By Thomas Chambers
“A single thought occupied the minds of everyone in racing. Seabiscuit and War Admiral had to meet.”
– Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend
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The festivities at Pimlico Saturday will not be of such import, or quality, but the 134th running of the Preakness Stakes will have its own delicious twist, and that’s no thanks to the owners of 312-hour racing sensation Mine That Bird, the shocking winner of the Kentucky Derby just two weeks ago.
MTB’s matchup is sensational filly Rachel Alexandra, the Kentucky Oaks winner who also had Calvin Borel aboard – and will again on Saturday.I didn’t sense a lot of traction in the mainstream media’s efforts to stamp MTB with the “legitimate Triple Crown contender” mantle, not like Big Brown last year. And in the last few days, Rachel has stolen just about all the buzz.
A horse must, after all, conquer both Churchill Downs and Pimlico before taking on The Big Sandy, Belmont Park, but some props for winning the Derby please? MTB is another Dangerfield.
The thunder’s been ripped from the hearts and minds of MTB owners Mark Allen and Dr. Larry Blach, but they made a Sure It’s Half-Assed But It Just Might Work effort to keep Rachel out of the Preakness and they might have pulled it off if not for . . . I don’t know what.
Not cool.
It really started when Jess Jackson and Harold McCormick purchased Rachel Alexandra for a large undisclosed sum just days after the Derby. There had been plenty of conversation about Rachel’s worthiness to run in the Derby, but former owners Dolphus Morrison and Mike Lauffer strongly eschewed the notion on the grounds that fillies belong with fillies and let the boys have their day.
After she won the Kentucky Oaks by a merciless 20+ lengths, with Borel (more suds on him later) doing his best impression of the hokey palamino cowboy in the Tournament of Roses Parade, trainer Hal Wiggins had Rachel taking five weeks off and pointed to the Acorn Stakes at Belmont. It appears his goal was clear: to earn, certainly, female honors such as best three-year-old female or female horse of the year or, if he got real lucky, horse of the year. This is borne out somewhat by the fact Rachel was not nominated to the Triple Crown.
I believe that when Jackson bought the filly (assigning him to your-label-here trainer Steve Asmussen) and said he would run her in the Preakness (the $100,000 to supplement her to the Preakness is nothing to him), Mine That Bird’s owners and trainer Chip Woolley were livid. Preakness rules say that horses nominated to the Triple Crown have dibs over supplemented horses. The maximum field of 14 looked a bit short, so Allen got on the horn.
He called Ahmet Zayat, owner of Pioneerof the Nile and 22 other Triple Crown-nominated horses, and told him that if they both entered an additional horse together (there were also rumors that royal-blueblood racing owner Marylou Whitney would go along too), Rachel would be out. Whitney’s motivation was apparently to not see the son of Birdstone, her lucrative sire, get beat by a girl.
Zayat made no attempt to conceal his outrage at Jackson entering the Preakness with Rachel Alexandra. He pulled out all the stops: “One other criteria for me, I like playing by the rules. All these colts from the very beginning have had to compete and go through the regimen and tough scheduling and go from one race to another to get graded earnings, and that puts a lot of stress on them. And in all fairness, she did not have to go through all that, and her previous owners did not even bother to nominate her to the Triple Crown, and then someone else comes in and tries to change the name of the game and the rules in the middle of the game and I think that is unfair. I’m not against the filly running against the boys. But I am questioning the two-week interval. Why not give her a freshening and run her in the Belmont? Two weeks for a filly. Does our sport need another Eight Belles? We all know what happened to Rags to Riches after her race in the Belmont. We all know what happened to Ruffian. I did not want to have that part of it on my watch.”
Whew.
He has a bit of a point in that Rachel hasn’t been on the same course to this race. And she’s never beaten the boys before either, on any level, even just to see if she could.
For example, Stardom Bound’s connections had her on a potential Triple Crown path, with a race against the boys figured in along the way, but when she couldn’t score a decisive win in the Santa Anita Oaks against other fillies, they rightly abandoned the plan.
So someone from the Maryland Jockey Club called Zayat (maybe it was Pie-O-My’s owner) and persuaded him not to block the filly. And then Zayat dumped the whole thing in Allen’s lap in a Jordan-esque bit of spin.
For what it’s worth, Allen said he too had changed his mind about the whole thing.
What a couple of standup guys!
Marylou and her people said they were never involved in the caper at all. They got their longshot Luv Guv into the race anyway.
For their part, the Daily Racing Form was typically hands off, while The Bloodhorse’s Steve Haskin, who never met a thoroughbred specimen he didn’t gush over, seemed to apologize for the industry.
Calvin’s Choice
There’s an old angle in racing that if a jockey you respect or who is considered a top jock, picks one horse to ride over another in the same race, he knows something about his choice and is picking the better horse. It’s a little wacky to play the jockey, as some guys I know do, but you can be sure about one thing: they’re going to go to with the horse they think is the one to beat.
Then there’s Calvin Borel. After piloting Mine That Bird to one of the most sensational wins in recent Kentucky Derby history (and smartly winning the Kentucky Oaks-Derby double), Borel has chosen to ride Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness and through the end of the year.
Every reference I’ve seen says it’s the first time a jockey has abandoned a Derby winner to ride a different horse in the Preakness when the Derby winner is also in the race. Maybe Borel did the same handicapping after the Derby as I did before it. He’s either incredibly stupid and passing up a shot at racing immortality, or he knows who the live horse will be Saturday. After all, he’s ridden them both.
And in a development worthy of a reality show like, um, Jockeys, Mike Smith will ride Mine That Bird. Assuming they’re still together – and this doesn’t seem too blissful – the apple of Mike’s eye, Chantal Sutherland, is the jock who piloted Mine That Bird to the success he needed to even get into the Derby. The scenarios seem endless.
Preakness Poop
And by the way, there’s a race Saturday. The weather geeks are saying the track could be wet, but from what I’ve read, it won’t be the sloppy like we saw in Kentucky.
The Preakness Stakes, in post-position order:
1. Big Drama: Shaping up to be a wiseguy horse, he’s won six in a row (disqualified March 28 in the Swale Stakes for bumping), has run only one race this year, has beaten just about nobody and has distance questions. He’ll try for the lead, but running an extra furlong and for only the second time this year, you wonder if he’ll avoid the staggers down the stretch. They’re adding blinkers to avoid that. His hope is to go to the lead, set a pedestrian pace, and wire it.
2. Mine That Bird: Gets little respect after Kentucky Derby win. Plan is to drop him back to last again and make the big run. Probably won’t get that rail trip again with Mike Smith, but we’ll see now what he’s made of.
3. Musket Man: My first impression is “is he tired?” He was a very respectable third in the Derby, and connections think he can gut one out. If he gets the Pimlico speed bias everyone says exists, it might remind him of Hawthorne and he gets up for at least a piece.
4. Luv Gov: Beyer Speed Figures are weak, only win out of 10 came Derby Day in a maiden special weight. Racing-wise, this horse is hoi polloi, but why shouldn’t D. Wayne Lukas and Marylou Whitney get to lord over it all? Huh?
5. Friesan Fire: I’ve seen the same cliche twice. “His Derby was too bad to believe.” The storyline holds. He’s looking for slop like in Louisiana and he’s gonna run a great race. He’ll probably be the second or third favorite. I wonder if the :58 and 2 work he had Tuesday is really in his best interest and I know sticking with Gabriel Saez is not. He’s beaten a couple of these but seems a cut below Rachel and ‘Bird. To me, if I toss him, he’ll probably burn me, but I don’t see him winning.
6. Terrain: A cut below. His best effort was a 91 Beyer in the Louisiana Derby March 14, but he still finished third 7+ back. Hasn’t won since August. No.
7. Papa Clem: Who’s he really beaten? Some say he did a nice job in the Derby, but his fourth-place finish seven lengths back came after being right near the lead with a quarter-mile left. That’s going backwards. His lines on wet tracks are not good either. Not this time.
8. General Quarters: Perhaps the lone angle is the old in-and-out. He’s good, then not so good. This race is on the “in” cycle. I like Leparoux aboard and he had an easy workout Monday. Capable, especially if the glamour boys and girl burn it up on the lead. Will need to get 10-1 or more, though.
9. Pioneerof the Nile: Trainer Bob Baffert says he sitting on a big race. Hmmm. Didn’t the great silver one say that in Louisville just two weeks ago? I think this horse needs everything to go his way in any race he runs, including not-so-great competition. He’s a 95-96 Beyer horse and that’s just what he is. He needs others to tire at just the right time. Maybe the goofy 9.5 furlongs will help, but I think Baffert is going to church every morning praying the horse will find his stride on a dry dirt track, which he may not get. Won’t be a price either. He too will need some craziness up front.
10. Flying Private: This horse doesn’t win on his best days. Two things: he’s a good worker and he’s got Alan Garcia. At 55-1, Garcia’s good enough for a couple piasters from me. Sure.
11. Take the Points: This might be my wiseguy horse. And while Todd Pletcher may not be boffo on the biggest glamour stages, he always does great box office in the long haul. ‘Points has been training well. His last two wins were in the mud at Belmont last September, and then a decent allowance in January at Gulfstream. He was sidetracked by a couple of respectable losses on the fake stuff at Santa Anita. He’s had six weeks off and Pletcher is putting on the blinkers, a money move for him. He will stalk, and even push, just behind the leaders. Edgar Prado’s up. Only thing to do now is see what his price will be.
12. Tone It Down: Oh, behave! He’s local filler. Was in for the claim two back. Only impact would be to disrupt the race by shooting for the lead from the outside.
13. Rachel Alexandra: About the fastest three-year-old running, period. Makes it look easy. Is she that good? Or is her competition that bad? Borel stays here. Asmussen is as aggressive as they get and read into that everything you want. Connections’ egos demand the glory. She comes back in two weeks and the only two times she has done that since her maiden win, she has lost. Her last work was so-so. While she won the Kentucky Oaks with Borel mugging for the cameras in the final sixteenth, she still ran fast for nine furlongs. Was it too much for her? The post position does not help as she’s always been on or near the lead. This will be a different ballgame and you won’t get a price. One ticket with and one ticket without. That’s the ticket.
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My wager: I will probably do something with a four- or five-horse exacta box, depending on the tote, and hope for the best. Then plunk down a few dollars on two or three with decent-to-longshot odds. Keep in mind that new shooters to this race who did not run in the Derby don’t usually do great, and that seems true this year.
I’m hoping the wagering public doesn’t get the dreaded Mine That Bird disease and pound every horse with double-digit odds. The Preakness is a return to normality.
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Thomas Chambers is the Beachwood’s man on the rail. He brings you TrackNotes every Friday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on May 15, 2009