Exploring Derby Qualification: Points and Analysis

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00:00and we start Alexa on the inside with kinetic control.

00:04So all of these races are offered

00:06with 20 points to the winner,

00:0720 points to the winner, 10 points to the runner-up,

00:10six points to third, four to fourth, and then two to fifth.

00:13All you have to do is finish top five

00:15and you pick up a couple of points.

00:16If you win one of these races though,

00:18you're probably pretty close to being in.

00:21So this is a big, big weekend.

00:23Just one win in one of these big races puts yourself in.

00:26What do you think about-

00:27Go ahead.

00:28It was like 40-ish points, you know,

00:30to get a spot in the derby usually.

00:32So you're halfway there

00:33if this is your first one that you've won.

00:35And some years you'll need a little more, a little less,

00:37just based on like horses that get hurt,

00:40how deep the field is,

00:41maybe a couple of races where you'll have the same winner

00:44win and you won't have a lot of points distributed there.

00:47Not the biggest fields in the world,

00:48but I think of all three of them,

00:50we've got the most interesting one first.

00:52Cause I think there might be three or four different horses

00:54that could come out of this race

00:56that could be really, really strong horses.

00:59We start with Kinetic Control,

01:00who comes off of a win last time out,

01:02took him four starts to break his maiden,

01:04but he was able to put it all together

01:06in that most recent race.

01:08It's not as if I have a problem with him overall,

01:10he's just gonna face some tough foes in here

01:12and some horses to the outside of him

01:14that have other early speed.

01:16Yeah, you know, that race he won, he wired the field,

01:19but in the prior races, he didn't win, got second.

01:21He came from off the pace.

01:23So I don't know that he needs to be on the front end,

01:26which is probably a good thing

01:27since I do think there's a lot of pace in here

01:29and horses who will want that spot.

01:31But I mean, it's gonna have to improve

01:33and trainer Dale Romans does not have

01:36very encouraging statistics for horses coming off a win,

01:396% win rate, horses coming off a layoff, 9% win rate.

01:43So those are some tough stats to put faith behind.

01:46Yeah, in a big, tough field like this.

01:48The number two, Ferocious,

01:50he was one of the top five or so two-year-olds last year,

01:55very talented, but he's kind of been his own worst enemy,

01:58Alexa, because he's a little bit quirky.

02:00If you notice and you kind of go through his races,

02:02he's kind of had some issues in each one.

02:04In the hopeful, he was sort of floundering.

02:06And then when Chancellor McPatrick came up alongside him,

02:09it like kicked him into another gear.

02:10He looked like he was gonna be done at the top of the lane.

02:13Then in the Breeders Futurity,

02:14he's banging around in the gate before.

02:16He doesn't really get out of the starting gate

02:18all that well.

02:19He runs into some traffic in the Breeders Cup,

02:21but the Connections decided to put some blinkers on him.

02:24And for those of you who may not know,

02:26when you add blinkers to a horse,

02:28it can do a couple things,

02:29but mainly it will give them more focus.

02:31They'll just be looking at what's ahead.

02:33They won't be looking all over the place

02:35and getting distracted by different things.

02:37And it should also give them a little bit more speed,

02:40just have them more forwardly placed in there.

02:42If those are the cases and they're able to kind of tweak

02:45a couple of the small issues he had,

02:47he could be the horse to beat in here.

02:49Yeah, I mean, horses are herd animals, right?

02:52So you'll see before the race, they like to pair up,

02:54and during the race, a lot of times they will pair up

02:56down the backstretch.

02:57So you hear trainers talking about it,

02:59you hear jockeys talking about it.

03:00Some horses need someone to run at,

03:03they need somebody to-

03:04To target.

03:05To target, yeah.

03:06So, but these horses are so young, right?

03:09That was two-year-old year.

03:10They're just figuring it all out.

03:11They're just babies.

03:12So I think he's very, very talented.

03:15I don't love that he has a little bit of a pattern

03:17of being a disappointing favorite

03:18in some of those recent starts,

03:20but I mean, they were super competitive, difficult fields.

03:24So I think he's one to beat.

03:27Tappan Street is the number three.

03:28I was joking with you before we started.

03:30I kind of got the feels when he won in his career debut,

03:33where it looked to me like this is a horse

03:35that could be a derby horse,

03:37because he started to back up in his race.

03:40He was moving back to fourth,

03:41and then all of a sudden, he got a little bit of daylight,

03:44and you could see him stretch his legs

03:46when he got a chance to move.

03:47He seemed like distance should be no problem for him.

03:51Talking about the number three, Tappan Street.

03:54Yeah, this horse is very, very talented, very interesting.

03:57Only been out one time, though.

03:58So sometimes when those horses step up in class

04:02and step up against tougher fields,

04:05it's a turning point.

04:06Either they rise to the occasion or they don't.

04:09But very low odds, morning line of just three to one,

04:12but should be a player in here if he steps up.

04:15Guns Loaded won the Mucho Macho Man

04:18in his most recent start, so he's proven.

04:20And what's nice about him,

04:21he's probably one of the quicker in this field, Alexa.

04:24When we look at the pace projector, as you can see,

04:27he's the number four,

04:28so they have him slightly ahead of Tappan Street.

04:31And he could be one that gets loose on the front end

04:34in here.

04:35Yeah, I'm confident saying that Guns Loaded

04:37is an early running style horse.

04:40I'm not confident saying that necessarily

04:41about Tappan Street.

04:42We've only seen him run one time,

04:43so we don't really know what his running style is yet.

04:46He might be an early horse,

04:47but he might have tactical speed

04:49and be able to roll with the punches.

04:51But Guns Loaded definitely wants that lead.

04:53And luckily, it doesn't look like there's anybody

04:56faster than him early, so hopefully he can break well,

04:59get the position he wants.

05:00They did spend $800,000 on him as a yearling,

05:03so they have very high expectations

05:05for this horse on the derby trail.

05:06Irat Ortiz Jr. will be aboard.

05:08We move to the number five.

05:09He's not joking.

05:11He's a grade three winner on the synthetic,

05:13but his only dirt start, it's hard to get a gauge

05:17because he completely missed the break

05:19and he was just behind.

05:20So they'll give him another shot on the dirt,

05:21and you'll see this a lot of times

05:23where at this point of the year,

05:24if you have a good horse on the turf

05:26or a good horse on the synthetic,

05:27sometimes you just take a shot and you see,

05:30is this the type of horse who can be in the derby

05:32or in some of those triple crown races?

05:34You have to.

05:35I mean, I'm a horse owner.

05:36I manage them.

05:37I mean, this is what you're doing it for, right?

05:40You want to know if you have a champion

05:42and can run in a $5 million race

05:44in the most prestigious race in the world.

05:46So yeah, they're taking a shot.

05:48They're not joking about it,

05:49but like you said, he's a wild card in here

05:52because he had that really bad effort,

05:55but there was shipping to a new location,

05:58new surface, all sorts of things at play,

06:01some traffic, some issues.

06:02So we really don't know if he hates the surface

06:05or if it was just a bad run.

06:09Final two horses in this field,

06:11probably horses that you can get

06:12from off the pace a little bit.

06:13Burning Glory is one where if they go fast upfront, Alexa,

06:17he's probably the best of the closers,

06:19but that would kind of be my negative on him as well

06:22at Gulfstream Park because it's not the easiest place

06:25to try to come from way, way out of it.

06:27And we're not really sure how fast

06:30they'll be going in here early on, right?

06:31Guns Loaded could be there, but then maybe Tappan Street.

06:34I don't know if they're going to be lining up.

06:36So I think he'll pick up some pieces late,

06:38but I just don't know how fast

06:40they'll go early to set it up for him.

06:42I agree.

06:42I mean, I think that closing style is like advantageous

06:45from like a pace setup, but again, it's Gulfstream.

06:48So you don't want to be super far back.

06:51Has been an improving form, but the last race he won,

06:55none of those horses he beat that day

06:57have really come back to do anything super spectacular.

07:00But you know, this is a Juddmont home bred.

07:02And so for those who don't know,

07:04there are major players in horse racing

07:06founded by the late Prince Khalid of Saudi Arabia.

07:08They've won best breeder, best owner many years.

07:10So they tend to have good horses.

07:12Round out the field with Burnham Square.

07:16He made a big early move last time out to the front end

07:19and his first two races were pretty good.

07:20He was knocking on the door

07:21and then finally put it all together.

07:23Do you think he fits with this group?

07:24Do you like him at all here?

07:26I like him all right.

07:27I've included him underneath.

07:28I think he's shaping up to be a presser closer type.

07:31Hopefully can stay a little bit closer to the pace.

07:34He has three siblings and all are winners,

07:36which from a breeding standpoint is pretty impressive.

07:40There are our selections there.

07:41We have the same top two,

07:43just in a slightly different order.

07:44I'll go three, two, six, four.

07:46Alexa with the two, three, seven, four.

07:49So just one difference for the two of us there.

07:52We both kind of key in on a couple of the same runners.

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