King: Smooth Daddy's class stands out in Tropical Park Derby

Even the most casual football fan knows the consequences of turnovers. A team that comes out on the favorable end of the turnover battle – securing more interceptions and fumble recoveries than the other – wins far more often than not.

Similarly, the pace of a horse race also influences the outcome – with slow fractions benefiting front-runners and fast ones being beneficial to rallying types. But the similarities don’t end there.

Pace, like anticipating turnovers in an upcoming football game, isn’t easily predicted, as much as people like to think that it is. Luck plays a role, with bad starts potentially taking away speed. So do decisions by jockeys to rate or send their mounts, which also influences the early running.

That is not to say that pace is entirely random – it’s not. “Pace money” often flows into the mutuel pool – such as on perceived lone-speed types – despite the uncertainties that are part of the sport.

My hope, at least as it comes to betting on Saturday’s Tropical Park Derby at Gulfstream Park, is that the seemingly speedy composition of that field will cause bettors to allow front-running Smooth Daddy to drift up in price to start as an overlay.

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I can understand why people might look at the past performances and think the race shape doesn’t suit him. His last three races have come on the lead, and there are at least three or four other horses like him that usually race or on or near the lead.

But as I noted earlier, races don’t always unfold as they appear on paper. Some of the jockeys on these front-runners may choose to reserve their mounts to avoid a speed duel.

Even Javier Castellano on Smooth Daddy may opt to do that, given that much of the other speed appears inside him, and that his mount showed last fall at Gulfstream that he can win when sitting in second behind a run-off speed horse.

Pace excluded, Smooth Daddy appears the best horse. He comes off two consecutive Beyer Speed Figures in the low 90s – the only horse in the field to have run that quickly twice on grass – and he did so in graded stakes when chasing Ring Weekend, one of the top 3-year-old turf horses in the country. So along with being fast, he is also classy.

And determining the class on grass is a lot easier than figuring the pace.

Letellier Memorial

Despite a short field of six in the Letellier Memorial at Fair Grounds, a stakes at six furlongs for 2-year-old fillies, I see potential value on True to You. She is the 3-1 third choice on the morning line behind the unbeaten Promise Me Silver, a two-time stakes winner, and I’m A Looker, who has a win and a second in two starts, both at Churchill Downs.

True to You’s past performances don’t immediately leap out the way they do with the other two. She is 2 for 4 with her only victories at Indiana Grand, and her two losses were both 18-length defeats. But those losses can be forgiven, because both came in graded stakes going two turns.

Her form is good sprinting, even if it was established at Indiana. True to You won first out going five furlongs there on turf, and then in her most recent start, Oct. 30, she came from just off the pace to win a six-furlong race on dirt there in 1:08.78. That translated to a 76 Beyer, a number competitive with those of the favorites.

Some bettors are sure to question this filly because her wins came at Indiana, a track perceived to be a cut below Fair Grounds. But I have found that Indiana Grand horses trained by Tom Amoss – as True to You is – tend to carry their Indiana form most everywhere they travel.

Case in point: Control Shake, who goes in the Sugar Bowl Stakes earlier Saturday at Fair Grounds. After winning a maiden race at Indiana, he ran second in the Jean Lafitte Stakes at Delta Downs and then won an allowance at Fair Grounds by six lengths.

Adding to True to You’s appeal is a work tab at Fair Grounds that includes two straight bullet works this month, and an outside draw that will likely result in a pace-pressing trip in the clear – just the kind of trip she got in running so quickly at Indiana last out.