Why You Can't Handicap The Derby

It's Thursday of Derby week and everyone in horse racing is trying to do the same thing: handicap the Kentucky Derby. But as I poured over past performances, videos of preps and pedigrees, I realized you cannot handicap the Derby. Why? Because it isn't a real race.

Selecting horses for the Derby is a completely different process than handicapping an everyday, run of the mill stakes race. In those races, reasoning makes sense. Trends make sense. Past performances make sense. Throwing a horse out is easy.

The Derby? Whooo boy. This ain't no run of the mill anything.

It starts out by staring at the daunting list of 20 names. They all start to blur together as different thoughts fly through your head. The past three months have been spent watching, preparing and deciphering between these contenders and all of a sudden, they all seem the same.

So, after 10 minutes of allowing your head to rule, you realize you need to eliminate some horses. Starting at the top, you start to strike out the colts who are sons of champion sprinters and milers. Wait. Wasn't Boundary a miler? And Mr Prospector? Dammit. Erase strikeout marks. Forget breeding. How often does the son of AP Indy out of the Seattle Slew mare actually win the Derby anyways?

Who do we eliminate now? Take out the ones who don't seem to have the class. This colt broke his maiden at Po Dunk Downs and finished 4th in the Sunland Der..... Mine. That. Bird. You toy with the question that has hung over every handicapper's head since 2009: Can we forget about this Derby yet? The ghost of a hobbling cowboy trainer and a tiny bay colt haunt you and make it impossible to draw a line through the Sunland superstar.

Speed figures. Speed figures were created for races like this. Give a numerical value to a performance. Bada Bing. Too bad all the speed figures are within two points of each other for the previous start.

How about how the race will set up? There seems to be about 7 speed horses lining up to take the lead. So that should favor that dead closer, right? But what about the trip? Horses never get stopped in the Derby....

So there you sit. No horse eliminated, no horse picked. The blur only seems to spread now.

How exactly do you pick that elusive Derby winner? Let alone an exacta or trifecta wager... God save us all if the superfecta seems lucrative.

That's really the beauty of it. It isn't run of the mill in any way. It's a stakes race, technically, but really, it is in a class of its own. It's 20 three year olds, a fact that should automatically spell disaster. All of them are going 10 furlongs for the first time. All of them have been prepped for this race and this race only. It will not serve as a tightener for a future race. This is it. It brings in sprinters with connections who would have never dreamed of entering them in a 9 furlong race, let alone 10. It brings in turf horses with pedigrees that are littered with Danehill, Sadlers Wells. It brings in colts with only two or three starts under their belts.

The conditions are technically a grade one going 1 1/4 mile on the dirt. These conditions would normally be avoided by half of the field.

But it is the Derby after all.

So how do you handicap?

Go off a hunch. Stay on the bandwagon you've been on all spring. Bet the overlay. Pick the traditionally winning connections. Pick your favorite name. Throw a proverbial dart. The good news about handicapping the Derby?

No one will call you an idiot leading up to the race. The images of Giacomo and Mine That Bird are fresh enough to never mock someone for an "out there" selection. That's the good news.

The bad news?

You probably won't be able to pick the damn Derby winner.

Eve of Greatness?

I was overwhelmed today in a way that hasn't happened since I was young. We are upon Breeders Cup Eve. Sure, we have survived the first day of Breeders Cup races spotted with longshots (Shared Account) and strong winners (Unrivaled Belle). My TwinSpires account reads positive, so I'm officially happy, but there is an anxiousness and yearning beneath it all.

Tomorrow holds a card of wonderful races. The Mile, featuring champion Goldikova. The Sprint, featuring various speedy thoroughbreds going all out for the goal. The Turf, where Europe meets America in a clash of the titans descending from Northern Dancer. And then there's the Classic.

Any other year, I would view this race as the meeting of the handicap and three year old champs. This is where sophomores come to grow up and older horses come to prove themselves. But in the background, there comes a dark beauty. Think Angelina Jolie meets Grace Kelly. She could kick your ass and seduce you with her grace all at the same time. I can't really elaborate upon her charismatic features. 60 Minutes and every turf writer in America has taken the opportunity to try to capture her persona, but you really have to be there to understand. It's more than these silly dances moves, or even her solid race record. It's the heart-stopping finishes, the weird awareness of the wire and the extreme confidence that this mare holds.

Zenyatta is THE story in this year's Breeders Cup. If she wins tomorrow, it will be the greatest culmination of a career since Seabiscuit came out of nowhere to skim the boots of Red Pollard in the Big Cap. We're talking 20 for 20. A perfect mare beating the boys. A two time winner of the Breeders Cup Classic. A Zenyatta. She is in a class of her own now isn't she?

And the winners in all of this? Horse racing. As horse racing fans, handicappers, turf writers and basic followers, we continue to be in search of that one thing that still makes us cheer. It's easy to become hardened to the spectacular two year old performances at Saratoga, or the deep closing Kentucky Derby winners or the record breaking sprinters. In fact, I think a racing fan is the hardest to impress. We've seen it all, done it all and beat it all. That is, until Zenyatta.

Then she came and horse racing suddenly started whispering through the cynicism to wax poetically, to give in to the belief that she was larger than life and to believe that a big ol' mare who drinks beer and listens to airplanes fly can beat the best colts in America. This is the stuff history is made of. And, folks, history is upon us. Tomorrow, a mare with a perfect record will enter the 8 hole in the Churchill Downs gate. The world will take a deep breath as she breaks (most likely last). And hopefully, somewhere down that long, legendary stretch of Churchill Downs, she will find a legendary full stride and beat all comers to become the best mare of all of racing history and potentially the most charismatic horse to approach the starting gate. Yes, horse racing, this is your time. Revel in it. This is the hour to enjoy Zenyatta.