Flatter: Trying to stoke a fire under Kentucky Derby preps

There is good news and bad news about this weekend’s points prep for Kentucky Derby 2024.

The bad news is only five horses were entered for the $150,000 Jerome Stakes on Saturday at Aqueduct.

The good news is that it was carded so early at 1:19 p.m. EST, there still will be time for an afternoon nap, happy hour, a hearty supper and maybe even a look at a winter sunset.

But it is a Derby points prep, right? Slapping the words Kentucky Derby anywhere near a race is like unwrapping a bag of chow and knowing the dog will come running.

It is a fact of life for racing websites like this one. We try to get the Derby into the headlines of our stories when we can. Not just Derby. The whole Kentucky Derby 2024 name. It makes our readership numbers sing.

So it was when Churchill Downs created the points system for Derby qualifying. This is the 12th year it has been in existence, and it has all along been a smart marketing ploy to attract attention for races that needed it, especially in the dead of winter.

At some point, though, there is a wolf cry that comes along with this. It did not take long for trainers to get wise. Even with all the tweaks to the system in recent years, the object of the game is still to win a winter prep after Valentine’s Day or finishing in the top two of a spring prep that usually also has the word derby on it.

Those last eight races that reward each of the winners with 100 points really are the litmus paper for the first Saturday in May. Bob Baffert said it three years ago. If a horse does not look good in that final, big prep, there is no point in coming to Louisville. “You need to run first or second,” he said, “unless that third was a troubled trip.”

Yet we still crane our necks toward these points preps like an overnight security guard making sure that faint noise was not someone breaking in to the place. This time could be the exception.

Never mind history, right? The Jerome never has produced a Derby winner. That sentence comes with an important yeah-but. For most of the century-and-a-half it has been around, the Jerome was run in the summer or fall. It was only when the Derby points system was launched in 2012-13 that the race was moved to the winter. In that time, though, only two Jerome graduates made it to Churchill Downs. Vyjack in 2013 and Firenze Fire in 2018 did not even come close to hitting the board in Kentucky.

No one is thinking about that right now, though. Bettors need not think about the fact all five Jerome starters will get Derby points this weekend. The last thing anyone looking at the PPs should be doing is thinking about the incentive of running for yet-to-bloom roses.

After the race is over, though, Las Vegas will react. If Drum Roll Please comes through as an odds-on favorite Saturday, his futures price to win the Derby will shorten from his current 125-1. That is partly because he will be 10 points closer to the starting gate May 4 than so many other newly turned 3-year-olds. It is like seeing the Detroit Pistons at one point this NBA season were 2-1. If the playoffs were held today, and all that.

Look at the Kentucky Derby points standings right after the Jerome was run last year. Of the top 20 at the time, only Jace’s Road, Verifying, Angel of Empire and Raise Cain got into the gate for the Derby. Even if Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Forte were counted, that means up to 80 percent of those names were pretenders. Curly Jack and Dubyuhnell and Lugan Knight had lofty positions last January, but how did that work out for them in May?

Of course there always will be that claim this year’s Jerome will be the exception. If Drum Roll Please runs away to an open-lengths victory, he could be the next Orb or Country House, the only two Derby winners since 2005 who had Aqueduct on their résumés.

There are greater cautions than New York winters on the road to the Kentucky Derby. The Middle East spring brings with it the biggest fraud in the points system. The UAE Derby has sent 23 horses to Kentucky. None finished better than fifth in May. Still, the Meydan race is worth 100 points to the winner. That reward may as well be Confederate money.

Without fail every year, though, the declaration will be made that this UAE Derby is different. Lani was going to break that desert schneid. Oh, wait. Make that Mendelssohn. Sorry, I meant Derma Sotogake. And pay no attention to Thunder Snow bucking like a bronco out of the starting gate. This will be the year, just like last year was and the year before that, too.

Like the Breeders’ Cup has turned some historically important stakes into garden-variety, win-and-you’re-in qualifiers, the Kentucky Derby has done the same thing to these wintertime points preps. Not that the Jerome should be confused with the Whitney, but on its own it has a rich history with horses like Aristides, Bold Ruler, Kelso and Fusaichi Pegasus.

Horse racing did not concoct this paradigm. After Michigan and Washington play Monday night, the national champion’s triumph last month in the Big Ten or Pac-12 title game will be pushed to the back of the trophy case. After Villanova won the NCAA basketball championship in 1985, who remembers that Georgetown beat St. John’s for the Big East title? As accomplished as the Dodgers have been in winning 10 of last 11 flags in their division, the more important note is they still have only one World Series trophy to show for them.

None of this perspective can cover up the fact the Jerome has only five horses going Saturday. The small field and the threat of snow later in the day conspired to put the race so early on the Aqueduct card.

It may be time for Churchill Downs to revisit the Derby points system. Then again, the only way it is going to stoke the fields for winter races is to make some of them win-and-you’re-ins. Maybe certain races can have their points boosted on a rotating basis. The Jerome could be a 100-pointer once every 10 years with nine other early-winter preps taking their turns.

Warming this time of year is trendy. The NBA created an in-season tournament, and I hear it was all the rage in Hollywood. Maybe someone can come up with a wintertime triple crown.

Dare to dream.

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below are welcomed, and they may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.