If It Had Four Legs And A Jockey On Its Back...

... then it must have been at least 30/1 to top the 2010 Kentucky Derby field. Fascinating case study in mass psychology and otherwise, this edition of the Run for the Roses was a strange but enjoyable one.



Super Saver became a worthy if somewhat circumstantial winner employing a strategy that is already hinted at in his name. A clear misnomer however was Looking At Lucky, who first had to be taken back right after the start, then was almost body-slammed into the rail by Stately Victor. That he still came back to finish sixth marks him as the best horse in this race. Devil May Care encountered a good deal of adversity too, but it's hard to say how many places it dropped her. Paddy O'Prado finished third, but should have been taken out of the race after shoving over Stately Victor – the incident that ruined the race for Looking at Lucky and could have easily resulted in a major spill on the rail. A perfect example of reckless raceriding that would have earned Kent Desormeaux a suspension anywhere outside of America.

And finally, I'm weirdly torn between embarrassment and pride on that handicapping job I did on Ice Box. On the one hand, I did expect him to finish off the board despite a lot of potential, on the other he did indeed lose all chance to threaten the winner by going far too wide on the final turn, and caught on for second with the help of what I see as a visibly firmer lane compared to most other horses (kudos to Jose Lezcano).
I'm not usually a fan of The Toddster, but you had to have some compassion with the silver-haired Ray Barone doppelgänger (I never noticed that before) for having to smile through the same dumb jokes every year, and particularly after the bad luck he had with Eskendereya.

NBC was dealt a good hand starting their program off with a McCarthy/General Quarters victory, but they also did a nice job presenting this race to a larger audience, though they unnecessarily screwed up the audio during 'Old Kentucky Home', and failed to do so when they should have during that bad rendition of 'Star-Spangled Banner'. The camerawork was horrible especially during those crucial moments when the horses entered the stretch and you needed a HD home cinema to see anything, but that's not NBC's fault.

The Todd Has Got Some Serious Issues

...especially after news of Wait A While’s positive test for procaine were confirmed. And you gotta love the title of that DRF article, someone's got his priorities straight.

As the Green but Game blog has pointed out, the most stirring part is that Wait A While’s disqualification was issued on April 23, almost exactly half a year after the race in question, last year’s Breeders Cup F&M Turf in which WAW finished third. To be fair the violation didn’t screw horseplayers that badly, given that The Todd’s penchant for his drugs cabinet is a factor every good handicapper works into his routine anyway.

But boy will Equidaily and others have a field day with this one. If we bloggers are hurting racing by actually covering incidents even if they happen in the brief timeframe during which there is some mainstream coverage, what secret PETA activists must there be in the Hollywood Park stewards office to wait until now with such a story.

Neil Papiano, paid liar attorney for trainer Todd Pletcher and owner Arindel Farms will advise them to appeal the ruling. Advice, btw, is also the name of one of the The Todd’s starters in the Derby next weekend. No remorse there then, I guess.

Papiano’s main argument is that the sample was driven, not flown, to a lab at UC Davis, opening the door to all kinds of conspiracy theories for our less enlightened brethren. "You don't hand it to somebody in a car. We don't know what happened in the car”, Papiano says. Apparently he thinks that car drivers could easily alter the sample, while it’s physically impossible for anyone to do so in a helicopter. Hollywood stewards dismissed this argument as baseless. I'm not sure how it’s handled in American racing, but in every other sport tests are sealed, which makes it quite obvious if they were subsequently opened or not.

Procaine, a local anesthetic, has been tested in the blood of horses up to three weeks after its injection. Many vets will use alternative treatments for that reason, and the CHRB offers free pre-race testing for the substance. Pletcher, who has several medications violations and one two-month suspension to his record, obviously still doesn't think he should check.