry, is out of a Pleasant Colony mare and his dam is by Unbridled, so he has two Kentucky Derby winners and stamina influences in his second and third generations. He also is inbred to Dr. Fager and In Reality, both major class influences.

So, the Florida Derby did nothing to alter the Derby field, other than to add Shackleford.

Compiling this week’s Derby Dozen was a study in confusion. We dropped the three Florida Derby also-rans, because of the old-school logic that is still embedded in our brain. Would it be a shock to see a horse like Soldat bounce back in the Derby? Not anymore it wouldn’t.

Although they didn’t make this week’s list, Santiva, Archarcharch, Nehro, Toby’s Corner, and Crimson China are still very much in our Derby picture. We dropped Santiva for the first time just to get a handle on him running in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (gr. I) on Polytrack and what that race might do or not do for him. It could prove to be a bad move or it could prove to be a stroke of genius. Darned if we know at this point, but he likely will be back on the list.

We didn’t put Nehro on, because we still want to see if he will run back in the Arkansas Derby (gr. I) or go six weeks into the Kentucky Derby off only four career starts, something Animal Kingdom will have to do as well. Nehro is a vastly improved horse with tremendous upside.

Archarcharch is a horse we wrote extensively about recently and he has a lot of angles going for him. After this weekend’s races, there is a good chance he will be on next week’s list as the Arkansas Derby approaches.

Crimson China is a horse that caught our eye in his allowance victory on grass, and we thought he ran an exceptional race to be second in the Rushaway Stakes. Like his stablemate, Animal Kingdom, he still has to prove himself on dirt, and if he runs big in the Blue Grass, that proof won’t come until the Derby. But we just think he’s a very good horse. Also in the Blue Grass, watch out for Data Link, another grass horse, who has run well on dirt. He has enormous potential and should keep improving. But he needs to handle the Polytrack.

Finally, Toby’s Corner is still a work in progress, but if he runs in the Wood Memorial, he only needs to finish second to get in the Derby, and with showers in the forecast for Friday and Saturday, that would move him up after his victory in the Whirlaway Stakes in the slop.

That’s just a few of the intriguing horses who are trying to make it into the Derby. Expect a few others to pop up in the next couple of weeks.