Zipse: Better late than never for Game Winner and Improbable?
At long last, Bob Baffert's pair of undefeated winter book favorites for the 2019 Kentucky Derby are set to make their 3-year-old debuts. Delayed because of the temporary closure of Santa Anita Park, both Game Winner and Improbable will return from layoffs in Saturday's Rebel Stakes (G2) at Oaklawn Park.
Despite getting a late start in 2019, they remain the top two most fancied horses for this year's Run for the Roses, but will failing to make it back to the races sooner than seven weeks before the first Saturday in May hurt their chances at becoming a Derby winner? History is not on their side.
Armed with sharp workouts on Sunday at Los Alamitos, Game Winner and Improbable bring high expectations to their seasonal debuts. After all, in the hands of the five-time winning Kentucky Derby trainer, the duo were the best two juvenile colts in the nation in 2018. But since the turn of the century, only three out of the 19 Kentucky Derby winners waited until the middle of March to begin their sophomore seasons.
The most recent horse to turn the trick came from the same Bob Baffert barn. Like both Game Winner and Improbable, American Pharoah was a top juvenile. Twice a Grade 1 winner at 2, the son of Pioneerof the Nile had 5 1/2 months off to heal up an injury before returning at 3. His seasonal debut also came in the Rebel. An impressive win there, on March 14, led directly to a romping victory in the Arkansas Derby. The rest, as they say, is history, as he became the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.
Besides a common trainer and 3-year-old debut race, American Pharoah shares more with Baffert's current stars, in that he only started three times as a juvenile. That's the same number as Improbable, the impressive winner of the Street Sense and the Los Alamitos Futurity (G1). Game Winner made one more start at 2, winning all four races, while joining American Pharoah as a 2-year-old champion.
Going farther back, the great Secretariat provided another example of a late start to his second season. Before becoming arguably the greatest Triple Crown winner of all, Big Red started his second season by returning a winner in the seven-furlong Bay Shore on March 17. Unlike Game Winner and Improbable, though, the Lucien Laurin-trained star had the foundation of nine starts as a juvenile.
It should also be noted, Secretariat got in three preps before the Kentucky Derby, also running in the Gotham and the Wood Memorial. Three preps is not expected for either Game Winner or Improbable, as only one race for both is expected between the Rebel and the Kentucky Derby. While American Pharoah and Secretariat became Triple Crown winners less than three months after their seasonal debuts, not all the Kentucky Derby winners to get off to a late start at three went on to become all-time greats.
In 2010, Super Saver began his second season by finishing third in the Tampa Bay Derby on March 13. The WinStar Farm runner followed that with a runner-up performance in the Arkansas Derby. He came up big, though, when it mattered most, winning the Kentucky Derby on a wet track. By the way, Super Saver owns the unusual stat of being a Kentucky Derby winner despite scoring only a single victory at 3.
More accomplished than him, and three years earlier, came Street Sense. A Breeders' Cup winner and champion at 2, the Carl Nafzger trainee also debuted at 3 in the Tampa Bay Derby. Winning that on March 17, he came back to just miss in the Blue Grass before winning the Kentucky Derby and then losing a heartbreaker to Curlin in the Preakness.
The percentage of Derby winners who did not debut at 3 until this late is no better looking back in to the last century. Between Secretariat and the turn of the century, only three horses were able to get it done.
Among them, Sunny's Halo actually had the latest 3-year-old debut of any Kentucky Derby winner in the modern era. He started at 3 in a March 26 running of the Rebel Stakes, which was only six weeks before that year's Derby, and ran one more prep in between. Of course, the David Cross-trained chestnut had the benefit of no less than 11 starts as a juvenile.
The others to do it in the modern era are Genuine Risk and Spend a Buck. Both special horses in their own right, as the former became the first filly in more than six decades to win the Kentucky Derby after making her first start at 3 in a March 19 allowance race at Gulfstream Park. She then got in two more preps in before the first Saturday in May.
Spend a Buck also had three preps before his big win at Churchill Downs despite not starting as a 3-year-old until running third in the March 23 Bay Shore. The son of Buckaroo then romped in two fast stakes at Garden State Park before winning the Derby gate to wire.
While the list of horses who won the Kentucky Derby after waiting until mid-March or later to begin their sophomore seasons is a short one, it has been done six more times since the great Secretariat did it 46 years ago. Will either Game Winner or Improbable become the seventh?
We'll know a little more after Saturday and the Rebel. In a race likely to be split, both Baffert stars will be expected to come out running. Any hiccup along the way, though, at this late date, would likely put an end to their chances of joining this elite group of Kentucky Derby winners.