The Haskell: Big Favorites and Big Winning Margins
The Haskell Invitational (G1) is a race that has a reputation for attracting great horses: Champions, Hall of Famers, and Horses of the Year. The Haskell is also a race that has been kind to heavy favorites with plenty of easy victories, some of them by very big margins.
Since 2000, the Haskell has been won by nine post time betting favorites. All nine of those top choices were bet down to odds of less than 6/5 and four of them were less than 1/2. During those same years, field size has generally been small. The combination of those two factors has resulted in several Haskell winners by wide margins. In 2013, Verrazano beat a field of seven as a 1.10-1 favorite by 9 ¾ lengths, which is a record for the race.
With American Pharoah slated to run in this year’s Haskell it seems certain that there will again be a small field. As the first Triple Crown winner to ever run in the race, American Pharoah could become the biggest favorite to start, even lower than Big Brown’s odds of 20¢ to the dollar in 2008.
Is it a foregone conclusion that American Pharoah will join the list Haskell runaway winners? With August 2 just two weeks away, here is the latest list of opponents that Monmouth Park officials have identified as probable or possible runners.
•Mr. Jordan comes from the Monmouth Park barn of trainer Eddie Plesa with a career record of 6: 4-2-0. He won the Pegasus (G3), a Jersey Shore prep race for the Haskell, by a head. He broke his maiden at Monmouth in his first start and added two juvenile stakes wins at Gulfstream Park.
•Trainer Todd Pletcher, who has won the Haskell three times, will start either Competitive Edge or Stanford. Competitive Edge won his first four career races including the Hopeful (G1) and the Pat Day Mile (G3). His only loss came in the Woody Stephens (G2) on Belmont Stakes day. Stanford loves Monmouth Park having broken his maiden at first asking as a two-year-old and most recently gaining his first stakes win in the Long Branch.
UPDATE 7/20/15: Competitive Edge will run in the Haskell and he will be ridden by Mike Smith.
•Tekton finished second to Mr. Jordan in the Pegasus for trainer Tony Dutrow.
•War Story finished in the money in all three of the Kentucky Derby prep races at the Fair Grounds in Louisiana. His 16th place finish in the Run for the Roses was followed by a fourth in the Ohio Derby. The Haskell will be his first start for new Thistledown based trainer Jeffrey Radosevich.
•Keen Ice, who finished third in the Belmont Stakes for trainer Dale Romans, is listed as a possible Haskell starter. Bent on Bourbon, the winner of the Iowa Derby (G3), and Good Pick Nick, third in the Pegasus, are also on the possible list.
Seven-time Haskell winning trainer Bob Baffert has made it clear that American Pharoah will only race if he is in top form and after his July 18th brilliant six furlong workout [1:11.40], it seems that Baffert has him on the right path. Taking a look at his likely competitors, American Pharoah should have little trouble adding his name to the list of big favorites that have become big winners in the Haskell.