Flatter: How not to punish small fields in Kentucky Derby preps
Baeza. We all love Baeza. When it comes to racehorses, he may as well be Job. If Sovereignty and Journalism are Affleck and Damon, then Baeza is Kevin Smith.
He goes to the Pennsylvania Derby next weekend in search of his first Grade 1 stakes victory. His first stakes victory. His first victory of any kind since he broke his maiden seven months ago on his third try. And Ben and Matt won’t be there.
Road to Kentucky Derby 2026 is set.
Dear diary. I heart Baeza. While Sovereignty and Journalism hang out at the cool kids’ table, Baeza is not afraid to be with geeks like me.
His name came up again this week when Churchill Downs rolled out its annual Kentucky Derby trail map with all the stops at points preps. They start with Saturday’s Iroquois (G3) at the home office of racing. Ah, yes. Only 232 shopping days until our raison d’être.
Baeza left an Easter egg behind in the boilerplate news release. It was hiding in plain sight in the 17th paragraph. I reburied it here in the sixth.
“In the event a championship-series race is run with a five-horse field, only 75% of the points will be proportionally awarded. In the event a championship-series race is run with a four-horse field or less, only 50% of the points will be proportionally awarded.”
There it was. Copied and pasted just as it was written for 2023-24. We should have found it right away, because this Easter egg smells a lot worse than it looks.
Churchill Downs wanted to make a point, and Baeza damn near became the unwitting victim, the innocent bystander who was in the wrong place at the wrong foaling time.
Baeza closed from last to finish second to Journalism in the Santa Anita Derby (G1). That should have been enough to get him into the Kentucky Derby. The problem was only five horses started the race.
Slow-forward to May 1. Not until Rodríguez was scratched by Bob Baffert with only two days to spare did Baeza get into the Kentucky Derby. The very Kentucky Derby in which he made up nearly 10 lengths to finish third.
This begs the simple question. Who in the world was Churchill Downs trying to punish when it made that rule? If not for River Thames and Tappan Street and Madaket Road and finally Rodríguez queueing up at the exit door, Baeza would have been that victim.
I think I have written this before. I certainly have bleated it plenty on my podcast and on backstretches and over perfectly good dinners. The field-size rule for Kentucky Derby qualifiers penalizes the horses and their connections who actually show up, not those who don’t.
It was obvious when the rule was created that it was a shot across the bow of the good ship California, which has been sinking under the weight of geographic isolation, a shrinking foal crop and shortsighted operators of racetracks both dead and alive.
Funny, though. The first race impacted by the new rule happened when only four fillies started in the Rachel Alexandra (G2). That was an Oaks qualifier at Fair Grounds, a track owned by Churchill Downs Inc.
Eventually, the arrow found its bull’s eye. Both the San Felipe (G2) and Santa Anita Derby fell short of the six-horse minimum, and their Derby qualifying points were siphoned away almost as fast as California gobbles up tax dollars.
It has been suggested by my fretful friend John Cherwa of the Los Angeles Times that the California rule was aimed at Baffert as a continuing penance for the Medina Spirit disqualification of 2021. If that really was the case, how has that worked out? Baffert still got his deserving horses to Churchill Downs. You couldn’t miss Citizen Bull split wide to the left before he ran that wheel route out of post 1.
I cannot match the Cherwa cynicism. It says here Churchill really wants to protect the competitive integrity of the Kentucky Derby. If that means giving fewer points to prep races which don’t require double loading at the gate, that is a noble and laudable ambition.
The problem lies in how to punish the horsemen who are not taking part in these races. If there are any good suggestions, I know the folks at Churchill read this website.
My suggestion is admittedly drastic. I would not penalize individual horses like Baeza in any given year. I would, however, put any prep stakes that fails to draw six or more starters on notice the first year. If it happens again a second straight year, then the points from that race will not count at all.
That means any trainer aiming a horse toward the Santa Anita Derby this year should have a plan B in mind, maybe even a cross-entry that day into the Blue Grass (G1) or the Wood Memorial (G2).
I also am the guy who wants maidens kept out unless the Derby is undersubscribed, and I would have a rotation of increased points for pre-March preps in order to try and fatten their fields.
Like I said. I am open to suggestions.
Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below and at RonFlatterRacingPod@gmail.com are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.