Derby Weekend Winners and Losers
Real Writing on Racing 💯
The 2021 Kentucky Derby Weekend is now in the rear view mirror and with the NFL Draft having also just been completed late Saturday afternoon we will be giving out our Derby Weekend winners and losers plus some grades a la Mel Kiper.
Derby Weekend Losers
Lightly trained/raced Derby horses - We have been banging the drum for months on this subject. Despite a preponderance of evidence, connections are still throwing horses that haven’t got the proper foundation/experience to win the race into the Derby and I guess hoping for a miracle.
Arkansas Derby/Florida Derby/Wood Memorial - Three of the biggest traditional preps completely bombed this weekend with 9th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 18th and 19th place finishes.
Dime superfecta’s - A lot of sharp players on social media have been pushing the idea that the low minimum for this bet kills the payoffs, especially over the long haul. Looking at the payoffs for Saturday’s Churchill card where $1 was the minimum, it’s hard to argue otherwise. Payoffs as follows $2187, $24389, $287, $4529 (vs $754 for triple and favorite finished 4th), $982, $542 (6 horse race and favorite won), $39 (Gamine race), $298 (1st 3 favs in number), $36357, $405179 (with 2nd fav winning!!!), $484 & $248 (dead heat for win), $9465 (Derby), $3153 and $260 (4 or 5 top choices).
Local Jockeys - They ran 13 graded stakes this weekend at Churchill and Shedaresthedevil’s win in the La Troienne with Florent Geroux was the only one with a local jock aboard.
Anti-lasix arguments - Aunt Pearl and Kalypso, high profile fillies bombing in separate graded stakes within an hour of each other because of bleeding incidents seems to make the “it’s not gonna have any effect argument” ring hollow. A whole lot more bled badly enough to effect performance but at least we know these ones for sure.
Synthetic track preps - Animal Kingdom is the patron saint of ‘other than dirt’ preps but in the 9 years since he won, zero impact still after King for a Day and Sainthood just got hot and dirty Saturday. Outside of Animal Kingdom who was an actual unicorn of a top class horse on three surfaces and the long forgotten Went the Day Well, also trained by Graham Motion, finishing 4th in 2012, it’s been dreadful showings for the Jeff Ruby Steaks winner and now runner up. C’mon Churchill Downs, making that race a 100 point prep is a complete joke and disrespects the other real prep races. Adding TWO horses from that race to the field is lunacy and still isn’t going to make that a landing spot for anyone other than turf and/or under qualified horses.
Bob Baffert haters - Mr Baffert has become the single most divisive figure in the sport over the last few years. The medication/drug issues are well chronicled so we won’t rehash but Medina Spirit’s Derby victory set off a huge wave of social media scorn. Bob adding to his resume with Gamine winning another grade 1 despite not looking all that great and scoring a graded stakes win for his wife in the American Turf was just tossing kindling onto the 🔥. It’s still Bob’s 🌎 and we are all just living in it.
Derby Weekend winners
Johnny Velazquez - Just when you think that he might be in the twilight of his career and perhaps he has seen better days…the 49 year old Velazquez makes all us older guys proud by winning both the Kentucky Oaks and Derby! Not only did he win both races but they were both masterfully ridden and it’s very easy to conclude that his tremendous tactical decisions and sheer finishing strength made the difference. He clearly belongs in the pantheon of greatest American jockeys and using a baseball comparison, Johnny V is the Hank Aaron of jockeys. If you don’t follow baseball that’s about as high of a compliment that you can give someone. Greatness, longevity, consistency, humility, grace, class. Well done sir.
Flavian Prat - If you don’t know……now you know!
Protonico - Most stallions don’t make it. An extraordinary number of beautiful, regally bred horses with great race records wind up being duds at stud despite the support of great books of mares. Some like star stallion Into Mischief start out with humbler beginnings and literally sire their way to the top with stakes winner after stakes winner. Yet the vast majority don’t wind up being considered successful and often see their services become obsolete. Oussama Aboughazale who races under the stable name Sumaya U.S. Stable didn’t let those long odds affect his desire to make a stallion out of his best US runner, Protonico. The horse was by top stud Giant’s Causeway out of Sumaya U.S.’s best filly, the grade 1 winner Wild Spirit. A solid graded stakes type horse trained by Todd Pletcher, Protonico retired after 16 starts, 7 wins including 4 graded stakes and just shy of a million dollars in earnings. One of those stakes wins ironically came in the grade two Alysheba Stakes which was run on Kentucky Derby day in 2015. His jockey that day? John Velazquez. There wasn’t much demand for his services and he has had only 63 foals after three crops with 31 two year olds this season and only 14 yearlings. Medina Spirit is the only son of Protonico that has sold as a 2 year old, there was a filly that brought $7000 too. Certainly he has a long way to go as a stallion and still faces a steep uphill battle but the speed and gameness shown by his number one son in winning the Kentucky Derby sure can’t hurt.
Masqueparade - The son of Upstart pulverized a deep allowance group early on the Derby undercard, earning a 97 Beyer in doing so. This was actually the first race that the Al Stall trainee had ever finished in front of the field as he was moved up in his maiden win at the Fair Grounds on a questionable DQ. However he sat a three wide trip in Saturday’s fifth race going 1 1/8 and simply left them gasping when he unleashed a powerful finish down the Churchill Downs stretch, shading 12 seconds his last eighth which is rarely seen on the dirt especially at that distance. His Beyer figure was 6 points higher than the number earned in the grade 2 Pat Day Mile that featured several of the more high profile middle distance three year olds. The Matt Winn is supposedly next for him.
Jackie’s Warrior - He’s back. Those of us who wrote him off this year already (🙋🏼♂️) looked foolish as he set insane fractions (21.75 - 43.68 - 1:07.97) and grimly held off a stubborn Dream Shake to capture the Pat Day Mile and look like he will be a force in the one turn three year old events this season. The Met Mile would be a bold move off of this win but more likely to see him on Belmont day in the Woody Stephens.
Gift List - Lost in the Aunt Pearl stinker was this Brian Lynch trainee blowing past the field to score an easier than it looked 4 1/4 length win. She looks like a force to be contended with in all the 3 year old filly events this summer.
Older Filly dirt stakes - Shedaresthedevil held serve with a workman-like win over a persistent Envoutante in the grade 1 La Troienne on the Oaks undercard. With Letruska, Monomoy Girl, Swiss Skydiver and the top 2 from this race it seems like we may have some really good tussles this summer to see who is the leader of the division. Looking towards the Fall if some of the lightly raced three year old fillies like the top two finishers in the Oaks, Malathaat and Search Results continue to develop we could see an epic Breeders Cup Distaff.
Bob Baffert - He just keeps on winning. It’s increasingly uncomfortable when he does but he had himself a day on Saturday winning three graded stakes including two grade 1’s, the Kentucky Derby and a grade 2 with his wife’s horse.
Making the grade - Grading the graded winners
Flagstaff ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Gamine ⭐️
Blowout (GB) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Maxfield ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Gift List ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Obligatory ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Shedaresthedevil ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Malathaat ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Colonel Liam ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Domestic Spending ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Medina Spirit ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fast Boat ⭐️⭐️
Du Jour ⭐️⭐️
Jackie’s Warrior ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Don’t ask what that actually means but it looks cool! Other notes from the weekend:
🏇🏻Dr Post looked like he might be a player in the Met Mile with a nice score in the Westchester at Belmont with a 103 Beyer.
🏇🏻Snap Decision won the Temple Gwathmey Hurdle and might be seen in Saratoga this summer
🎙Travis Stone the track announcer at Churchill did an excellent job this weekend
💵 Total Handle on the Kentucky Derby card was $233.1 million which was up from the September COVID Derby but down 5.5% from 2019 figures. Oaks figures were 54.2 million which was down 9.7% from 2019. Track officials will likely blame the smaller attendance figures as the culprit.