It’s fair to say that nearly everyone involved in the thoroughbred horse racing industry dreams about winning the Kentucky Derby, handicappers included. There are few better feelings than watching the horse you touted and wagered on roar down the Churchill Downs stretch to win the America’s most famous equine event.

Of course this is no easy task for owner, breeder, trainer, jockey or gambler and it’s not getting any easier, especially for the latter. Some historical guidelines are well publicized each spring that can aid in selecting the Derby winner. Among those are the fact that no horse unraced at two has won the Kentucky Derby since Apollo in 1882, no horse coming off a layoff of more than 35 days has won the roses since Needles did it 50 years ago, and not since Sunny’s Halo in 1983 has a horse won the Derby with fewer than three prep races during his three year-old season.
But the pre-Derby landscape is shifting. For many years Derby starters could be thrown out based on ‘Dosage’ and their juvenile stakes form. As we will see this is not longer the case. Trainers, in general, are managing their stock more conservatively and running their horse less than in years past. Consequently, more and more otherwise genuine contenders make the field that have not raced as juveniles and/or have had only two prep races at three. The winter and spring stakes schedules for three year olds around the country have been altered significantly in recent years as well. Even new track surfaces promise to make evaluating pre Derby performance more difficult in 2006 and in the coming years.

Debunking Dosage
The terms ‘Dosage’ and ‘Dual-Qualifiers’ still get thrown around each spring, but these methods have proven all but useless this decade.
The Dosage System was introduced by former Daily Racing Form pedigree columnist Dr. Steve Roman. He assigns a numerical figure to the male ancestors in a horses family tree that objectively represents the general distance aptitudes of those sires’ offspring. The theory goes that the higher a Dosage Index, the more likely the horse will excel at short distances, while lower indices are supposed to indicate stamina. For several years prior to 1991, no Derby winner had a Dosage index higher than 4.00. Then Strike the Gold came along and won the ’91 Derby with a Dosage over 5.00. The ratings lost further credibility when it was announced afterwards that Strike The Gold’s sire, Alydar, had been reclassified as more of a distance influence. Strike the Gold’s new Dosage is 2.60. Since then Real Quiet (with a Dosage of 5.33), Charismatic (5.22) and Giacamo (4.33) have all earned the garland of roses on Derby Day.

Dr. Roman also merged his Dosage numbers with top juvenile form by way of the Experimental Handicap. At the end of each racing season, a few racing secretaries gather to hypothetically weight all the unrestricted stakes-winning and stakes-placed juveniles of that year. Dr. Roman noticed that during the period of time that Derby winners showed ‘acceptable’ Dosage figures they were also weighted within 10 pounds of the Experimental Handicap highweight (or, as in the case of Sunny’s Halo, a foreign juvenile Champion). The ‘Dual-Qualifier’ system was born.
Those who blindly followed that system and threw out all non-Dual Qualifiers in 1988 and 1989, missed Winning Colors and Sunday Silence, who did not compete in stakes as juveniles. Since 1990 only five Dual Qualifiers have on the Derby and none have won this decade.

Babies Flying Under the Radar
The validity of the Dosage ratings have always been questioned. However, the use of the Experimental Handicap makes some sense and it’s unreliability as a predictive measure in recent years is instructive. It stood and still stands to reason that the best juveniles have a leg up on the next seasons spring Classics. For many years this was true. But beginning with Winning Colors and Sunday Silence, many Derby winners have had little or no stakes form at two.

On the strength of his runner up finish in the 2004 G1 Hollywood Futurity, Giacomo was rated at 122 lbs on last year’s Experimental Handicap, just four pounds below co-highweights Declan’s Moon and Wilko. The previous six Derby winners, however, were not even rated on the Handicap at all.
Smarty Jones and Funny Cide won restricted state-bred stakes at two and those races are not considered when assigning the Experimental weights. War Emblem had only conquered his non-winners of one condition at two, while Monarchos was still a maiden after two juvenile starts. Likewise Fusaichi Pegasus was still winless when he turned three and Charismatic could do no better than win a $62,500 Maiden Claimer at two. Keep in mind, though, that Fusaichi Pegasus made only one start at two and that was on December 11.

Trainers more conservative agendas for their stakes horses has impacted the way three year olds are brought up to the spring Classics. The 10 Derby winners of the 1990’s averaged nine total starts before loading in to the gate at Churchill Downs and 5.8 starts at two. By contrast the six Derby winners this decade have averaged only 2.6 starts as juveniles and a total of 6.1 pre-Kentucky Derby starts.

This decline in the number of starts poses two problems for Derby handicappers. With horses making fewer and fewer starts, it’s obviously more difficult to get a true read on their ability. It’s also becoming more and more likely that the two most tried and true criteria for Derby winners-having raced at two and having three preps at three-may soon go the way of Dosage..

Dude, Where’s My Race?
Frank Stronach has made incredible changes at Gulfstream Park. Not only has he overseen the complete rebuilding of the grandstand and clubhouse, but the configuration of the racetrack itself. Gulfstream Park has gone from a one mile oval to a mile and one eighth circuit. Curiously, mile and one sixteenth races can no longer be run at the track and mile and one eighth races start precipitously close to the first turn, a decided disadvantage for horses breaking from outside posts.

The Gulfstream Park three year-old stakes program has also been significantly altered, both by the constraints of the new oval and the discretion of track management. The G2 Fountain of Youth is now run at the same mile and one eighth distance as the G1 Florida Derby. More importantly, the Florida Derby was moved last year from six or seven weeks out from the Derby to five weeks. This puts trainers in a difficult spot. If they run their horses again between the Florida and Kentucky Derbies that makes it three races in five weeks (and four in seven weeks if they go on to the Preakness. If they simply train up to the Derby, as Nick Zito did in 2005 with High Fly, it puts them at the historical disadvantage of not having a prep closer to the big race. So it remains to be seen if the Florida Derby will lose its luster as a Kentucky Derby barometer or if it’s new placement will help prove a prep closer to the first Saturday in May is no longer necessary. Monarchos, Thunder Gulch and Go For Gin, Strike the Gold and Unbridled all used the Florida Derby as their penultimate Derby prep when it was run on its traditional mid-March date.

The changes at Gulfstream have been exacerbated, for 2006 anyway, by the lack of racing at the Fair Grounds this winter. Trainers unhappy with the progression of distances and dates in Florida do not have the option of shipping to try the Risen Star-Louisiana Derby route. The G3 Risen Star was run on January 14 at the abbreviated Fair Grounds meet at Louisiana Downs, while the G2 Louisiana Derby was scrapped altogether.
Turfway Park has undergone a significant change with the installation last summer of the all weather Polytrack surface. The folks at the Northern Kentucky track have also moved their major Derby prep, the Lane’s End, back from five weeks prior to the Derby to six. So the questions arise: how will Polytrack form translate to Churchill Downs? No Derby winner has run in the Lane’s End since Lil E. Tee in 1992, but will this change with the race now ‘better’ situated on the calendar than the Florida Derby? It should be noted that Lil E. Tee ran back in the Arkansas Derby two weeks prior to his date with history, a schedule that future Florida Derby winners may employ.

For future reference, Keeneland is planning to switch to Polytrack by this year’s Fall Meeting, meaning next year’s G1 Blue Grass and G2 Lexington will be run over that surface.

The last four Derby winners have run their final preps in four different races. Giacomo ran 4th in the G1 Santa Anita Derby, Smarty Jones won the G2 Arkansas Derby, Funny Cide ran 2nd to Empire Maker in the G1 Wood Memorial and War Emblem won the G2 Illinois Derby. The Wood and the Santa Anita Derby have been the most prolific testing grounds for recent Derby winners. Six of the past nine Derby victors had their final preps in either the Santa Anita Derby or the Wood Memorial. Charismatic also stopped by Santa Anita (where he ran 4th) before his spring roll in the Lexington, Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

The Santa Anita Derby is run four weeks out of the Derby and the Wood is now run three weeks out, after many years positioned two weeks before first Saturday in May.

Beyer Beware
Daily Racing Form began publishing Beyer Speed Figures in 1992 and they are a valuable tool for comparing the abilities of Derby contenders.
The average winning Beyer Speed Figure earned by the last 14 Derby winners is 109. No surprisingly, most Derby winners have had to prove that they can at least breach the Beyer century mark prior to the Kentucky Derby. In the past 14 years only Giacomo and Sea Hero had failed to run a Beyer Figure greater than 100 before winning the Derby. In fact, nine of the past 14 Derby winners ran at least two triple digit Beyer Figures in their final three Derby preps.

Half of the past 14 Derby winners ran their career best Beyers in their last pre-Derby prep races. Five of those either regressed slightly or ran the same number in the Derby, while War Emblem and Silver Charm surpassed their previous top figures at Churchill.

Handicapping the Derby
Using logic to pick the winner of the Kentucky Derby from large field of still developing three year-olds has never been an easy task. As the thoroughbred racing game evolves and changes, criteria that have guided bettors in the past can no longer be counted on. Looking at the profiles of recent Derby winners, while keeping current changes in the racing landscape in mind, bettors can stay ahead of the curve. Afterall, the most successful players of the pari-mutuel game are always one step ahead of the crowd.