Handicapping Insights

HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS

APRIL 17, 2015

by Dick Powell

Wow.
WOW.
WOW!!!
WOW!!!

How else can you describe American Pharoah's (Pioneerof The Nile) win in

Saturday's Arkansas Derby (G1)? If any Kentucky Derby (G1) contender wanted a

perfect prep race to get ready, this was it.

Winner of the Rebel Stakes (G2) on a sloppy track in his first start in

almost six months, American Pharoah still needed to show that he was going in

the right direction with time running out. The gate-to-wire win in the Rebel

showed that he can settle into a slow pace and then kick for home. But, the

extremely wet conditions raised questions on how strong the effort was.

But on Saturday, the multiple Grade 1 stakes winner showed all sorts of new

dimensions and answered every question about his ability to handle 19 rivals on

the first Saturday of May.

Unlike in the Rebel, when he gunned to the front and never looked back,

Victor Espinoza was able to get American Pharaoh to relax off a strong pace and

resist the urge to challenge the leader until Espinoza asked him to. His stride

was effortless and what you saw was a cruising speed that will help him

enormously in the Derby.

After six furlongs in 1:10.54, Espinoza let it out a small notch around the

far turn as stablemate Mr. Z (Malibu Moon) was making a strong move on the far

outside and Bridget's Big Luvy (Tiz Wonderful) was not backing up. It might have

been sooner than Espinoza wanted to move but move he did. He quickly drew away

from the chasing pack at the top of the stretch and cruised to an eight-length

win.

American Pharoah covered the nine furlongs of the Arkansas Derby in 1:48.52

seconds and earned a BRIS Speed rating of 102. It was his best two-turn effort

and he is now three for three making two lefts. 

His win was the perfect combination of doing enough to gain conditioning from

it without making it too hard to recover from. If he won too easily, you could

question how much he got out of the race. If he won a really hard race, you

could question does the effort set him back. I thought it was exactly what he

needed and Bob Baffert has to be thrilled that he got through this last stage of

the prep season with flying colors.

I know the timer doesn't lie and our eyes sometimes deceive us into thinking

that a horse is doing something easily, but American Pharoah looked like the

Arkansas Derby was being run at 9 a.m. with an exercise rider aboard instead of

a $1 million Derby prep race. Visually, it was stupendous and done the right

way. 

Unlike Bodemeister (Empire Maker), who romped by a wide margin in the

Arkansas Derby for Baffert but might have paid for that herculean effort in the

deep stretch of the Derby when run down by I'll Have Another, American Pharoah

romped by a wide margin in a measured, controlled fashion and should be ready to

move forward again. 

American Pharoah showed that he can break well, switch over to cruising speed

and still finish with authority. He joins stablemate Dortmund (Big Brown) and

Carpe Diem (Giant's Causeway) as major Derby contenders with similar

characteristics. It just seems that American Pharoah is coming up to the race

better than anyone and without an extreme post position draw, I would make him

the morning line favorite for the Derby. 

The Derby is in two weeks and most of the entrants will work this weekend and

next weekend. The final workout gets a lot of scrutiny since many observers are

on hand but pay attention to this week's workouts. Last year, Commanding Curve

(Master Command) had a huge workout two weeks out and then had a more

maintenance-like work the week before the race. 

He was no threat to California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) in the stretch but when

Commanding Curve rallied for second at long odds, he blew up a lot of tickets

that did not include him since his last workout was underrated. Don't make the

same mistake.