EYE ON LIVE

Who are new jockeys?
Tyrone Nelson's cousin is among seven new jocks which is half the colony

NEXT TRIPLE CROWN STOP: PIMLICO

Medina Spirit winning the Kentucky Derby (Darron Cummings/AP photo)

Just days before he runs in the Preakness Stakes, Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit will have to endure a 900-kilometre van trip from Churchill Downs to Pimlico race track in Maryland because the usual air-transport company, Tex Sutton, is in a holding pattern in negotiations for a new lease of the horse-carrying plane dubbed Air Horse One, trainer Bob Baffert told media on Sunday.

That can only bring to mind the recently-released study in New Zealand that showed the extreme toll that van trips take on horses as they attempt to remain upright in a swaying trailer. In the nine-hour-plus trip, Medina Spirit could be jostled up and down a total of 2,500 feet and back and forth about 7,000 feet. The New Zealand study group installed measuring devices in a horse trailer to come up with its figures.

Medina Spirit will run in the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Preakness Stakes, a week from this Saturday.

Medina’s trip will be about half that of Manitoba’s super mare, Escape Clause, who was hauled two summers ago from Canterbury Park in Minnesota to Belmont Park in New York where she finished fourth in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK: “Without Lasix, horses seem to come out of the races with more energy, and they get back to their normal exercise energy quicker.” -- trainer Doug O’Neill

“I was pro-Lasix but having seen (races where Lasix is banned), you know what, maybe it's a good thing. We're creatures of habit, and we have a tendency to do things because that's the way we've always done it, not the way it's meant to be, and not what's best for the horse.” -- David Carroll, assistant to Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse

ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW . . .

“Superfecta” Bigg in ASD Clubhouse on Derby Day (Manley Chan photo)

A reader called it “mind-boggling” that last week’s Insider could suggest keying a horse for fourth place in Derby superfectas. To which I, as a superfecta specialist, reply: “I key horses to be third and fourth all the time.”

And, in fact, I did it in the Churchill Stakes, race 10 on the Derby card, when my 31-1 fourth place key, Hog Creek Hustle, helped produce a superfecta that paid the entire pool of $405,000. With 9-2 Flagstaff keyed for first, my $12 superfecta wheel took four horses to finish second or third to Hog Creek Hustle in fourth. I missed #13, Lexitonian, who finished second. An “all” wheel of my first-place key with my fourth-place key would have given me $200,000. I would have done it if the minimum superfecta bet were 20-cents instead of $1.

So how do you pick a horse for fourth? As a consummate superfecta player, I have a feel for the horse who could get up for fourth and I love 7-furlong races. I played #11 for fourth because he had the highest Equibase speed figure for 7-furlongs in the race but had achieved this figure in a non-stakes race compared to other horses. A late-finishing fourth seemed to be the right fit.

Generally speaking, however, my favourite key for third and fourth is a horse cutting back to a sprint after showing speed in route races. A smart jockey will save the horse’s early route speed for a late kick in a sprint. The odds are often generous.

Other angles I use for third/fourth keys are horses who are dropping in class or horses with high early pace numbers who usually fade.

WHY I BECAME A SUPERFECTA SPECIALIST: It was the early 2000’s when superfectas were fairly new and I was down $1,000 on a late Saturday afternoon at Assiniboia Downs. Exasperated, I decided to throw caution to the wind and box five horses in a Stampede Park superfecta at a cost of $120 without analyzing the race or looking at the odds or anything. I just looked at the program, selected the horses with the highest Equibase speed figures in their past performances and boxed them.

Disgruntlement turned to amazement turned to unbridled joy when the superfecta price was posted: about $9,000. My ticket apparently took down the whole pool. How was that possible? Then I saw why. There had been an extreme less-than-even-money horse in the field and he failed to finish in the superfecta. My ticket was the only one that had the first four finishers.

It was like discovering a new toy. That got me playing superfectas at other simulcast tracks in the U.S. and I was doing very well at it. Ultimately, I even felt confident boxing seven horses at a cost of $840 when a race seemed semi-chaotic.

I was probably the only person back then (when the minimum bet was $1) who captured entire superfecta pools in the $20,000 range--three from Woodbine and one from Fort Erie on a Canada Day.

MY FAVOURITE SUPERFECTA PLAYS: Primarily six horse boxes in maiden races (at a cost of $72 when the minimum bet is 20-cents) and wheels that take three horses in each of the top two positions wheeled to a key in the bottom two positions--with “all”.

WHY I CONSIDER THEM GOOD BETS: Superfectas often pay many more times a triactor price and they offer a player an opportunity to quickly turn a losing day into a winning one. You have much more control of a single race than you do in multiple-race pick-4s, pick-5s, etc.

THE WEEK THAT WAS

ARLINGTON PARK MAY NOT DIE AFTER ALL: Churchill Downs Inc., which is selling Arlington Park race track property for commercial development, can’t prevent buyers of the property from continuing to hold racing there. That’s what trustees of the village of Arlington Heights in Illinois decided at a meeting Monday night. A horsemen’s group has been considering buying the property. Churchill doesn’t want racing to continue there because it plans to build a track elsewhere in the state. Churchill could opt to retain the track and add a casino but that would compete with the mainly Churchill-owned casino, Rivers Casino, just 21 minutes away.

DERBY DAY WAGERING SECOND-HIGHEST EVER: The $133 million bet on Churchill’s 14-race Derby Day card Saturday was the second-highest in history, eclipsed only by the $150 million bet in 2019 when Maximum Security was disqualified and longshot Country House was installed the Derby winner. NBC-TV viewership of more than 14 million matched NFL playoff football and eclipsed the audience for any awards show.

Just two Saturdays left to get even

JUST TWO MORE SATURDAYS FOR “I WON BIGGER” BETTING GROUP PLAY: The “I won bigger” betting group is going to take a much-needed break after the Preakness Stakes in two weeks. It will last right through the live race season. A re-evaluation will take place and maybe at that time the group can get back to holding full in-person workshops where everyone gets to present their views. Full discussions have been missing for a year and the impact has been profound.

Most of last weekend’s wagers centred around the Kentucky Derby which unfolded differently than anticipated when Rock Your World got off to a slow start. Multiple group superfecta tickets had Rock Your World finishing first or second and the ultimate winner, Medina Spirit, finishing third or fourth.

If group superfecta play had extended beyond the Derby, there was a “what might have been” moment in race 10. That superfecta paid $405,000 and my mere $12 ticket--keying the winner and fourth-place finisher--had the horses that finished first, third and fourth. (See “How can you pick a horse to finish fourth?” above.) This weekend’s group play, with input from tourney-wise players, will centre on the last six races at Santa Anita.

DEAD HORSE GOES DOWN GOOD: What? Yes, my penchant for apple cider had me interrupting the writing of this column for a visit to the liquor store where--what’s this?--a new company called Dead Horse Cider Co. is manufacturing a cherry and apple cider. And where is Dead Horse located? In Winkler, Man. How can a racing columnist pass up any product with “horse” on the label and made in his home province? I must report, Dead Horse’s apple and cherry ciders are as good as any from B.C. or even imported from Ireland. Way to go, Winkler! Thankfully, the horse on the label looks very much alive.