Analysis: Pedigree should help Extra Añejo on Derby trail

Three weeks before Arabian Knight cruised to an easy maiden win at Keeneland, Extra Añejo accomplished the same feat with an eye-catching maiden romp at the “about” seven furlong distance. With racing fans eager to see more stars emerge on the Kentucky Derby trail, of course Extra Añejo stirred excitement on social media with his flashy win.

From a running-line standpoint, Extra Añejo's gate-to-wire romp resembled Arabian Knight's pacesetting victory a few weeks later. Both horses secured an uncontested lead with a slight cushion before drawing clear in the stretch.

In the case of Extra Añejo, he broke a touch slowly before recovering smoothly and working his way up to the lead under his own power.

The replay is shown below. Watch as Extra Añejo takes a second or two to get in motion after the slow break. Once he gathers himself, the son of Into Mischief moves to the front under no visible urging and leads the field by two lengths after moderate fractions of 22.57 and 45.19 seconds.

When Extra Añejo started to round the turn, Freezing Point and the familiar Summonyourcourage chased him in second and third.

Extra Añejo began to open up at that point. After switching leads smoothly, Extra Añejo blew the field away in the stretch run easily. Once he hit the wire, Extra Añejo won his maiden race by an impressive 9 1/2 lengths with a time of 1:27.17 for the about seven-furlong distance.

With the final time in, Extra Añejo earned a final 119 TimeformUS Speed Figure and 92 Beyer Speed Figure. Given the approximately 20-point scale difference, TimeformUS rated Extra Añejo's win a few points faster than Beyer.

Even if only the raw 117 TimeformUS Speed Figure for Extra Añejo is considered, there remains five points of disagreement between TimeformUS and Beyer. Handicappers need to decide for themselves which number to use or whether the speed figures do not matter right now.

The exciting part about Extra Añejo is the pedigree, which is filled with European route influences on the dam side. As stated earlier, this is a son of Into Mischief, who works as a route sire as long as he pairs up with a stamina-oriented mare.

On the bottom, Extra Añejo's dam Superioritycomplex won only once, and it came when she broke her maiden at 10 furlongs. Superioritycomplex is a half sister to Francesco Clemente, who won three times in three starts, with two of those wins coming at 10 furlongs. Their other half sister Abingdon won twice at 12 furlongs.

Extra Añejo's third dam Hellenic won the 1990 Yorkshire Oaks (G1) at 12 furlongs.

Clearly, Extra Añejo's dam side is filled with longer route influences. At a minimum, this colt should want the stretch out to two turns and a middle-route distance at least. Based on pedigree, Extra Añejo is supposed to handle nine furlongs or farther as the races lengthen.

But again, there is no hard rule for pedigree as horses do not always follow the rules surrounding it. At times, horses overperform or underperform on the distance potential outlined by their blood.

Regardless, there is plenty of justified hype for fans to get behind with Extra Añejo. At this early point, Extra Añejo shows more raw talent than Epicenter did from the same barn of Steve Asmussen. Extra Añejo only needs to put his talent together and gain more experience in different situations. 

As with Arabian Knight, there is concern that Extra Añejo only knows how to set an uncontested lead before drawing clear in the stretch. However, Extra Añejo did face slight adversity at the start in his maiden win by not breaking well and needing to work his way to the front, rather than breaking on top of the field already at the start.

When horses step up onto a higher class, sometimes they cannot transfer those big speed figures to races with better company. But on the plus side for Extra Añejo, he beat a familiar name in Summonyourcourage by 16 lengths in third.

Why does Summonyourcourage matter? Earlier in his record, Summeryourcourage ran second to future Sanford Stakes (G3) winner Mo Strike. Later on, Summeryourcourage also ran second to Echo Again, who was once the most highly regarded colt in the Steve Asmussen barn.

The fact that Extra Añejo can beat Summonyourcourage by 16 lengths is a great sign. In all likelihood, the step up to a graded-stakes race will not pose a problem.

Extra Añejo still needs to prove himself in the rain and that he can survive a faster pace as well if necessary. Whenever Extra Añejo makes his debut on the Derby trail, expect him to win if the pace looks moderate and the track is fast.