It’s Just A Matter Of Time… Or Is It?!
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On February 21st, the result of the $400,000 G2 Fountain Of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park sparked multiple debates. The first being whether or not Upstart, who crossed the finish line first, should have been disqualified for interfering with ItsaKnockout, who finished second 2¾ lengths behind the on track winner. For the record, it was the correct call, based on Florida racing rules.
The second topic of debate was concerning the final running time of a dawdling 1:46.28 for the 1 1/16 mile contest. By comparison, it was 4.63 seconds slower than Wildcat Red and 4.02 slower than Orb stopped the clock in the 2014 and 2013 FOY, respectively.
All of a sudden Upstart who was in the Top 5 of many “experts” Derby Contender lists, had regressed per the folks on TVG and HRTV while being perceived as a “donkey” on social media simply due to the running time of the race. Really?!
It boggles my mind how knowledgeable horse racing people buy into “time” when it comes to gauging a quality runner. A wise handicapper once said, “Time only matters when you’re serving it.”
The typically lightning fast Gulfstream Park dirt oval that day was anything but lightning fast, it was deep and “cuppy”. Let’s face it, watching the stretch run was painful. The field resembled a bunch of $5,000 Claimers the way they struggled to the wire. The track was so deep that it was rumored 3-time Olympic beach volleyball gold medalists Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor were on the backstretch between races practicing for a possible comeback in the 2016 Summer Games.
On the flip side, the same groups poo-pooing the quality of the Fountain Of Youth have been giddy over Dortmund and Firing Line based on this duos Affirmed-Alydar type rivalry, which started on Dec. 20th in the G1 Los Alamitos Futurity.
Dortmund won the Los Alamitos Futurity by a head over Firing Line who was a whisker ahead of Mr. Z in track record time of 1:40.86 for 1 1/16 miles.
Then on Feb. 7th, in the G3 Robert B. Lewis at Santa Anita, Dortmund and Firing Line duplicated their previous photo finish. One difference was the final time, 1:42.20. So did they both regress based on running nearly 6 lengths slower from their Los Alamitos Futurity effort?
Better yet, what about Mr. Z? Since the Los Alamitos Futurity, he has finished third twice at Oaklawn Park as the favorite to Far Right. In the most recent outing, the G3 Southwest stakes over a sloppy track, the 1 1/16 mile running time was 1:47.50. That’s a far cry from the 1:40.86 time in the LA Futurity. Nearly 7 seconds slower, yet Mr. Z earned a 92 Brisnet Speed Figure (BSF) for the Southwest, just 5 points lower than the 97 he received in the Los Alamitos Futurity.
The take away from this post should be that one cannot simply read past performances comparing final times, split times or even Brisnet/Beyer Speed Figures in finding a likely Kentucky Derby winner. It’s much more difficult. You need the ability to see how much heart a 3-year-old has come the first Saturday of May. Good luck with that!
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