It’s Horse Racing Heaven!
The evening will be all about basketball of course, but before we get there there is a whole lot of horse racing to get through. This is the most active single day so far en route to the Kentucky Derby with the Santa Anita Derby, Illinois Derby, and Wood Memorial all going, and all going to figure into the Derby picture. They are all on NBC today, too, starting at 5:00 ET. I’ll look ahead to all of those in a second, but before I do I need to talk about the race I am watching right now.
Today is Grand National day. This is the total definition of madness. If you don’t know anything about it, it is the biggest race in Britain. It is a steeplechase race, meaning that horses have to jump fences on the track. For perspective, the Belmont Stakes is a mile and a half long, and that is seen as an almost impossible endurance test here – we call it a marathon. The Grand National is 4.5 miles long. And the horses have to jump 30 fences over that time. The biggest race in terms of size over here is the Kentucky Derby. That race maxes out at 20 runners, and that creates incredible chaos. This year there are 40 runners in the Grand National. This is a spectacle in the grandest tradition of spectacles. Horses fall, jockeys get hurt – it’s crazy. There were five horses that had fallen after the first three fences, and more than half the field didn’t survive the race. To add to the chaos, once they fall, many of the horses get up and continue the race without a jockey. At one point three riderless horses were leading the race, though they were totally unpredictable for the horses behind them. In the end, a 100-1 horse won the race. The crazy part isn’t that the payoff was that big. It’s that there was a horse bet down allthe way to 7-1. I obviously don’t know steeplechasing well, but in my eyes every horse should be 300-1. Crazy, crazy sport. Check it out sometime if you never have.
Santa Anita Derby – This one is being billed as a showdown between 2.5 horses. Mega-contenders Pioneerof The Nile, trained by legendary Bob Baffert, and The Pamplemousse are the two, and Chocolate Candy is the half – a serious contender who is getting a lot of respect, but who is somewhat off the radar because he is based in Northern California. There are seven other horses in the field, but these are the only three given a chance by most people. I won’t go that far – I know by now that any horse can win any race. I do know, though, that if one of those three doesn’t win then this won’t be a very significant race in the scheme of things. For the top two this is a clash of styles.Pioneerof The Nile likes to sit off the pace and make his move later in the race. The Pamplemousse is a front runner. To counteract the effects a front runner can have on the race, the owners of Pioneerof The Nile have entered a rabbit in the race – a horse with little chance of winning that is entered solely to run at the front and set a reasonably fast pace so that the front runner can’t sit on the front in a slower pace and save their energy for a stretch drive. Even without that, my horse here is Pioneerof The Nile. I love his connections, I’ve been impressed by his running style, and I think he’s classy. I don’t normally play these races seriously because there are two many uncontrollable factors, but for fun I will have an exacta of Pioneerof The Nile over the other two big stars.
Illinois Derby – This is the least impressive of the three races today. It is where good but not great contenders have gone to try to get the graded stakes earnings they need to make the Kentucky Derby field. Musket man is the favorite. He already has the earnings he would need, so he will be looking just to run well and get ready for the next step. Beyond that it’s a wide open race – six of the 11 runners are at 6/1 or less on the morning line, so anyone could win. There are a couple I have my eye on. Free Country has had two bad races in a row, but he’s an impressive looking horse with obvious talent, so I hope he will handle this surface much better. Perfect Song is a very interesting horse – he’s a speed runner who likes the front, but he is bred with all sorts of stamina. If he can get away early on he might not be caught. He’ll likely be my pick. There are a couple of others that are interesting, but mainly because they are so tough to read. Al Khali is a Todd Pletcher horse who looks good, but he has only raced once in North America since coming up from Peru. His story reminds me of Tomcito last year – a horse that burned a lot of bettor’s money. Il Postino is another Todd Pletcher horse, but he comes in at 20/1. The attention grabber is that he absolutely crushed his last race – it was a massacre. The problem is that that race was only a $20,000 claiming race, so this is a massive, massive step up in class.
Wood Memorial – This one is a two horse race. I Want Revenge is at the top of a lot of people’s Derby contender list right now, including mine. He has been incredibly impressive so far, and a strong showing here will put him in the driver’s seat to be the Derby favorite. He has just one serous contender to overcome – Imperial Council. He was second to I Want Revenge last time out. A second in this race would get him into the Derby easily, so I don’t expect him to kill himself to do better than that. He’ll take an opening if it is there, but my hypothetical bet for this race would be a straight chalk exacta – I Want Revenge over Imperial Council.
Beyond those races there are a couple of others to keep your eyes on if you are so inclined. The two stars of the three year old filly class are running this weekend – Rachel Alexandra in the Fantasy Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Sunday, and Stardom Bound in the Ashland Stakes at Keeneland today. Both are currently being pointed to the Kentucky Oaks the day before the Derby, but I’m not entirely convinced that one or both wouldn’t get a shot at the Derby if they uncorked a huge performance today.
Related posts:
- The Last Two Derby Preps The Kentuc
- Five Horses That Won’t Win The Derby I don
- A Rare Racing Monday I have a n
Tags: Grand National, Illinois Derby, Rachel Alexandra, Santa Anita Derby, Stardom Bound, Wood Memorial
