Mike Watchmaker

Impressions of last weekend’s 13th annual Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship at Treasure Island on the great Las Vegas strip: It just couldn’t have gotten more dramatic at the end of the NHC – actually, yes, it could have, but we’ll talk about that in a second – with the last race in the contest, Saturday’s ninth and final event at Golden Gate, deciding the outcome in a way that would have been too over-the-top for even Hollywood.

The return of Breeders’ Cup programming to NBC presents a symbolic opportunity for a fresh start in the way thoroughbred racing is broadcast on national television. Speaking as a racing fan, I think a fresh start is desperately needed. It’s only one man’s opinion, but I think the way racing has been presented on television in recent years has been almost unwatchable.

Reasonable people can disagree about the merits of Acclamation, Game On Dude, and Tizway for champion older male of 2011, a title that went to Acclamation at Monday night’s Eclipse Awards dinner in Beverly Hills. And they can debate whether Animal Kingdom or Caleb’s Posse was more deserving of being last year’s champion 3-year-old male. But this isn’t about reasonable people having an honest difference of opinion.

The three 3-year-old colts who were noteworthy winners last Saturday – Out of Bounds, Alpha, and Discreet Dancer – are now among the top 12 betting interests for the Kentucky Derby. That is according to the future book Derby odds just released by Wynn Las Vegas, one of the few Las Vegas race books that still offer future book Derby wagering. Discreet Dancer, who ran off with an allowance race at Gulfstream for his second impressive victory there from as many career starts, was pegged at 20-1.

“One swallow does not a summer make” is an idiom that applies perfectly to 3-year-old stakes races in early January, and their bearing on the Kentucky Derby. Still, you couldn’t blame Sheikh Mohammed if he woke up Sunday morning with the feeling that he has his best chance yet of winning the coveted first leg of the U.S. Triple Crown.