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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS MARCH 15, 2013 by Dick Powell So how do we judge Verrazano's win in the Grade 2 Tampa Bay Derby? He showed he can win going two turns and went slower at the start of the race than he ever had before. He even settled after letting Falling Sky to clear him from the outside and was not resentful when Johnny Velazquez had to tap on the breaks ever so slightly. His BRIS Speed rating of 100 was probably equal to his 104 earned in his last race considering how wide he ran early on Saturday. So why do I come out of the race with an empty feeling about Verrazano's chances to go on. There was nothing that I saw that would indicate he can't go on to bigger and better things. And, he certainly raised the bar of expectations in his first two career starts that will make it impossible to live up to. The good part of Verrazano's win on Saturday was that he didn't have to expend a ton of energy to do it and should be able to recover in a few, short weeks. We still don't know how he'll handle dirt in the face or racing between horses but for now, he's responded to everything thrown at him. At this point, I hope he wins his next start by open daylight and goes to the Kentucky Derby as the big, overbet favorite. *** The Lasix issue will not go away. The Breeders' Cup announced that they would not implement phase two of a plan to eliminate it from all their races and are going to go with the same policy as last year where Lasix was allowed for all the races except the four, remaining juvenile races. That said, I was reading The Age newspaper online Wednesday night and came across an interesting headline. "Small Fields Stifling Racing's Growth." In a story written by Michael Lynch, it chronicled how field size has dropped in the Victorian Racing (Melbourne, Australia) industry, which has led to less betting and less revenue for the tracks and purses. What was shocking about the story was that all along, we have been told that the reason why field size has dropped in America was the presence of Lasix, which not only affects individual horses but the breed itself. Now, here we have Australia, which bans raceday Lasix, having the same issues that we have. How could that be? I'll give you another argument of specious reasoning that I heard at one of the conferences I attend. A major owner got up and used as one of his arguments to ban raceday Lasix, the fact that American racing has not had a Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. Naturally, he never mentioned that Great Britain bans Lasix and has not had a Triple Crown winner themselves since 1970 when Nijinsky II won it. Not even the mighty Camelot could win it last year, and the presence or absence of Lasix has nothing to do with it. *** If you needed more proof about the fragility of the American Thoroughbred, all you had to do is follow the recent two-year-olds in training sales. Horses regularly "breeze" a furlong in :9 and change and quarter-miles in 21 seconds flat. It is only March and young horses, many who are not yet chronologically two years old, are asked to run as fast as they ever will run and the faster they breeze, the more the market will pay for them. Someone forwarded me an article written by Bill Hirsch, the grandson of Hall of Fame trainer Max Hirsch, about the training of 1946 Triple Crown winner Assault. After spending the winter down in South Carolina at the Columbia Training Center, he shipped to Belmont on April 1. Allowed to settle in for a few days, he worked three furlongs in :37 on April 5, came back the next day and worked six furlongs in 1:14 then won the six-furlong Experimental Free Handicap three days after that. Now that Hirsch knocked the rust off, he worked him a half-mile in :48 2/5, three furlongs in :35 1/5 two days later then a mile in 1:43 4/5 the next day. After resting for two days, he worked a mile in 1:41 2/5 before coming back two days later to win the Wood Memorial. A few days after the Wood, he shipped to Churchill Downs and worked three furlongs in 39 seconds. A week later he was fourth on a muddy track in the Derby Trial on the Tuesday before the Derby then worked a half-mile in :48 on Friday. He won the Derby by eight lengths on a sloppy track then shipped to Pimlico two days later. With only a week between the Derby and Preakness, he worked three furlongs in :40 on Wednesday and a mile in 1:45 on Thursday. Assault was given Friday off before going out to win the Preakness by a neck. The next day, he shipped to Belmont and began a training regimen that while not out of the ordinary for those times, would probably bring animal abuse charges against Hirsch today. On May 16, he worked a half-mile in 52. He came back two days later with three furlongs in :40 then two days after that a half-mile in :48. Two days later, on May 22, he worked a mile in 1:43 3/5 then three furlongs in :35 two days after that. Now that the Belmont was looming in a week, he came back the next day with 1 1/4 miles in 2:05. On May 28 he worked a half-mile in 50 then finished up his Triple Crown preparations the next day when he worked 1 1/2 miles in 2:32. On June 1, Assualt became a Triple Crown winner by three lengths. For the month of April, his timed workouts and races totaled 7 3/16 miles. For the month of May, his timed workouts and races totaled 10 5/16 miles. Bill Hirsch explained all this by saying, "his morning training routine ensured Assault would develop race-specific bone, ligament, tendon, heart and lung densities. Plus his frequent breezes developed his ability to recover from a race in a few days and he was ready to race right back the next week, if necessary." Clearly, they don't make them like Assault anymore. And, they don't make them like Max Hirsch anymore either.
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