When the dust settles after the Grade II Tampa Bay Derby this Saturday (March 9), the 150th running of the $5 million Kentucky Derby will be just eight weeks away.
From the rail out, the field of 10 for the 1 1/16-mile Tampa Bay Derby consists of Heartened, Everdoit, Give Me Liberty, Good Money, Domestic Product, Catire Vizcaya, No More Time, Crazy Mason, Grand Mo the First and Sturdy.
It appears to me that the major players are Domestic Product (pictured above, red/white cap) and No More Time.
David Grening, who is covering the Tampa Bay Derby for the Daily Racing Form, wrote earlier this week that “Domestic Product, trained by Chad Brown, is likely to go favored off his runner-up finish behind Hades in the Holy Bull.”
In Domestic Product’s final start as a 2-year-old, the Kentucky-bred Practical Joke colt finished seventh in what has proved to be a productive edition of the Grade II Remsen Stakes on a sloppy track at Aqueduct.
The Dec. 2 Remsen produced three next-out stakes winners in Drum Roll Please, Sierra Leone and Dornach, plus two next-out stakes runners-up in Domestic Product and Le Dom Bro:
--On Jan. 6, Drum Roll Please won Aqueduct’s Jerome Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths. Unfortunately, he emerged from a four-furlong workout in :49.55 at Belmont Park on Jan. 19 with an injury. Owner Al Gold told the Daily Racing Form after Drum Roll Please’s drill that the Hard Spun colt “was off in a hind leg and X-rays showed an apical medial sesamoid fracture of his left-hind ankle,” an injury that required surgery.
--On Feb. 3, as mentioned early, Domestic Product ran second in the Grade III Holy Bull Stakes. Finishing third was Fierceness, the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old male of 2023.
--On Feb. 17, Sierra Leone won Fair Grounds’ Grade II Risen Star Stakes.
--Last Saturday, Dornoch proved a punctual 1-5 favorite in the depleted Grade II Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park, while Le Dom Bro finished second.
As for No More Time, he’s already won on the Tampa Bay Downs main track, which is a plus. The Iowa-bred Not This Time colt showed early speed and went on to win the 1 1/16-mile Sam F. Davis by 1 1/4 lengths on Feb. 10.
Those who bet No More Time to win were gnashing their teeth after the race even though he was victorious. He was 10-1 on the morning line and 5-1 entering the gate. He dropped a notch to 9-2 in the gate. But his odds then dropped further during the race, all the way down to 3-1, producing a $300 profit instead of $500 at 5-1 or $450 at 9-2.
Odds dropping so much so late like that just happens much too often these days.
Brown conditions Good Money in addition to Domestic Product.
In Good Money’s only appearance under silks so far, the Kentucky-bred Good Magic colt came from four lengths off the pace to win a seven-furlong maiden contest by one length at Tampa on Jan. 26. He got just a 63 Beyer Speed Figure for that effort, though.
Grand Mo the First comes off a third in Gulfstream’s seven-furlong Swale Stakes on Feb. 3 while making his 3-year-old debut. In his only start around two turns and his final start at 2, the Kentucky-bred Uncle Mo colt ran third in Santa Anita’s Grade III Zuma Beach Stakes on the grass last Oct. 8.
Below are my Tampa Bay Derby selections:
1. Domestic Product
2. No More Time
3. Good Money
4. Grand Mo the First
THIS WEEK’S KENTUCKY DERBY TOP 10
Saudi Derby winner Forever Young maintains the No. 1 spot on my Kentucky Derby Top 10. In fact, I’m actually getting more excited about him as each week passes.
Secretariat.com’s Steve Haskin has Forever Young at No. 8 in his Kentucky Derby rankings this week, saying “it’s hard to rank him higher than this until we see how he runs in the UAE Derby [on March 30] and whether he even qualifies for the Kentucky Derby.”
That’s understandable.
But something in particular caught my eye as to what Haskin wrote about Forever Young this week. Haskin noted the Japanese-bred Real Steel colt was credited with a fast Thoro-Graph number for his Saudi Derby victory.
While I regard Beyer Speed Figures to be a useful tool for horseplayers, I do believe that Thoro-Graph numbers are superior. That’s because Thoro-Graph takes more factors into account than the Beyers. According to Thoro-Graph, “each number on a sheet represents a performance rating arrived at by using time of the race, beaten lengths, ground lost or saved on the turns, weight carried, and any effects wind conditions had on the time of the race.”
In the case of the Thoro-Graph numbers, a horse who finished second, or even lower, can get a better number than the winner. This is one of the reasons I believe that Thoro-Graph is better than the Beyers. I consider a Thoro-Graph number to be a much truer reflection of a horse’s performance than a Beyer. Thoro-Graph’s approach reflects the reality that the winner is not necessarily the horse who ran the best race.
The winner of a race never gets a lower Beyer Speed Figure than the horse who finished second, the horse who finished second never gets a lower Beyer than the horse who finished third, and so on down through the order of finish.
“Here is a question for you,” Haskin wrote early this week. “What 3-year-old has run the second-fastest Thoro-Graph number this year behind Mystik Dan’s 1/4 in the Southwest Stakes? Yep, you are correct, it is Forever Young, who with everything he had to overcome in the Saudi Derby, still ran a 1. No one else has run faster than a 2 1/2. I am not taking this horse seriously because he ran a fast Thoro-Graph number as much as I am because in my opinion he should not have even won the race. We already have commented about the high cruising speed he showed tracking the leader in his previous start, but that was negated in the Saudi Derby by a terrible start that put him at the back of the pack. He then had to make his run five-wide into and out of the far turn and got stuck on his left lead every step down that extremely long stretch while drifting out. There was no way he should have made up so much ground in the final furlong to nail a quick American miler [Book’em Danno] coming off a 12 1/2-length stakes victory, especially running basically as fast as Senor Buscador and Ushba Tesoro ran in the Saudi Cup.”
I think it bears emphasizing that Haskin wrote that Forever Young ran “basically as fast” as Senor Buscador and Ushba Tesora did when they finished one-two on that same card in the world’s richest race, the $20 million Saudi Cup.
As I wrote For Xpressbet.com last week, “Forever Young’s final time of 1:36.17 for 1,600 meters did not just break the track record, it smashed it. The old mark had been 1:37.91 set by Full Flat in the inaugural Saudi Derby in 2020. Indeed, Forever Young’s 1:36 flat clocking in fifths was about nine lengths faster than Full Flat’s 1:37 4/5.”
I certainly believe Forever Young is a 3-year-old who is quite capable of winning the Kentucky Derby considering he basically ran as fast as Senor Buscador and Ushba Tesoro in the Saudi Cup. Also keep in mind that Forever Young is considered to essentially have run faster in the Saudi Derby than such quality older competitors as Saudi Crown and National Treasure in the Saudi Cup.
It should be remembered that Japan’s Derma Sotogake finished third in last year’s Saudi Derby, which he lost by 2 3/4 lengths. Based on the final time of the race last year compared to this year, Derma Sotogake would have finished about 17 lengths behind Forever Young in this year’s Saudi Derby. That’s the same Derma Sotogake who later last year finished a solid second to White Abarrio in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita.
Sierra Leone and Dornoch remain second and third, respectively, on my Top 10 this week.
Dornach won last Saturday’s Fountain of Youth Stakes in workmanlike fashion by 1 3/4 lengths while making his 2024 debut. It was his first start since a nose victory at the direct expense of Sierra Leone in Aqueduct’s Grade II Remsen Stakes on a muddy track Dec. 2.
A full brother to 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage, Dornoch recorded just a modest 88 Beyer Speed Figure for his Fountain of Youth performance. Not surprisingly, there are those who feel obliged to knock Dornoch for a Beyer that doesn’t get the pulse racing and for winning a race decimated by the scratches of Locked, Speak Easy, Victory Avenue and Merit. However, Dornach did take care of business in the Fountain of Youth and can use that race to build from going forward.
Making his debut on my Top 10 this week at No. 9 is Deterministic. He’s two for two after winning Aqueduct’s Grade III Gotham Stakes by two lengths on a sloppy strip last Saturday for trainer Christophe Clement.
Clement did a wonderful job to have Deterministic prepared to win the Gotham following a layoff. But as many racegoers know, a second-to-none training job by Clement is nothing new. A Kentucky-bred Liam’s Map colt, Deterministic won the Gotham triumph came in his first start since a seven-furlong maiden sprint victory at Saratoga last Aug. 12.
Exiting my Top 10 this week is Locked. He also has dropped off this week’s Top 10 on the NTRA Top Three-Year-Old Poll.
Locked missed Tampa Bay Downs’ Grade III Sam F. Davis Stakes on Feb. 10 after spiking a fever, then was scratched from last Saturday’s Fountain of Youth when it was reported that Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher did not like the way the colt had galloped.
Below is my Kentucky Derby Top 10 for this week:
1. Forever Young
2. Sierra Leone
3. Dornoch
4. Fierceness
5. Timberlake
6. Track Phantom
7. Hades
8. Mystik Dan
9. Deterministic
10. Born Noble
Bubbling Under My Top 10: Agate Road, Be You, Catching Freedom, Common Defense, Conquest Warrior, Drip, Domestic Product, El Grande O, Encino, Epic Ride, Hall of Fame, Honor Marie, Just a Touch, Just Steel, Le Dom Bro, Liberal Arts, Locked, Nash, No More Time, Northern Flame, Pandagate, Ramjet, Real Macho, Resilience, Scatify, Snead, Speak Easy, Stronghold, The Wine Steward, Top Conor, Tuscan Gold, Tuscan Sky, Uncle Heavy and Victory Avenue.
NYSOS PREAKNESS FUTURE WAGER FAVORITE
To the surprise of no one, undefeated Nysos was the 5-2 favorite in Pool 1 Preakness Future Wager when betting concluded last Saturday (March 2).
The “all others” option was the 5-1 second favorite.
Speaking of the Preakness Stakes, 1/ST Racing announced last week that the purse for Pimlico’s 1 3/16-mile classic on May 18 has been increased to $2 million from $1.5 million.
Additionally, should the Preakness winner go on to win Santa Anita’s $1 million California Crown for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles on Sept. 28 and Gulfstream Park’s $3 million Pegasus World Cup for 4-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles next year on Jan. 25, the winning owner will receive a $5 million bonus.
Below are the final odds for Pool 1 of the Preakness Future Wager:
No. Horse (Morning Line Odds)
5-2 Nysos
5-1 All other 3-year-olds
14-1 Sierra Leone
18-1 Dornoch
19-1 Muth
20-1 Maymun
23-1 Timberlake
26-1 Endlessly
29-1 Fierceness
30-1 Mystik Dan
32-1 Coach Prime
33-1 Forever Young
34-1 Conquest Warrior
34-1 Locked
42-1 Agate Road
45-1 Hall of Fame
45-1 Track Phantom
46-1 Speak Easy
49-1 Born Noble
51-1 Domestic Product
54-1 Hades
59-1 Book’em Danno
62-1 Just a Touch
63-1 Knightsbridge
71-1 Victory Avenue
73-1 Honor Marie
76-1 Tuscan Sky
77-1 Catching Freedom
92-1 Drip
110-1 Nash
115-1 Liberal Arts
122-1 Change of Command
146-1 Epic Ride
157-1 Snead
161-1 Common Defense
172-1 Stronghold
200-1 Resilience
209-1 No More Time
252-1 Inveigled
456-1 Speedyness
For Xpressbet.com, I wrote last week: “I think that you should be trying to find a horse you like whose odds are at least 20-1 and preferably much higher. Not only am I not interested in betting Nysos at around 4-1, I’m not tempted to put any money on Maymun if he’s close to his morning-line price of 10-1.”
It turned out that Nysos’ final odds were much lower at 5-2 than the 4-1 price on Ed DeRosa’s morning line. If I wasn’t interested in betting Nysos at 4-1, I sure as heck wasn’t going to wager on him at 5-2.
Maymun, though, closed at 20-1, twice the price as the 10-1 listed on DeRosa’s morning line. And so I did put some money on Maymun.
Why did I bet Maymun at 20-1? I’ve suspected all along that Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert is very high on the Frosted colt. My speculation in this regard was confirmed Monday on Steve’s Byk’s SiriusXM radio program At the Races when Baffert said that he considers Maymun to be “a really good horse. I think he’s special.”
I also put some money in the Preakness Future Wager on Fierceness at 29-1, Mystik Dan at 30-1, Forever Young at 33-1, Born Noble at 49-1, Hades at 54-1, Knightsbridge at 63-1, Victory Avenue at 71-1 and Tuscan Sky at 76-1. One does not have to bet a lot to make a lot when the odds are that high.
WASHINGTON RACING HALL OF FAME
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has passed along congratulations after the recent announcement that this Washington-bred has been voted into the Washington Racing Hall of Fame.
It was quite an honor just to be one of four finalists in this Hall of Fame’s new “media” category. When I received the phone call telling me that I had been voted into the Washington Racing Hall of Fame, I was over the moon. It’s a phone call that I will never forget.
I consider this to be the crowning achievement of my racing career, which began in 1974 as a writer and chart-caller for the Daily Racing Form at Playfair Race Course in my hometown of Spokane, Wash.
I only wish that my father was still alive for this. A huge lifelong horse racing fan, he thoroughly enjoyed reading the Daily Racing Form the night before going to the track. He had a special red pencil to make notations on the past performances.
My dad always kept a large stack of Racing Forms handy. One reason for that was, unlike these days, a horse’s record on wet tracks was not right there in the Racing Form’s past performances for everyone to easily see. Whenever it looked like there was going to be a wet track, my dad would spend quite a lot of time going though old Racing Forms to check on how horses had fared when running on a wet track.
I look back fondly on the days and days and days of going to the races with my dad. I remember being with him on a rainy afternoon in 1966 at Longacres, the picturesque track near Seattle. The date was July 1. I sneakily spent 50 cents that day to buy my very first Racing Form for the July 2 card.
After the dinner table was cleared, my dad took his Racing Form and started handicapping the next day’s Longacres races. I then fetched my Racing Form and sat down at the table to do likewise.
“Where’d you get that?” my dad asked.
“I bought it today at the track,” I replied.
After I said that, my dad went back to work trying to pick winners. That was the first time that the two of us spent an evening reading our Racing Forms. I still have that Racing Form more than half a century later. Whenever I look at that Racing Form, I get a kick out of seeing the rudimentary markings I made on the past performances. Back then, I could not have imagined that I’d still be writing on past performances all these decades later in order to make morning-line odds at Santa Anita and Del Mar, including the morning lines for eight Breeders’ Cups between these two venues.
As a youngster, I’d often take a Racing Form with me to school, hiding it in a folder. Almost every morning while eating breakfast in those years, I would read the American Racing Manual.
It was back in the 1970s when thousands of Washington racing fans fell in love with a talented and charismatic Thoroughbred by the name of Turbulator. I was one of them. He remains my all-time favorite horse. To join Turbulator in the Washington Racing Hall of Fame is an enormous thrill.
Another reason entering this Hall of Fame means so much to me is I have a deep appreciation for what the horses and people in it have achieved. For example, besides Turbulator, two of the other equine inductees are Chinook Pass and Trooper Seven. The blazingly fast Chinook Pass was an Eclipse Award-winning sprinter. Trooper Seven was a two-time winner of the Longacres Mile, the biggest race in Washington.
Also in this Hall of Fame are such important individuals as esteemed racing official Pete Pedersen (one of my mentors); owners Karen and Mickey Taylor, Washington residents when their Seattle Slew swept the 1977 Triple Crown; Joe Gottstein, who in 1933 built Longacres, my favorite place in the world when I was growing up; Ron Crockett, the driving force behind Emerald Downs, which opened in 1996 near Seattle after racing ended at Longacres in 1992; Ralph Vacca, a giant in terms of the Washington breeding industry; and Joe Withee, the longtime Washington broadcaster and publicist who has an encyclopedic knowledge of racing in the state.
Gary Stevens, Gary Baze and Russell Baze are just three of the jockeys who are in this Hall of Fame. Gary Stevens was a two-time champion rider at Longacres before going on to become a superstar on the national stage. Gary Baze won the Longacres Mile a record five times. When Russell Baze rode his first official winner in 1974 at Yakima Meadows, I was there. He was aboard Oregon Warrior for a 2 1/2-length victory in a six-furlong contest for $1,250 claimers. The race had a $700 purse. Before retiring in 2016, Russell Baze officially won 12,842 races, a North American record that I don’t think will ever be broken.
I am honored to go into a Hall of Fame in which trainers like Charlie Whittingham, Jim Penney and Kathy Walsh are members. Whittingham, widely considered one of the greatest horsemen of all time, trained at Longacres early in his illustrious career and won the 1987 Longacres Mile with Judge Angelucci. Judge Angelucci later in 1987 finished third to Ferdinand and Alysheba in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Hollywood Park. I called the 1987 BC Classic chart for the Daily Racing Form. Penney won a record five Longacres Miles. Kathy Walsh was one of the country’s earliest highly successful female trainers, winning four Longacres titles during the 1970s (1972, 1973, 1977 and 1978).
I became one of the first members of the Turbulator fan club in 1969. Tom Crawford bred, co-owned and trained the Washington-bred son of Cold Command and the By Zeus mare Fur Piece. Cold Command finished ninth in the 1952 Kentucky Derby. By Zeus won the world’s first $100,000 grass race, the 1954 San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita.
Foaled near Spokane in 1965, Turbulator did not race as a 2-year-old. He became gravely ill that year and nearly died. Crawford sent him to his ranch in Montana to recuperate. Turbulator then also did not race as a 3-year-old after severely damaging a knee when it struck a sprinkler in a pasture.
Turbulator’s knee injury was so bad that it appeared he might never be able to race. Crawford even tried to trade Turbulator and his damaged knee to a neighboring Montana rancher for -- get this -- two cows. Not surprisingly, Crawford’s neighbor had absolutely no interest in acquiring a horse with a bum knee.
I never did know who that neighboring rancher was until a few years ago when, out of the blue, I received an email from Montana resident Sidney Powell. I first got to know Powell back when she worked in the racing office in the 1970s at Playfair.
“That Crawford ranch in Montana was here at Arlee,” Powell wrote in her email. “It was my first cousin, Bob Schall, that Tom Crawford tried to trade Turbulator to. Bob also had a rodeo string. So who knows? Turbulator might have ended up being a rodeo horse [if the trade had been made].”
In time, Turbulator’s knee did heal. He finally made it to the races at the age of 4. And what a racehorse he turned out to be! He won a total of 21 races at distances ranging from six furlongs to two miles.
Turbulator was acclaimed Washington-bred Horse of the Year in 1970 following a campaign in which he broke the world record for 6 1/2 furlongs by two-fifths of a second. He also set two track records that year in races at one mile and 1 1/16 miles.
In one of his 1970 starts, Turbulator carried a staggering 134 pounds and won a one-mile stakes race at Playfair by two lengths after being 20 lengths off the early pace. Those who were in attendance, including yours truly, went bonkers as Turbulator rocketed home.
In the 1972 Seattle Handicap at Longacres, Turbulator closed with a furious rush to prevail by a half-length after being 8 1/2 lengths behind at the eighth pole. He won despite being farther back with a furlong to go than the famous stretch-runner Silky Sullivan had been at that point in any of his 12 career victories.
Thanks largely to his come-from-way-behind running style and unmistakable star quality, Turbulator became the most popular horse to ever race in Washington. How popular? There were Turbulator T-shirts, coffee mugs, campaign buttons and refrigerator magnets. How many horses can you say that about?
“If ever there was a horse who brought sheer joy and hysteria to a track and thrived on that crowd response it would be Turbulator,” it was written in the Washington Horse magazine in 1973.
After racing for the final time in 1974, Turbulator made appearances at Longacres and Playfair on numerous occasions to the delight of his legion of admirers, who again could see their beloved retired Washington state legend.
At Playfair on Sept. 30, 1989, Turbulator made what would be his final public appearance. He died on Nov. 7.
Turbulator was inducted into the Washington Racing Hall of Fame in the class of 2004.
A head bust of Turbulator was on display for many years at the Playfair paddock. It can be seen these days at Emerald Downs. Whenever I’ve ever stopped by to see it at the track’s Washington Racing Hall of Fame exhibit, many memories of Turbulator charging down the stretch to the roar of the crowd inevitably come flooding back.
CREATIVE TRACK ANNOUNCER LARRY LEDERMAN DIES
It was with sadness I read that longtime track announcer Larry Lederman died Tuesday (March 5) at his home in East Windsor, N.J. He was 67. Lederman had battled brain cancer after first being diagnosed with the disease in 2011.
I first met Lederman in 1980. I was working as a Daily Racing Form columnist at Keystone (now Parx Racing) near Philadelphia. Craig Donnelly was a newspaper handicapper for the Keystone races and also made the morning line for The Meadowlands.
Late in 1980, I accompanied Donnelly to The Meadowlands for an evening card. It was my first visit to the Big M. I met track announcer Dave Johnson that night in his booth. I was also introduced to Lederman, who was a DRF call-taker at the time, working alongside chart-caller Doug McCoy.
When I became a television commentator for HRTV after it began in 2002, one of the few tracks we showed was harness racing at Freehold Raceway in New Jersey. Lederman was the track announcer. His race calls were so entertaining it really spiced up my shift on the air. During his description of what was going on during a race, he might slip something not happening in the race, such as a stock market report or a baseball score. I loved it.
“Lederman, a colorful character who strived to make his race calls entertaining, got his first full-time job as an announcer at Atlantic City Race Course in 1987,” Matt Hegarty wrote in the Daily Racing Form’s obituary. “He later worked as a race caller at Freehold Raceway, Garden State Park, The Meadowlands and, in 1993, had an off-camera role in the movie ‘A Bronx Tail’ by calling a fictional race in the style of longtime New York race announcer Frank Capossela.”
Hegarty touched on Lederman’s creativity with his race calls.
“In a race featuring a horse named Burnt Toast, he celebrated the horse’s win by saying, ‘Scrape off the crumbs and spread on the butter, because Burnt Toast is home,’ ” Hegarty wrote.
In a 2021 DRF interview, Lederman said: “Sometimes [things] would just pop into my head during the race. It is supposed to be an entertainment thing, not that I call for laughs, because I’m not. The main thing is to call the race and be as accurate as you can.”
I can attest that Lederman was as accurate as they come.
TOP 10 IN THIS WEEK’S NTRA TOP THOROUGHBRED POLL
Sent away at odds of 3-1 and impeccably ridden by the great Frankie Dettori, Newgate surged late and got up in the last jump to win the Grade I Santa Anita Handicap by a narrow margin at 1 1/4 miles last Sunday (March 3).
Hector Berrios also gave pacesetter Subsanador a terrific ride only to get edged for the victory right on the line, much to my disappointment. Newgrange was my top pick to win. But when I saw Subsanador at 22-1 on the board vis-a-vis my 5-1 morning line, I put $100 to win on him, then watched him lead all the way until losing by just a head. Ouch!
Newgate moves into the Top 10 in this week’s NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll at No. 6. At No. 6 last week was Newgrange, who drops to No. 10 this week after finishing sixth in the Santa Anita Handicap.
Below is the Top 10 in this week’s NTRA Top Thoroughbred Poll
Rank Points Horse (First-Place Votes)
1. 331 Senor Buscador (28)
2. 242 Sauidi Crown
3. 235 National Treasure (3)
4. 175 Idiomatic (2)
5. 157 White Abarrio
6. 152 Newgate
7. 79 Warm Heart
8. 71 Didia
9. 58 Speed Boat Beach
10. 50 Newgrange
TOP 10 IN THIS WEEK’S NTRA TOP THREE-YEAR-OLD POLL
After winning the Grade II Fountain of Youth Stakes, Dornoch climbs to No. 4 on the Top 10 in this week’s NTRA Top Three-Year-Old Poll. He was No. 10 last week.
Deterministic debuts at No. 10 on this week’s Top 10 in this poll following his Grade III Gotham Stakes victory.
Below is the Top 10 in this week’s NTRA Top Three-Year-Old Poll:
Rank Points Horse (First-Place Votes)
1. 313 Nysos (27)
2. 286 Sierra Leone (6)
3. 231 Timberlake (1)
4. 200 Dornoch
5. 123 Track Phantom
6. 121 Muth
7. 95 Fierceness
8. 89 Hades
9. 84 Mystik Dan
10. 63 Deterministic
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