How to Get to Derby Week in the Sim!
How do YOU get to Derby Week?
Okay, the roses have died, the horses have moved to other tracks and most of us that don’t still have hangovers are starting to shift the memories of Derby Week into our back memories.
I know that if you are anything like me, you thought at least once during that past week that it sure would be great if you were one of the owners or trainers that have a horse entered in either the Bluegrass Derby or Oaks. According to Zapspride’s Breeding & Horse Pool Stats from this week, (where on earth does he constantly come up with all of those incredible stats??) there were 164,090 in the horse pool last week and of those there were 31,221 three year olds. There were a grand total of 40 horses in the two races for Derby Week here so by my calculations, that means that 31,181 horses DIDN’T get to run in the big races! So we have something like .12 percent of all of the three year olds made it. Where I come from, that ain’t very good odds folks!
So what can we do to improve our odds of getting to the big races next year? Now is the big breeding rush for two year olds and it appears that less than 1% of those will make it to Kentucky next year. I have taken the entries from both the Oaks and the Derby and looked at the Pedigrees, the amount of races, Stakes entered and Wins to see if we can find some sort of pattern. The table with the information is located here:
Derby Week Entries
The very first thing that jumps out at me is the number of horses that were bred by using retired mares or broodmares. Of the 40 entries, 29 or 72% were bred with a broodmare. That was astonishing to me. We aren’t talking about a pile of blue blood mares either. Of the 29 there is only one “A” Rating for ONE ATTACK, Mom to GRATEST. There were four “B’s” and two “C” Ratings. The biggest majority were “G” rated mares, twelve or almost half were branded with the G. There was also one “H” rating.
So some of the pedigree was definitely set by the pedigree of the Broodmares. I was a bit surprised there as well. Of the top 20 Sires in the Sim, only 13 of the forty horse are using one of them as the Sire. The four that were used multiple times were STORM CAT with two and KINGMAMBO with three. Out of the top twenty were JOHANNESBURG with two and AFLEET with two. None by #1 Sire AWESOME AGAIN or #5 GONE WEST. There were also horses sired by UKOK WARRIOR, TROPICAL STORM and MARK OF ESTEEM.
In the entire pedigree, several horses were used multiple times somewhere in the breeding. Of course, STORM CAT is the most with seven, but some of the others may be more of a surprise:
Conspicuous by there place at the bottom are both EMPIRE MAKER, last years #1 Sire and SADLER’s WELLS who is used quite often on the back end of breedings. KINGMAMBO’s three entries into the list were all as Sires with no spots in either the DS or DDS. MR. P and several of his offspring are there even though they tend to be more speed than distance oriented. DEPUTY MINISTER is high on the list and that may surprise a few. WILD AGAIN has as many entries as either A.P.INDY or KINGMAMBO or MR. PROSPECTOR. Perhaps a KINGMAMBO x DEPUTY MINISTER x WILD AGAIN matching may work! SEATTLE SLEW is right at the top of the list too.
It just shows that there are certainly no magic formulas when it comes to breeding. There are a LOT of different horses on that breeding list.
So now we look at how the entries were trained. They averaged just a tick over ten starts each before entering Derby Week. That ranged from a low of five from FOLSUM BLUES to fourteen starts for four of the horses. It was more possible for lower starts for a Colt if he was fortunate enough to win a Lock race and get into the Derby without the money or rankings necessary by the fillies.
Of those ten starts, they averaged about four and a half wins each or just under half of their races. Every one of them won their first race by their fourth start and that was only three horses. The vast majority, 25 won their very first start and eight more won their second. The most wins were nine by SENSIBLE who finished second among the fillies and ROMAN PLUTONIUM had seven and finished 12th in the Derby. Nobody had less than two wins among the group.
The owners didn’t shy away from competition with these prized horses. Of the ten average starts per horse, they also averaged more than seven Stakes entries each. So these were certainly battle tested youngsters that entered the fray. They weren’t getting babied. Seven of the horses had been in at least 10 Stakes races and DOLLIS HILL had participated in 13 of his 14 races!
Once again, it was possible for a colt to race in less Stakes races to build up points in the rankings if he could win a Lock race to qualify for the Derby. But even with that in mind, the horse that make it had a grueling schedule that had to not only have quantity buy quality as well. You need to continue to race and keep on winning or finishing in the money to build up enough points for the qualification.
So really it’s easy. All you have to do is take a nice Sire who doesn’t necessarily be one of the top rated and breed him to a retired mare that also doesn’t have to be one of the best. When you get your colt or filly, make sure that they win right away and then keep entering them in those Stakes races and keep training them up so that they can continue to win and continue to stretch out the distance! It ought to be a breeze!
Actually, the news is better than I expected. With the time that I spent at Derby Week this year, I really thought that it was near impossible to have a Derby Week entry. One of the things that I worried about was the fact that both Lenny and Topicount had multiple entries and I wondered if I could ever measure up. In reality, it doesn’t take just the cream of the crop breedings-wise or the very best Sires or even the top rated retired mares to end up with a horse in the Derby or Oaks. It does take some careful planning on how your run and train your horses and there are different styles to that but there are horses with less than sterling pedigrees and a couple that are downright surprising. Hey, I can do that! In the end, it still takes a good measure of luck no matter how good a trainer you are and with a little bit of luck, you have just as good a chance as every one else to be in Kentucky next year with me hanging around begging for an interview. Of course, I’m hoping that I will be extra busy next year because I’m hoping to be saddling an entry in either the Derby or the Oaks!
See you there! And good luck to all!
Email your comments to pazjazz.btb@gmail.comI love to hear from you!
