Litfin: Dynamic Impact has right numbers on dirt

Among the many things that make Thoroughbred racing the greatest game played outdoors is perception. Colleague and Eclipse Award winner Marcus Hersh struck a chord after last Saturday’s Peter Pan Stakes, tweeting (paraphrasing): Tonalist beating Irish You Well by six lengths in the Peter Pan with a 101 Beyer Figure equals the second coming. Dynamic Impact beating the same horse with a 102 in the Illinois Derby equals crickets.

In a fun-with-numbers exercise, draw a line through Dynamic Impact’s close second at Keeneland as a second-out maiden and see that on dirt he has never taken a backward step, improving by 4 to 16 points in each of his four dirt starts since his debut in the slop.

So, a very reasonable perception is that Dynamic Impact has been peaking in relative obscurity. It might serve him well to have had four weeks since the Illinois Derby, for which he earned the top last-out Beyer Speed Figure in the Preakness (could it really be that simple?). Perhaps more telling, when horses handle a rise in class with an improved figure right after a maiden win, it is often the calling card of an individual bound for bigger and better things.

As the saying goes, “If you didn’t attend the wedding, don’t go to the funeral.” So, while California Chrome obviously merits favoritism while seeking a sixth straight win, remember that he hasn’t always been greased lightning from the gate. To his credit, he came away like a shot in the Kentucky Derby and staked out the kind of ideal trip 18 other rivals weren’t good enough to get.

While no one knows quite what to make of the pedestrian time for the race, he clearly dominated and wasn’t life-and-death in the last stages. If you’re trying to beat him, the thinking has to be that any sort of miscue from the gate could put him in an uncomfortable position if Social Inclusion goes gunning for the lead from the outside.

Social Inclusion was denied entry to the Derby by a place photo in the Wood Memorial, and that was probably the best thing that will ever happen to him. He missed an interim race in Florida due to a bruised foot, and whether you think this is the right path for the horse (it’s not), he could simply be a freakish talent. He was wide early while contesting/setting a hot pace in the Wood Memorial and did not readily back down from his first serious challenge.

Should the three fastest horses on paper manage to incinerate themselves battling for the lead, it could pave the way for Kid Cruz to run onto your TV screen late. Wouldn’t that be a feather in the cap for Linda Rice, New York’s so-called “turf-sprint queen”?