Three Questions For Handicapping Derby 134

It's Thursday of Derby Week and here in the River City that means it's Pegasus Parade Day. The Parade goes off around 5:00 tonight and is Louisville's answer to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only without the bearded guy in the red suit. It's a light day for the horses and no event real events surround the race

Yesterday was the post position draw and that brings us to Question number 1 (the questions are in no particular order of importance). How important will post position be? Derby morning line favorite Big Brown will break from post position 20, on the extreme outside. That post position has seen only one winner in the race's history, Clyde Van Dusen in 1929, but Big Brown has the speed to get out early and away from the cavalry charge that is the post charge from the gate. Whether he uses up too much getting away from the field may determine his fate. Second choice, Colonel John, (my current pick still subject to change) will break from the 10 spot, an almost perfect post position. Third choice, Pyro has the post position 9 just inside Colonel John and has a great spot as well.

Question number two deals with the racing surface and for this question Colonel John and Pyro are the poster boys. Will the horses who have raced primarily on synthetic tracks to the Churchill Down dirt? Colonel John who has raced exclusively in Southern California has never run a race on dirt. He has trained well all week and posted some terrific work out numbers but that's not the same thing as racing on dirt. How he reacts to the dirt, especially if it turns out muddy is impossible to judge at this point. I loved his Santa Anita Derby - it was the most impressive run I saw all Spring but I have nagging doubts about how he will handle the Downs dirt.

Pyro presents a somewhat different problem. Never worse than third in six starts over a variety of tracks and conditions, the Louisiana Derby winner flamed out in the Bluegrass Stakes over Keeneland's polytrack synthetic surface, finishing tenth. Do you just throw the race out and figure he will revert to form when he returns to the dirt at Churchill Downs or was the Bluegrass a signal that something is wrong with the colt? It's often the case that a horse running on a different surface for the first time won't run well so the Bluegrass truly could be just an aberration worth throwing out when trying to decide if Pyro is worth betting. Still, the drop in form was huge and I rather prefer Colonel John although the price might not be as large as I hoped given Big Brown's post position.

Question number 3 is the same one dogging human sports: what is the effect of performance enhancing drugs? The return to the Derby of Rick Dutrow, Big Brown's trainer, brings the issue back to the forefront. While there is no evidence that he is doping Big Brown, he has a bit of a checkered past. In 2005, he served a 60 day suspension when two horses tested positive for prohibited drugs and he had a claiming violation. Last year he had a one week suspension because of a medication overage in one of his horses and a two week suspension for violating his 2005 ban by having contact with one of his horses. In addition to Dutrow, Steve Asmussen served a six month suspension in 2007 for a medication violation in Louisiana. Does that mean that either of them is using banned substances on their Derby horses? Of course not, but it does indicate that horse racing is no more immune from the performance enhancing substance controversy than any other sport and that it is a problem that the horse racing community needs to address. It needs to focus on and face squarely and publicly and not sweep under the rug. It also presents an X factor in trying to handicap the Derby because it is a great unknown and unknowable.

So, three questions to ponder as we sit two days before Derby and one day before the Oaks. Today, I like Colonel John to win and I'll include him in an exacta box with at least Z Fortune (Steve Asmussen trained and Robbie Albarado jockey) a play on the jockey as much as anything, with one or more of Monba, Eight Belles and Tale of Erkati on the bottom. I just don't think that Big Brown can get 1 mile and 1/4.