Watchmaker: Plenty to second guess about San Felipe disqualification

There is so much to say about Saturday’s San Felipe Stakes at Santa Anita that it’s difficult to know where to begin. So, let’s begin at the end, with the controversial decision by the stewards to disqualify McKinzie and award the win to Bolt d’Oro.

Once you weed through the associated storylines, like, “How could McKinzie be disqualified for what he did at the very same racetrack that left Bayern up in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic?” and, “This was payback for McKinzie being the primary beneficiary of the bad disqualification of Solomini in the Los Alamitos CashCall Futurity last December,” (by the way, McKinzie, Solomini, and Bayern all are/were trained by Bob Baffert) you wind up at the reasoning of the Santa Anita stewards for the action they took in the San Felipe.

To paraphrase, the Santa Anita stewards felt that there was inconclusive proof as to who was the instigator of the contact between Bolt d’Oro and McKinzie late on the far turn but found proof as to which horse was at fault for the contact between these two in deep stretch.

It is clear that McKinzie came out a bit late and brushed, or leaned on, or lightly bumped (whichever descriptor you prefer) Bolt d’Oro. Since McKinzie finished only a head in front of Bolt d’Oro at the wire, it’s easy to understand why some believe this incident might have affected the outcome of the race. Personally, I thought it was a ticky-tack foul. Bolt d’Oro never broke stride, and his rider never stopped riding. I’ve seen worse stay up. Many times. But I get why this incident on its own might have caused the stewards to act.

But what I find impossible to understand is the suggestion that the incident at the top of the stretch was inconclusive. To me, it was obvious that Bolt d’Oro came in late on the far turn to soundly bump McKinzie, a change of course exacerbated by a clear crack of a right-handed whip from Bolt d’Oro’s rider, and then Bolt d’Oro bumped McKinzie again two strides later, just for good measure.

In my view, what Bolt d’Oro did to McKinzie late on the far turn was far more impactful than what McKinzie did to Bolt d’Oro in deep stretch. But that’s beside the point. Since a case can be made that each colt fouled the other, both incidents, even if those incidents happened at different stages of the race, should have canceled each other out, and the result should have stood as is.

Unfortunately, this stuff took a lot of luster away from what was a tremendous horse race. The San Felipe looked on paper like it was by far the best Kentucky Derby prep run this year, with McKinzie coming off a most impressive victory in the Sham Stakes in early January and Bolt d’Oro, who was coming off a Breeders’ Cup layoff and whose score in the FrontRunner last fall was perhaps the best performance by a 2-year-old in North America in 2017.

And the San Felipe delivered. Aside from their pushing and shoving, McKinzie and Bolt d’Oro really threw it down, separating themselves from the rest of the San Felipe field, and in a figurative sense, and for the moment, at least, from the rest of this Kentucky Derby class, too.

In the “old days,” a knockdown, drag-out fight like we saw in the San Felipe would have us thinking McKinzie and Bolt d’Oro would be tougher and better for the experience, and have us salivating for what we might be treated to the next time these two meet.

But in an era when two Kentucky Derby preps are enough and horses routinely go into critical races off three-month layoffs, and fire, we’ve been conditioned to the point where you wonder if the San Felipe wasn’t too much of a prep for McKinzie and Bolt d’Oro. This race just had to take something out of these two, and it should not go overlooked that both went into the San Felipe off layoffs.

The classic candidate for a form regression, or bounce, if you prefer that overapplied term, is one who runs a gut-wrenching race off a layoff. McKinzie and Bolt d’Oro fit this description. So, as good as they looked Saturday, you have to wonder if the eight weeks to the Derby, with a scheduled start in between for both (and likely against each other in the Santa Anita Derby), allows enough room for these colts to refill their reserves.

Or, is it possible that McKinzie and Bolt d’Oro left their Kentucky Derbies in the San Felipe?

It’s going to be fun finding out.

Notes:

• There were two other Kentucky Derby preps Saturday, the Gotham at Aqueduct and the Tampa Bay Derby, but both felt a decided cut below the San Felipe. Enticed rebounded from a dismal performance in the Holy Bull in his 3-year-old bow to comfortably win the Gotham, and in the process, he exposed Free Drop Billy as currently a second-tier Derby aspirant at best. Quip upset a middling renewal of the Tampa Bay Derby in his first start of the year. But to his credit, Quip’s preliminary winning Beyer Speed Figure of 94 was a career best by 17 points, which indicates he has taken a significant step forward from 2 to 3.

• Last fall’s Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes has suddenly become a very productive race in the current Kentucky Derby picture. Enticed won the Kentucky Jockey Club, Quip was making his first start since that race when he won in Tampa, Promises Fulfilled upset last week’s Fountain of Youth in his first start since competing in the Kentucky Jockey Club, and recent Mine That Bird Derby winner Reride ran in it. Not bad at all for a stakes that had a winning Beyer of only 81 and didn’t seem like a big deal at the time.

• Accelerate didn’t beat the strongest Santa Anita Handicap field ever assembled, but, man, is he hot right now. He was days the best, just like he was when he won last month’s San Pasqual.

• Who was that World Approval imitator? He might have been bumped a bit at the start of the Kilroe Mile, and he went wide into the stretch, but he still looked nothing like the reigning male turf champ Saturday.

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