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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS APRIL 17, 2015 by Dick Powell 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.
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