Another Take on the Derby (long)
 

HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS
MAY 10, 2008

by Dick Powell

FULL:
http://www.brisnet.com/cgi-bin/edito...e.cgi?id=11478

I thought by the time I wrote this column I would have calmed down some regarding Saturday's events. But, alas, more steam than ever is coming from out of my ears.

BIG BROWN (Boundary) won the Kentucky Derby (G1) in a dominant performance and that should be what we are all talking about. Instead, he goes to the back burner. The tragic breakdown of runner-up Eight Belles (Unbridled's Song) is not only the headline in the racing industry but fodder for the talking heads on the all-news cable television stations.

Eight Belles did not have to break down, but all the ingredients for a recipe for disaster that we have seen far too many times were present and it was no surprise. Here's why and a little history lesson for those of you not old enough to have been around.

another good article on the race. absolutely dead-on about the handling of the track in the days leading up to the race, the affect it had on the outcome and on eight belles' demise. also dead on about the lip service being paid.

That was a good read, PA- thanks for posting it. It's the only one I've read so far that brings up the sealed track as a factor, and it seems like that would be a fairly easy thing to address- far more so than any of the other proposals being thrown around.

A very good article by a man who knows the business as well as anyone in it.;)

I'm sure that Dick Mitchell has spent plenty of time working on the track maintenance crew at various tracks and knows exactly what to do. Maybe he can cohost a dvd with Jerry Bailey and market it to all the track supers or better yet the track executives who insist on trying to make the track fast because studies show people bet more on fast surfaces. I was wondering that if the track "carried" Recapturtheglory to 5th place, why didn't it carry the 15 behind him? And his "projection" of BB breaking 2:00 under better circumstances fails to recognize that the wind that he ran against in the stretch was the same wind that pushed him down the backside. I also want to inform him that the steak he ate the night at dinner where he got the breakdown information from the jockey agent was probably not there by his own choice either.

Taking sarcasm lessons from BTW? And who's this Mitchell guy?

The racing industry doesn't want to develope a standard for track maintenance. The idea of a fair playing feild for all doesn't seem to be what horse racing wants.

That is what happened and it appears most are going to bury thier head in the sand about it. The same is true with medications and suppliments.

He is a good role model in that area

I'm sure you understand all the vagrancies of maintaining track surfaces. Maybe you can get involved with the DVD too? Especially since you are 2 hot for regular tv.

Not sure how you could standardize something that markedly differs from track to track. And I admit my own ignorance about track maintenance, but is a sealed track inherently more dangerous than a sloppy track (especially if trainers opt for mud caulks)?

I was all to close to the fire before the article was written. My only question was: I've seen riders pull the trigger and not ride on un-safe race tracks. What would have happened if the jocks objected to ridding on Derby Day?

He states opinion and vague innuendo as though it is fact. There's a recipe for great journalism. And, when you consider that he either doesn't know that the runup for CD 6F races ALWAYS creates unusually fast relative first quarters, or worse knows and ignored it so that he could attempt to prove a point, it throws anything he says that isn't substantiatable into question.

I think a major problem is evident, with regards to track maintenance, even to laypeople, if in fact racetracks employ homeless folks to tend to their surfaces.

I beleive the persons name is Dick Powell. He writes for BrisNet.

Dick Mitchell was a professor, author and a professional handicapper - he died a few years ago.

Mr. Powell isn't the only one with this opinion:

Curl [a farrier who looked after Big Brown's quarter cracks] is based in Florida and McKinlay [another farrier involved in same] is based in New York, where
he has seen an increase in quarter cracks in Thoroughbreds during
the last seven years.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with the breeding. I think it’s because
the tracks are getting harder,” McKinlay said.