Subject:  另外在友好網站<賽馬天堂>內其中一位馬友送上一位ESPN及ABC 首席評馬人Randy Moss撰述 一篇專欄,個人粗略閱後暫時理解是從育馬業的取向看美國本土的中長途賽.愚見有志拉闊賽馬視野的朋友很值得閱讀(詳細內容見內文) |
Author:
Lincoln
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 01:17:35 04/07/05 Thu
Author Host/IP: pcd403121.netvigator.com/203.218.193.121
Kentucky Derby: New school
Randy Moss | Special to NTRA.com
That so-called “invisible ceiling” often used to describe workplace discrimination is alive and well in Kentucky Derby handicapping.
A 3-year-old won't win the Derby with only two prep races because it hasn't been done since Sunny's Halo in 1983. A 3-year-old with no juvenile experience can't win the Derby because that hasn't happened since Apollo in 1882 - or does that one go all the way back to the Greek god? Two-year-old champions are automatically behind the eight ball, and don't even sniff at a horse who prepped in Dubai. They'd better have the right breeding, too: an entire Derby handicapping culture was created around the dosage index and chefs-de-race.
But exactly what constitutes a Kentucky Derby pedigree? Some long-held assumptions are undergoing a transformation.
The aristocratic breeders who once dominated America's thoroughbred landscape relished the challenge of producing horses that could excel at long distances, as their racing brethren in Europe did. By all accounts, this pursuit was not profitable - many horses bred to “run all day” need all day to finish. But the Whitneys, Vanderbilts, Mellons, Phippses and Wrights focused more on the sport than the bottom line, and for most of its history the Kentucky Derby was dominated by 3-year-olds bred to excel at a mile-and-a-quarter or farther.
Thus followed the logical assumption was that such pedigrees were mandatory for Derby success.
But as those breeders began to disappear, they have been gradually replaced by commercial farms who breed horses to be sold at yearling sales, and by owners who are more profit-oriented.
The breeding industry that had once been attracted to horses with the stamina to win the mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes or the formerly-two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup now is more interested in winners of the one-mile Metropolitan Handicap. Racehorses with a higher mix of speed in their pedigrees are more versatile and tend to mature earlier, giving them the opportunity to take advantage of rich juvenile purses and making them worth more at auction.
Breeders are continuing to tinker with their matings in search of the ideal proportion of speed-stamina, but it is no accident that six of the last eight Kentucky Derby winners are descendants of Mr. Prospector, who arrived in the midst of the changing of the guard.
Mr. Prospector had distance in his pedigree – his grandparents were Native Dancer and Nashua – yet he was a tremendously fast racehorse most effective at six furlongs. He came from the same vintage 1970 crop as Secretariat and Forego, and his timing was impeccable. He became the most successful stallion in modern American history. He produced horses who carried speed over middle distances, and sometimes farther when Mr. Prospector was bred to mares with stamina.
The playing field has been altered, and we are beginning to see evidence of that on the sacred first Saturday in May.
Funny Cide is a son of Distorted Humor, a grandson of Mr. Prospector who could go a mile-and-an-eighth on a perfect day but was best suited to a mile or less. Distorted Humor's three highest Beyer Speed Figures were 118 (at 6_ furlongs), 117 (at 7 furlongs) and 116 (at 7 furlongs).
Smarty Jones is a son of Elusive Quality, a Sheikh Mohammed-owned and Bill Mott-trained grandson of Mr. Prospector who never raced beyond a mile-and-a-sixteenth. Elusive Quality ran a 123 Beyer (at 7 furlongs), a 113 (at 7 furlongs) and a 112 (his then-world-record performance at one mile on the grass).
Clearly, neither horse had a classic mile-and-a-quarter pedigree. Distorted Humor and Elusive Quality were young stallions who had produced mostly sprinter-milers, and many students of Derby history downgraded the chances of Funny Cide and Smarty Jones. Yet Funny Cide outfinished regally-bred Empire Maker (himself a great-grandson of Mr. Prospector) in the 2003 Derby, and Smarty Jones dominated last spring until the mile-and-a-half of the Belmont Stakes.
The hard-and-fast Derby pedigree rules as we knew them have changed forever.
Of course, it will always be an advantage that the sire of a Derby horse could run a mile-and-a-quarter, like A. P. Indy, Unbridled, Fusaichi Pegasus or Giant's Causeway could. And you certainly don't want a Derby prospect to have a heritage consisting of nothing but pure sprinters.
But we will continue to see horses such as Funny Cide and Smarty Jones – and Afleet Alex, for that matter – whose pedigrees put an increased emphasis on speed over stamina. In the good old days, 3-year-olds such as those might win key 1 1/8-mile preps, but then the invisible ceiling would come into play, and that magical mile-and-a-quarter would hit them between the eyes at Churchill Downs.
Now the punishment is being delivered to horseplayers who are slow to realize the game is no longer the same.
Now the most important consideration for a Derby horse is the same as most other races we encounter on a daily basis. It isn't so much how far they are bred to run, but how quickly they can get there.
（Randy Moss is the lead racing analyst for ESPN and ABC telecasts.）
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 
