A very mild case of Derby fever

In the Horseracing Bloggers Oath (HrBO) — a more exacting relative of the Hippocratic Oath — we solemnly swear to blog about the Kentucky Derby and to uphold its status as the race of all races and the ultimate dream of all owners, etc.

And just this morning, a fellow from the HrBO Enforcement Office contacted me to let me know that I was in serious danger of violating the oath, given the paucity — which is to say, complete lack — of Derby posts on my blog this season.

Happily, he reached me in time, I contracted a very mild case of Derby fever — Derby temperature now 99.2, not even enough to scratch me were I a horse — and I can now rectify this grievous oversight with what will amount to a small handful of Derby-related posts.

In earlier days — that is, before sinking all of my free cash into owning horses — I would likely have exhaustively followed the Derby trail to date.  But somewhere along the line as an owner, I found myself putting most of my energy into the local scene and less into the national one.

For all that, and despite a recent cold streak, I’ve made a bunch of money on my Derby bets over the years (special thanks to War Emblem and Proud Citizen for running one-two in the ‘02 edition).

In recent years, though, the more extensively I’ve handicapped, the worse I’ve done.  Has Gayego crossed the finish line yet?

These are, I think, related facts, this extensive analysis leading to bad outcomes.

The Derby, of course, presents an unusual set of circumstances that lead to additional handicapping challenges.  It is, for one thing, the first time most of its entrants will run the classic 10 furlong distance.  It is, at 20 horses, the largest field most horses will ever see.  And, though the field is always rife with pretenders and no-hopers, it’s also far and away the deepest field most of the horses will have seen.

For all that, however, the Derby is still just a horse race, still just a bunch of (mostly brown) horses running in circles.

Which is to say, the correct way to handicap the Derby is this: do it the same way you handicap every other race.  Do what you’re comfortable with; if you play trainers, play trainers.  If jockeys, play jockeys.  Or Beyers, or class, or post position.  Or, for heaven’s sake, silks.  Do your homework, then pull the trigger.

There will be nine trillion words written about the race come Derby day, and there will be every kind of analysis imaginable.  Your job as a handicapper is to integrate the information you can successfully use and ignore the rest of it.  Don’t let yourself get talked into stepping outside of your comfort zone.

When I knew less about handicapping than ownership has taught me, I found that easier to do.  It was easy, for example, to latch onto Funny Cide as a playable longshot; anyone who saw the Wood Memorial that year could see that he was gaining on Empire Maker — the Derby favorite — and simply ran out of real estate.  A repeat performance at a longer distance seemed entirely likely to have the result it did — a reversal of the order.  A juicy exacta and woo-hooing all around.

The next year, though, I began to outsmart myself.  It was abundantly clear how the ‘04 Derby would unfold: Lion Heart on the lead, with Smarty Jones pushing him along from a stalking spot.  Clever lad that I am, though, I convinced myself that first-time Derby jock Stew Elliott aboard Smarty would either push the pace too hard and set it up for the closers or would give Lion Heart too much leeway and not be able to pass him.  Of course, I wouldn’t have known Stew Elliott if he’d strangled me with a saddlecloth, so my amateur psychologist efforts were not only to no avail but were also — frankly — stupid.  As it happened, Elliott rode a perfect race and Smarty prevailed.

I tell this as a little cautionary tale.  Predictably, my ability to judge the psyche of riders is nil.  I should have stuck with what I knew: how the pace would unfold and who would be advantaged (or disadvantaged) by that.  Psychology, even of the amateur variety, is above my pay grade.  Why I would let that trump something I am good at — pace analysis — is hard to fathom.  Don’t you make the same mistake.

Sports tend to reward patience — but punish indecision.  Handicapping, I think, is the same way.  Do your homework, study the things you can use — and then make up your mind.  No reason to agonize over it.  After all, it’s still just a horse race.