Kentucky Derby angles: Hersh on pace

Something remarkable happened in the 2015 Kentucky Derby: The horses who occupied the first three positions after a quarter-mile of the race, Dortmund, Firing Line, and American Pharoah, were the first three horses to cross the finish line.

I had to look back almost 40 years into the Derby charts to find a comparable race shape. In the 1976 Derby, it was Bold Forbes, then Honest Pleasure, then Amano, then Electrocutionist at the Derby’s first call. They finished Bold Forbes, Honest Pleasure, Electrocutionist, Amano.

Understanding the lack of positional movement in 2015 seemed simple: The leaders went a slow pace, and no one could catch them. Look back to 1976, and you will find something totally different.

Where Dortmund set relatively tepid splits of 23 1/5 seconds, 47 1/5, and 1:11 1/5, Bold Forbes crackled through 22 3/5, 44 3/5, and 1:10 2/5. Of course, since Bold Forbes had run so fast and Triple Crown winner American Pharoah had gone so slow, surely American Pharoah had the faster finish, right? Wrong. Bold Forbes got his final quarter-mile in 26, a couple of ticks faster than last year.

“Pace makes the race” is an oversimplification. Pace makes the race, except when it doesn’t. The premise of “pace makes the race” says there is a tipping point in the early and middle portions of the Derby (any race, really) beyond which front-runners lose enough efficiency that the inherent advantage of having the lead turns into a negative.

What’s the tipping point in the Derby, a 1 1/4-mile race that places greater demands on its participants than any race in which they’ve previously participated? Historically, one would probably say 23 seconds for the quarter and 46 for the half. Starting with that Bold Forbes Derby in 1976, the half-mile pace of the last 40 Derbies has been:

1 time – 44 and change
12 times – 45 and change
14 times – 46 and change
11 times – 47 and change
2 times – 48 and change

Twenty-three and 46 are strong quarter- and half-mile fractions for a 10-furlong race in a vacuum, but the Derby is not a normal race, the large field and charged atmosphere apparently leading to a demanding pace.

Let’s look at the sub-46-second Derbies in the last 40 years. The last eight times the Derby half-mile split was faster than 46 seconds, the race collapsed. The chart, for the most part, shows horses in the middle and rear early filling out the top spots in the finishing order.

But, interestingly, in four of the five previous sub-46 races, a horse on the lead or just off it won the race: Spend A Buck led all the way in 1985, Affirmed pressed the pace in 1978, Seattle Slew pressed the pace in 1977, and Bold Forbes wired in 1976. They don’t make ‘em like they used to, do they? Bodemeister in 2012 went in 45.39 to the half and held off everyone but I’ll Have Another, easily the best sub-46-second performer since 1985.

Let’s go to the other end of the pace spectrum, the 13 Derbies among the last 40 in which the half-mile split was 47 seconds or slower. Here are the tactics employed by the winners of those races:

Lead – 2 winners
Press – 3 winners
Stalk – 2 winners
Close – 6 winners

Among those six closing winners are Animal Kingdom in 2011 and Genuine Risk in 1980. In 1980, an even deeper closer than Genuine Risk came from seventh to finish second, and in 2011, Nehro, who was sixth early, and Mucho Macho Man, who was eighth, finished second and third. And yet those two are the two Derbies in the last 40 years with the slowest half-mile splits during the time span, 48 seconds in 1980 and 48.63 in 2011, both on fast tracks, and both in races that, despite the slow early portions, produced decent final times.

So, what’s going on here? Those are the slowest-paced of the all the races, and even if “pace makes the race” is an oversimplification, surely there shouldn’t be more closing winners than leading and pressing winners combined in the Derbies in which the fractions have been relatively soft.

Here’s how it seems to me. First, as was said, 23 and 46, if you think of average fractions in two-turn races from coast to coast, factoring in speed of surface, is what we’d generally consider a fairly fast pace, and that’s for standard two-turn dirt races at something like 1 1/16 miles, less frequently at 1 1/8. So, while a horse going 23 and change and 47 and change for a quarter and a half is going slow compared to other Derbies, they’re actually going quite fast for an American Thoroughbred at the distance.

Second, early-season 3-year-olds who either have natural speed or have gotten into the habit of going to the front are not the type of Derby horse most likely to see out the race’s 1 1/4-mile trip. Or so it used to be.

There’s a working theory that Churchill Downs’s introduction of the Derby qualifying-race system for the 2013 Triple Crown significantly changed Derby pace dynamics. The points system replaced the graded-stakes-earnings system through which fast, precocious horses who had little chance to get 1 1/4 miles were able to make the 20-horse Derby field. That type of horse no longer qualifies, the thinking goes, and there now is less chance of sub-46-second half-mile speed.

And there may be something to that. The last two Derbies have yielded the sort of 47-plus half-mile splits that sit on the slow side of Derby pace, and the 45.33 half-mile in 2013 has a backstory. The track was sloppy that day, and the pacesetter who opened a big lead was Palace Malice. Palace Malice was racing with blinkers on and basically ran off with his jockey, and he clearly was no early-developing speed type since he came back to win the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes.

On paper, the 2016 Derby looks like it could unfold more similarly to 2015 and 2014 than 2013’s Palace Malice run-off. How many of the 20 Derby entrants have been the first-call leader during a 2016 race? Only three: Nyquist, Outwork, and Danzing Candy.

Nyquist is drawn inside the other two, and he led last time through a moderate pace in the Florida Derby but has demonstrated tactical versatility and need not get involved in a speed duel. On the other hand, jockey Mario Gutierrez won’t want to be casual in the early stages and get caught flatfooted if Outwork and Danzing Candy try to cross in front of him, which seems likely. And if Nyquist gets at all keyed up, he could show more speed than his bare form suggests.

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Outwork has a lot of natural speed, leading and pressing in his two sprint starts before leading in the Tampa Bay Derby and pressing a head off the pace in the Wood Memorial. Trainer Todd Pletcher worked Outwork behind horses at Churchill in great part, he said, to see how Outwork would handle dirt being kicked in his face. Outwork did fine, but unless he breaks poorly, he’s not likely to wind up behind horses.

Danzing Candy is the presumed pacesetter, and I have no problem assigning him that role. He got away from the gate poorly after breaking from the rail in his career debut, a sprint, and has been in front early in his other four starts. He was tapped for early speed in the Santa Anita Derby, but even if Danzing Candy isn’t sent hard, he’s going to leave running to get over from post 20, and his natural speed should at least put up a first quarter not much slower than 23 seconds.

There are nine true closers in the race, leaving eight pressing-stalking types. Destin, Gun Runner, Mohaymen, and Shagaf look like the second flight, and if Mohaymen’s recent aggressive training is any hint, he could be an early mover who quickens the tempo down the backstretch. That said, unless Danzing Candy becomes unnerved and goes crazy, the half-mile split looks more 47ish than sub-46.

But that doesn’t mean all those closers with a chance are out of luck. Discounting last year’s odd parade, between 2000 and 2014 there were 75 top-five Derby placings available, and even in Derbies with a moderate tempo, and having to weave through traffic, deep closers, horses who were 13th or worse in the early stages, filled out 27 of those placings. That’s a far higher rate than is standard for American dirt-route racing and should give heart to the backers of horses like Exaggerator, Creator, Brody’s Cause, and Mo Tom.