Weekend Winners Club

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Friday, May 1, 2019. Churchill Downs.
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You’ve probably heard the popular horse racing phrase before, “pace makes the race.” This is very true in horse racing, but if only if it were as easy as it sounds. The truth is that pace can be very difficult and sometimes impossible to predict.
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If the pace in each race went out exactly as it looks on paper, then I would earn about a million dollars every weekend, but I fall short of that every week somehow. Regardless, you have to go with the information you have and make the best possible educated estimate of the pace scenario.
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If you need a crash course in Quirin points and remedial pace training, you can always reference this article which is the #1 most referenced page on the internet concerning the issue, and it’s free of course, like a lot of the other shit we give you that most of you don’t appreciate.
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In this year’s Kentucky Derby, as in any other 19 horse race, we need to examine the pace and see what the most probable possibilities are. Always start with the front runners, because they dictate the pace, a concept which you should understand no matter how ignorant you are on the issue.
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The scratch of Omaha Beach has a huge impact, because he was one of the two true frontrunners in the field, and now there is only one. Maximum Security may have an official rating of EP7, but the truth is, he was half a length away from being an EP8, due to going 5 wide in a sloppy sprint race early. The other 3 races he led at 1st call.
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So Max should be dictating the pace up front, but there will be a pack of others who will be giving chase early. Bodexpress will likely chase him like he did in the Florida Derby, as will Spinoff. Long Range Toddy, Roadster, Improbable, Gray Magician, and Tax are also seldom more than 2 lengths back of the leader at 1st call. The other EP and P types have mostly seldom been more than 4 lengths back.
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But on paper the pace just doesn’t look that fast even for a 20 horse race. There are only 4 other horses that ever led a single race at 1st call, and they only did it once. One of them was Code of Honor who normally runs from behind so that was likely experimental only.
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It looks like there will be some normal pressure behind Max but he might get it his own way. Typically in the Derby the jockeys practice restraint because they have to sprint for 10f which is longer than they’ve raced before. It would be a surprise to not see 3 of the top 4 filled with early runners this year.
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Max Sec had only 1 race at a mile or longer, the Florida Derby, and fortunately for him, he had it is own way from start to finish and dusted the field. He’ll have a little more pressure here but not enough to completely compromise him unless others strategize to deliberately challenge him on the pace, which could also happen.
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This bodes well for all of those that we mentioned giving chase before, the early runners that like to run from just off the pace. And of course, it does not bode well for the late running closers who will likely be too far behind the pace to gobble up tiring runners of which there won’t be many.
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So based on an objective pace analysis, knowing only what we can know from observation so far, we would predict something like the following:
Maximum Security
Roadster
Improbable
Game Winner
Spinoff
Bodexpress
Tax
Vekoma

But also required in the pace analysis, is a look at how the track is playing today. So far, through 6 races, it has appeared to favor late runners, as it normally does when the track is this dry and front runners tire more easily. That’s one reason we wait until Saturday for the official pace analysis.
Race1: Grid’s top LP horse won at 10-1.
Race2: 13-1 winner made no sense on paper. 2nd 3rd and 4th were top 3 LP horses in Grid.
Race3: Grid’s top EP won at 11-1 in a race nearly devoid of speed
Race4: 5-1 winner 2nd in LP.
Race5 on turf, not relevant to this analysis. Winner 3rd in LP.
Race6: 2nd in EP won at 12-1, in a race with only 1 early runner, who finished 3rd.
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Experience also tells us that most likely 1 of the top closers will find his way into the superfecta, because it happens almost every year, and that’s what great closers too. The best late running closer according to the Grid is Country House, also the only S0 which means he is the latest runner.
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Code of Honor and Win Win Win are the only other two S types and both have good LP numbers according to the Grid. Country House and Win Win Win are two of only 3 left in the field that have never been passed in a race. The other is Max Sec. So it bodes well that one of those 2 will hit the board. Haikal also was never passed but scratched late Friday.
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So taking into account today’s racing surface and adding the closers, we would modify the list to look something like this:
Game Winner
Improbable
Roadster
Country House
Maximum Security
Tax
Tacitus
Win Win Win
Code of Honor
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Either way, we’re still looking at 2 or 3 Baffert horses in the superfecta, along with either Max Sec or Country House or even Win Win Win. Of course, the racing gods have to smile upon any of these today for them to finish in the money, and anything can happen in a 19 horse race. That’s why it’s called a Derby.
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Now you may be an idiot that is asking why we list like 8 horses for a 4 horse superfecta. If you plan on using only 4 horses for your superfecta, I hope you have extra good luck with that. You have about as much chance at that as me winning a million dollars every weekend.

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