Fortune 500, Snowchief risk Derby hopes

By ITCH

Is there anything so exciting to a Sim trainer as a fast 3yo colt in the springtime?

The lure of the Bluegrass Derby is all-powerful. Everyone, from the brand-new players to the hardcore veterans, dreams of winning racing’s biggest prize.

But to win it, you gotta be in it. The real race of the springtime is the race to qualify.

And now, it’s crunch time.

At least a couple of the colts in Saturday’s Grade II, Texas Derby have been pointed to the Bluegrass Derby in serious fashion by their trainers. Two of them ship here to Texas all the way from Dubai, where they took their shots in the Derby Lock race there, the Sand Castle Derby. The tepid 4-1 favorite, INDY PROSPECTOR, was a respectable third in that race, the best of his three tries at graded competition going long.

Joining Indy Prospector for the long airplane ride back to the states were GARDEN SOCIETY, who didn’t lift a leg in the slop when 13th in Dubai. He still has a shot at the Derby, however.

There are plenty of other up-and-comer types in here for whom the Grade 2 would be a big feather in their cap, Bluegrass Derby or not.

Yes, the question this week is who can win the Grade 2, $300,000 TEXAS DERBY, going 8.5 furlongs on the main track.

The aforementioned favorite is INDY PROSPECTOR, trying from No. 29 in the Classic Rankings to make the Top 20 and thus the Bluegrass Derby in three weeks. He has 100 stakes points, and would earn 64 here should he win, according to my friend Nextbonus. That would vault him easily into the Top 20 and get him into the Derby. I think that’s pretty much it here for INDY PROSPECTOR. If he wins, he’s in the Bluegrass Derby. And he’s favored. So, you have to give credit to the Louisville Fortune 500 outfit for getting this son of Indy King into this spot. This is a very classy colt and a Grade I winner. He’s ranked No. 9 in the sprint division. From this handicapper’s perspective, this colt really is in a no-lose situation here on Saturday. If he wins, he makes the Derby. And if he doesn’t win …. well, that just might lead him down the path to more success in the future. It only takes one look at his page to see that he has a better record sprinting as opposed to routing. That being said, he really advanced himself with that third-place finish in the Dubai race last out. Maybe he just loved the slop, but even if the track helped him a little, this horse broke second and held third going nine furlongs in Grade I company. That’s saying a lot for the class and ability of a colt whose best distance appears to be seven furlongs, at which he won his Grade I. He is a ton of horse and is running for a very tough outfit in the Louisville Fortune 500. This is a barn which places its horses where they can win and you have to respect the shot they are taking this spring with INDY PROSPECTOR.

Qualifying second is GARDEN SOCIETY, who still has a chance at making the Derby field. He has 89 stakes points, and 64 for winning would get him to No. 18, assuming no other horses ahead of him earn points. That’s probably not a given, either, though I confess I do not know how many of the horses ahead of him are even running this week. I am sure THE CHIEF might know, however. This fine son of Green Desert campaigns for none other than Sharon the Great, the longtime editor of the Simulated Racing Form and now the Black Type Bugler. Right now we know we are rooting for this horse, but can he do it? Can he win this race and give himself a shot at the Derby? The oddsmaker says 7-1 off that bad-looking race last out in Dubai when he ran only an 86 speed figure. Considering the class of Garden Society, the price looks like an overlay. He is a Grade 2 winner, having captured the Darling Squash Futurity in Illinois last September before a failed run in the Breeders Bowl. He also has won a stake at the distance, that being two back at the non-graded level. I think the main two questions you ask of any horse in any race you’re handicapping are: Has the horse competed successfully at the class? At the distance? If the answer is yes to both questions, you have a legitimate contender, no matter the current form. You can throw out that last race and blame it on the slop. The horse has come right back from failures in the past and won. He came off a ninth-place finish in the Breeders Bowl and won two out of his next three. It’s a tall task but he can do it. Then, Sharon might be saying “WOOHOO!!!” if her ticket to Kentucky gets punched. Good luck, Chief!

According to the points, it looks like the top two are the only ones with chances at the Bluegrass Derby, and for sure, the third-qualifying horse, BERNIE ETS, is the last one with any kind of a chance. This late-running son of A.P. Indy comes in here with 74 stakes points for Theo of Minnesota Downs fame. This fellow is so very generous with his time in running contests for other Simmers and will be an easy guy to root for in this race, as well. Just as with his contests, Theo knows what he is doing with his horses. He runs one of the most potent claiming outfits in all of Simdom, but he ain’t playing in that ballpark with this horse. Bernie Ets is a big-timer, having won four of his first five career races, capped by a Grade 3 score. Theo had to be thinking Derby big-time in December with this horse when he won that Grade 3, ballooning all the way up to that magical speed figure of 100. Alas, in three races hence, there has been no triple-digit speed fig, and no wins, either. He was a close-up fourth in the slop when shipped over to Denmark for the Giant Slayer, then disappointed at Theo’s home track in Minnesota when sixth in their Derby Trail stakes. It looked like the Derby hopes had ended for this colt, but he up and fired a big shot last out when second in the Grade 2 Sleepy Fan Stakes in California. That race was at today’s exact class and distance, so it sets him up perfectly for a good run here. It would take some good luck and defections from horses ranked ahead of him to make the Bluegrass, but Derby or not, this is a classy colt here with a strong range distance-wise. The only thing we don’t know about is this jockey, I. Maloney. Good luck, Theo, you da man!

For the rest of this field, the Texas Derby is more of a destination than a stepping stone to another race. For most of these horses, the Texas Derby is THE Derby. Can any of them take this race and spoil the chances of the Bluegrass hopefuls?

The fourth-place qualifier, MULLINAVAT for longtime player Coug, just tangled directly with Bernie Ets. They both ship here off that Grade 2 Sleepy Fan Stakes out in California, that race of the exciting, blanket finish. Mullinavat, a striking gray son of El Prado, blasted right to the front at the outset of his very first career graded start. At one point in the race, Mullinavat, breaking from the rail, was a full 10 lengths in front of Bernie Ets, who broke wide in post 12 and had settled toward the rear of the field. The longer the race went, however, the more all heck was breaking loose on Mullinavat, as a seeming calvary charge took place, with roughly half the field charging at him. Coming hardest of all, of course, was the eventual winner, DOLLIS HILL, who coincidentally also lies just outside of the Derby looking in at No. 24 in the rankings. Also flying on the outside was Bernie Ets, who passed Mullinavat comfortably before the wire. This colt hung tough for third though, and it has to be encouraging to Coug that his horse proved himself as legitimate graded-stake speed. This horse is not a one-dimensional speedball, however, as demonstrated in his full-field stakes victory at this distance two back when he tracked a close-up third before coming on to win. This is a seriously fast horse for a Sim veteran who has had to have had a few in his day. After all, Coug has made an impressive 947 starts here in the Sim.

The Sim’s friendly and enjoyable Aussie contingent sends forth a contender here in CITY FORTRESS for Crawford Incorporated. Perhaps we will run into Crawf68 in the chat room sometime and we can ask him what happened to this son of City Zip on March 8 in Portugal. One could not blame Portugeuse Plungers that day who may have plunked down a few euros on City Fortress. Up to that point, he was the model of consistency. Since being switched to dirt, he won his maiden, won his first level allowance, and was second in two straight stakes. Most impressive was the way City Fortress scoped out in distance two back, comfortably holding second while stretched all the way out to 9.5 furlongs, only half a furlong shorter than the Bluegrass Derby. He replicated his lifetime-best speed figure of 94 that day, a very impressive feat, especially for a son of City Zip, normally thought to be more of a sprinting, precocious influence than a classic stamina influence. Then, the colt arrived in Portugal. Do they have security at that track? Has this horse been scoped for sponges? What the heck happened in that race? The normally reliable City Fortress lifted nary a hoof, bumbling home in 12th, nearly distanced with a paltry 66 speed figure. So, he ran a clunker. We’ll see how he comes out of it. If he can make a quick recovery and run well here, he’s a tremendous value parimutuelly speaking, as the oddsmaker has dismissed him at the silly price of 27-1, longe

RIDE FOR FREE is next for the longtime Sim veteran outfit Tmp Stables. This is an eight-barn operation that’s been around for many years in the Sim. Five of the eight stables have made more than 1,000 starts, which is very, very impressive. This is a Sim trainer who has seen their share of horses, and so when the decision is made to re-enter Ride for Free in stakes competition, it has to be respected. Up to this point, Ride For Free, a fetching brown son of Fusaichi Pegasus, has had success exclusively in the allowance ranks. His one try in a stakes race was two back in the Grade 2 Bonnie Situation was unsuccessful. (Although, it’s hard to blame Tmp for putting him in that race. What better way to find out if you have a Derby horse than running in a Grade 2 race in Kentucky at very nearly the Derby distance?) So, this is not a Bluegrass Derby horse. But, could he be a Texas Derby horse? Maybe. The distance of the race is a good point in his handicapping favor. Ride For Free has done very well at 8.5 furlongs. He’s won twice and been second. On the other side of the coin, we see that Ride For Free probably has benefited somewhat in his allowance races from the shrewd placement by his trainer. He’s caught several short fields, which does not necessarily translate to a nearly full graded field of 12. But hey, the horse is 12-1 and very well could be a live longshot at that price.

Right here it is probably fair to point out that every remaining horse is ranked below a colt who never has hit the board in a stakes race.

Trainer Stevemunoz may have a RIGHTEOUS BEEF that his colt is not ranked higher. After all, Righteous Beef, the 3yo brown son of Bluegrass Cat, has at least hit the board in stakes company. In fact, he’s done it twice, third in both of his first two career non-graded attempts. Righteous Beef makes his debut in graded company here off a first-level allowance score, and has been dismissed by the oddsmaker at 17-1, the second-longest shot in the field. He also will break widest of all from post 12. Does this colt really deserve his apparent role as an outsider, though? One stat I love that he has working in his favor is his record in four career starts going a route of ground. He’s hit the board every time. Four for four. That’s pretty good in anyone’s book. I think when you assess this horse’s chances, you might do well to simply draw lines through the two seven-furlong races two and three back, and even the second-place finish four back when going 6.5. When you consider only Righteous Beef’s races of at least a mile in distance, he makes sense in this spot. He has a right to hit the board again and promote a juicy trifecta.

And now, for a heavy dose of Belgian speed … BAT FOR LASHES represents the Benelux residency here for Zeco Stables Belgium, a 24-barn operation with a respectable 13.3 percent average strike rate. What we have here is Grade 3 speed at seven furlongs. Bat for Lashes led both the South Bronx and Swale Stakes in his last two before fading late to miss the board in both races. The speedy brown son of Red Ransom might have dented his paycheck with those finishes, but he didn’t dent his odds here. The oddsmaker takes a look at those speed figures of 95 and 96 and says “that’s the kind of horse for me” and makes this colt 8-1, a shorter price than several of those who qualified ahead of him. At first glance, Bat for Lashes does indeed appear to fit a classic handicapping angle, classy speed on the stretchout. It very well may be that the angle may hold true for Bat for Lashes. He might go right to the front and never look back. However, there are reasons to believe it won’t be so easy for the colt. A primary concern is the fact he wheels right back here off two weeks’ layoff and his form appears to be regressing. The seventh-place finish out looks bad, but the fading to fourth two back in a short field of seven may have been a little worse. In the horse’s defense, he cannot really be called a pure sprinter because he’s won going a flat mile and held on a nice third in a stake going a mile four back. We’ll see. One thing for sure is he does not help the chances of the other speed horses in the race one bit, including top qualifier Indy Prospector, or the next guy …

That’s TOUGH GUY, a handsome light gray son of Macho Uno whose approach to Saturday’s race also will be predictable. He’s gonna break fast and try to improve his position. Jumping up after impressive front-running scores in allowance company, this horse deserves a shot and Lsumark picks this one. Representing the Ireland Residency with all of his 25 barns, Lsumark is a well-respected Sim veteran with thousands of starts under his belt and a solid 13.8 percent strike rate. This is a trainer who knows how to give his horses a chance. It probably says something that this Texas Derby may not be the toughest Grade 2 in the world if Lsumark has picked it out as the spot for Tough Guy’s stakes debut. Lsumark thinks Tough Guy has a shot in this race. He just may be the “now” horse here. Many of the others have war wounds from competition against tough stakes horses, and this one is fresh for the battle. He’s been dominating his allowance fields in good time and is full of confidence here. It will be interesting to see how this horse responds if he is headed out of the gate. The only time this horse ever has been defeated going a route of ground was when he caught an off track. We’re fast here Saturday so that’s no concern. This horse has the speed figures to back up the jump in class and has a good post position down on the rail. If he leads them around the first turn, he may take some catching. We’ll see how tough he is on Saturday, that’s for sure, especially if he does not break on top.

EXCLUSIVE PEGASUS is the 10th qualifier, and looks to be an awfully nice colt to be this far down in the rankings. The first thing that jumps off the page at you is that phat 101 speed figure two back. That was going nine furlongs when second in a non-graded stake, and is a heck of a nice number for a 3yo colt to be running in the spring going that far. Maybe the effort took something out of him, though, as he was a dull fourth and beaten 16-plus lengths last out when stretched out to 9.5. The rugged 3yo brown son of FuPeg belongs to yet another veteran outfit, that the sterlingra stable that is a veteran of more than 1,000 starts here in the Sim. Sterlingra has chosen to eschew the first-level allowance condition for this colt, preferring to race him exclusively in stakes company since he broke his maiden. It took this colt a while to break his maiden, hence his 1-for-10 lifetime record. However, as 1-for-10 horses go, this one is a gem. That race record is deceiving, because most horses who are able to hit the board in two out of three stakes races already have won allowance races. The combination of this horse’s tactical speed, success at the non-graded stake level and good speed figures make him a decent fit for this field despite that poor race last out.

Speaking of attractive speed figures, how about that big, shiny 104 earned last out by the Evil Empire’s horse, RAGE OF THE TITANS. Lenny has a ton of stakes horses and likes to have a hand in as many of the Sim’s elite races as he can. He takes his shots and takes another one here with this son of Montjeu, who is getting major respect from the oddsmaker at 7-1 off that big speed figure. Yes, this could be an up-and-coming horse, and you always have to respect Lenny because he is so successful, but 7-1 is probably a bit of an underlay here under normal handicapping principles. The colt was badly beaten in the only stakes try of his life. That was a non-graded race and while the Texas Derby is not the strongest Grade 2 in the world, it’s still a Grade 2. He’ll have to prove he can replicate that 104 speed figure at this class.

Finally, we have SISSON’S ALLEY for Binzaman, who also is getting respect from the oddsmaker at 8-1 despite qualifying last of 12. Normally, your final qualifers in stakes races are your longest shots. What gives here? The answer is I don’t know why this horse is ranked behind the others. You would think a horse with a second-place finish in a stake would be ranked ahead of a horse like Rage of the Titans who missed the board in his only stake start. I think it is one of them there anomalies. There it is, in black and white, the race two back known as The Wow Stakes going seven furlongs in which Sisson’s Alley closed to be second. Then, the son of Flower Alley tried a Grade 3 the same distance last out and passed five horses in the stretch. This horse appears to have more class than at least a couple of those who’ve qualified ahead of him here. He’s a late runner and we’ll see if he has the same kind of kick in a graded race going a route of ground.

OK FOLKS, THAT’S YOUR FIELD FOR THE TEXAS DERBY!!!!

GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY!!!!