How is it that you can lose your best chance to win a Kentucky Derby, reschedule a workout because for the last two weeks 20 inches of rain fell on my old Kentucky home, and win with an unknown quantity?
Which is not to say without portfolio, because stakes winners, horses that win over whatever surface they are asked to negotiate, have ability. What’s not knowable is what will happen based on the past.
So the rescheduled workout turned out to be a great one, the trainer told a national television audience on the walk over to immortality. Is that the kind of evidence you could take confidently to a betting window?
If you don’t think this game can get real crazy at times, and you don’t believe in things like fate, then the Kentucky Derby probably isn’t for you.
Actually, the best line to describe all this was written by a correspondent for the Associated Press: “John Velazquez won the Kentucky Derby by a broken nose.”
And it wasn’t like trainer Graham Motion could have seen it coming either; probably didn’t know at the time that the people who own Animal Kingdom would replace the trainer who won them a Breeders’ Cup last year and traded him in for one that would win them a Derby.
You can’t make this up.
Well, now, Animal Kingdom goes on to Baltimore and Motion to his home state of Maryland for the black-eyed susans run in two weeks. Given the way he finished yesterday, who’s to say it won’t happen all over again.
Only this time without any intervention, divine or otherwise.
08 May 2011 at 05:46 am | #
You’ve got to love Barry Irwin. He had harsh words for trainers and turf writers.
08 May 2011 at 09:13 am | #
Nick,
I do love Barry Irwin. I heard the trainer reference but didn’t hear the turf writers remark. Can anyone enlighten me?
JP
08 May 2011 at 09:16 am | #
His reference of the trainers is san indictment of the things that are wrong with racing. I believe if you look at the list of trainers that he has used,you will find many of the top names in the sport.
08 May 2011 at 01:41 pm | #
JRP,
Here’s the transcript, which mistakes turf “riders” for writers.
BARRY IRWIN: You know, here is one of my pet peeves on turf riders. I can say this, because I used to be a turf rider.
If a turf rider paid attention to a horse like this and just looked at the horse as an individual, and what he has done, I think they would have figured out why he was a buyable force, okay. This getting hung up on no turf horses have ever done this, no synthetic horses have ever done this, that kind of stuff; and getting bogged down in the statistics of the post position, no horse has ever won from the 19; maybe there’s never a good horse in the 19, you know.
So all that stuff to me is nonsense. The only thing that counts is what has this horse done and how is he trained and what do the connections think of him.
With this horse, this is nothing but positives.
08 May 2011 at 04:12 pm | #
Thanks gents!
I’ll get to all this for Tuesday. Meanwhile, I love Barry Irwin in terms of how he conducts himself and his stance on relative issues vis a vis the sport.
But as for the nonsense he refers to, he should know that “rules” are meant to be broken and that there are exceptions. I’ve seen too many horses work well on dirt and fail in a race. The game is hard enough without dismissing trends out of hand.
He must have forgotten what it means to need to have to cash a bet every once in a while.
JP