BETTING THE KENTUCKY DERBY

This is the time of year when turf writers and handicappers with resumes thinner than Calista Flockhart feel compelled to lecture the rest of us on which thoroughbreds do and do not have the right stuff to win the Kentucky Derby, May 3. Clinging with white knuckles to their day jobs because they don't have the talent to earn a living betting horses, they justify this unsolicited punditry with a nauseating regurgitation of circumstantial gobbledygook masquerading as historical precedent. It's backfitting at its worst.

Here is some of the oft-repeated nonsense that you'll hear heading up to the Run for the Roses:

• A horse has to be a dual qualifier to win the Kentucky Derby.
  Just in the past dozen years, Derby winners Strike the Gold (1991), Lil E. Tee (1992), Grindstone (1996), Real Quiet (1998), Charismatic (1999), Fusaichi Pegasus (2001) and War Emblem (2002) were among the horses that either had a Dosage Index in excess of 4.00, were not weighted within 10 pounds of the 2-year-old Experimental Handicap highweight, or both. Given how poorly the system has performed, the Plasma Police who advocate it, should be fired.
  
  
• Only one favorite has won the Kentucky Derby in the last 23 years.
  Yeah, so? Does that mean that Silver Charm would have lost that photo to Captain Bodgit in 1997 if he went off as the 3/1 favorite instead of the 4/1-second choice? Or that Captain Bodgit would have won the race if he were not the 3.10/1 favorite? There are legitimate reasons to bet against the favorite and price always is a consideration but a horse's odds have nothing to do with where he finishes in a race. As jockeys frequently remind us, "Horses can't read the tote board."
  
  By the way, Fusaichi Pegasus was the only favorite to win the Kentucky Derby in the last 23 years.
  
  
• The winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile never has won the Kentucky Derby.
  So what's the point, that racing in the BC Juvenile takes too much out of a colt? Well, that can't be true or Sea Hero, beaten 9 1/2 lengths while finishing seventh in the 1992 BC Juvenile, could never have won the Derby in 1993. And how did Spend A Buck and Alysheba, who each finished third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, win the Derby the next year? Oh, we see. It is permissible to run a horse in the BC Juvenile but if you want him to be draped in a garland of red roses the next spring, you'd dare not better win the darn thing. Does it get any sillier than this?
  
  
• No unraced 2-year-old has won the Kentucky Derby since Apollo in 1882.
  In other words, a colt who may have been foaled in May and earned a puny Beyer Speed Figure of, say, 14 when he was beaten 15 lengths in a race, Dec. 31 would have a better chance of winning the Kentucky Derby than a colt who was foaled in February and received an outstanding Beyer Speed Figure of 95 crushing a field on Jan. 1? That's ridiculous.
  
  The notion that a colt should have some work experience is a valid one but surely, taken by itself, a few days on the calendar shouldn't be cause for disqualification. Prior to winning the 2001 Derby, Fusaichi Pegasus had just one start as a 2-year-old, on Dec. 11. It strains credulity to believe that had he begun his campaign three weeks later, he wouldn't have won the Kentucky Derby.
  
  
• No horse with fewer than five lifetime starts has won the Kentucky Derby since Regret, in 1915.
  Who is to say that five starts are enough and four are insufficient? Every horse is different, requiring a separate work schedule.
  
  
• A horse must have experience in a Grade 1 race to win the Kentucky Derby.
  Grindstone prepped for his trip to Louisville in the Grade 3 Louisiana Derby and Grade 2 Arkansas Derby. In fact, the only time that Grindstone ever competed in a Grade 1 race was in the 1996 Kentucky Derby, and he won it. And Fusaichi Pegasus never faced Grade 1 competition until he won the Derby in 2001. It's ludicrous to believe that the decision by a handful of people to assign a grading to a race based largely on historical data a year before it's run has anything to do with the quality of that race in any single year.

It's important to remember that while the Kentucky Derby enjoys an exalted position in the annals of American racing, when it comes to betting the race, the fundamentals apply. Astute gamblers access each horse's speed and ability in relation to its price. That's how you determine value. Factor in track bias and the handicapping equation largely is complete. The player then must make a subjective decision as to which horse to bet. After all, historical data and hackneyed pronouncements aside, handicapping is an art, not a science.

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