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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS MAY 10, 2008 by Dick Powell I thought by the time I wrote this column I would have calmed down some regarding Saturday's events. But, alas, more steam than ever is coming from out of my ears. BIG BROWN (Boundary) won the Kentucky Derby (G1) in a dominant performance and that should be what we are all talking about. Instead, he goes to the back burner. The tragic breakdown of runner-up Eight Belles (Unbridled's Song) is not only the headline in the racing industry but fodder for the talking heads on the all-news cable television stations. Eight Belles did not have to break down, but all the ingredients for a recipe for disaster that we have seen far too many times were present and it was no surprise. Here's why and a little history lesson for those of you not old enough to have been around. Ruffian ran her fatal match race on July 6, 1975. Two days earlier, a freak thunderstorm hit Belmont Park and the last race had to be canceled. The next day, Forego won the Brooklyn H. (G1) in track record time for 1 1/4 miles on a very hard racetrack. The next day, Ruffian battled Foolish Pleasure for three furlongs before shattering a leg. Fast forward to 1990. On the Tuesday before the Breeders' Cup at Belmont Park, five inches of rain fell. The track was constantly sealed that week to prepare for the Breeders' Cup and many horses broke down in training that week. A half-sister to multiple champion Housebuster named Hey Hey Paula broke down and had to be euthanized. The great Gorgeous broke a leg on Friday and was scratched from the Distaff (G1). I had dinner that Friday night with a legendary jockey agent and was told that five horses had broken down already that week since the rain. With the Breeders' Cup held late in the fall and each day's sun having more severe angles, the track never dried out uniformly. A 40-mph gale made things worse, drying the top of the track but leaving the bottom still wet and uneven. On Saturday in the Sprint (G1), Adjudicating came out of the race with a career-ending broken leg. Then we went to the Distaff and the gallant Go for Wand broke down at the eighth-pole in the most horrifying incident I have ever seen at the track, and I was at Belmont for Ruffian's match race. In last year's Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), over a muddy track that had been sealed for two days and yielded a :43.36 first half in the 2ND race, George Washington (Ire) broke down inside the eighth-pole and had to be euthanized. One of the most charismatic horses to race in Europe the last decade was being put to sleep a hundred yards from the winner's circle presentation for the Classic. Anyone that says that the prospect of fewer Europeans competing in this year's Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita has it all wrong. They've seen what we do to dirt tracks when it rains and more, not less, will come if Santa Anita resolves its current problems with another synthetic racing surface. The only saving grace if dirt is put back is that the rainy season in Southern California doesn't begin until December. And now we come to this year's Derby. At least two inches of rain fell at Churchill Downs Friday into early Saturday morning. The track was floated throughout Friday's card. After the races, it was sealed tighter than a drum and training was canceled Saturday morning. The sun came out later in the morning and a stiff 25-mph breeze was blowing down the backstretch. Perfect drying conditions, but the track had only been lightly harrowed. In the 2ND race, the first quarter was run in :20.96. Granted, it was wind-aided, but it was insanely, and I say, dangerously fast. By the 5TH race, the main track was upgraded to "fast" and early fractions continued to be amazing. This was the typical rock-hard main track that is the result of constantly sealing and not being harrowed deep enough. I was on the phone during the day's races with some friends in the industry and we all agreed that this was a dangerous racetrack. None of us predicted what would happen in the Derby, but none of us were surprised by it. All the ingredients were there. The debate about switching to synthetic racing surfaces was already raging on before the Eight Belles tragedy. I'm not going to re-hash it here and anyone that reads this column knows where I stand on the issue. But, if we are going to have dirt tracks, we have to stop sealing them to the point of being dangerous. I'm not saying let the mud sit for days and wait for the sun and wind to dry it. Floating racetracks is fine in that it provides a uniformly smooth racing while bringing moisture to the surface so that it can drain. The problem is that before racing is to be conducted, sealed racetracks have to be opened up with deeper harrows or more weight on the existing harrows. If that means that we have a sloppy racetrack for the Derby, fine. If that means that the public will bet less money on a wet track than they would if the track were listed as "fast," that's fine, too. But, what happened on Saturday was not fine. And in my mind, the chances of it happening could have been greatly reduced if the track would have been groomed in a different manner. I know the synthetic tracks have had grooming issues with track superintendents making them too hard, too fast and too dangerous. I can't help but go back to last year's Pacific Classic (G1) at Del Mar when Grade 1 stakes horses took 2:07 to cover 1 1/4 miles. Most of the racing media's reaction was that the race was a joke -- that we are used to races of that quality going much faster and Polytrack is forcing us to compare apples to watermelons. At least the horses came out of the race OK and many have gone on to further success. You can argue that horses were not raised to run on synthetic racing surfaces, but I don't know any that were raised to run on blacktop either. Racing is at a tipping point. Either we fix the problem or we run the risk of others fixing it for us. PETA's rantings after the race are way off the mark, but what if they woke up and became rational? There's a lot to criticize. Can we defend our sport and make the case that everything possible is being done to protect the health and safety of the rider and the horse? Do we want grandstanding politicians holding hearings? This is going to be a painful, divisive process but if the scales tip away from us, we will never get it back. It has to be done and when it's over we will hopefully be in a better place. When Michael Vick was arrested for dog-fighting, he and his supporters compared what they do with horse racing, saying horses die during races. A far-fetched comparison, for sure, but if we are not careful, the general public, who watched this year's Derby in very strong numbers, might be on their way to believing it. Is race-day medication and even treatment of racehorses with various steroids an issue? Absolutely. Are we breeding less sound horses? No doubt. But the buyers that complain about it still tend to go back to the same sales and buy horses with unsound pedigrees before turning them over to trainers with many medication positives. Sounds like lip service to me. We have to put the health and safety of the rider and horse first in all decision-making. Yes, it can be expensive, but how many fans did we lose on Saturday? And, thank God, they never got to see Eight Belles going down during the race? How many sponsors will abandon racing if there are protestors and public sentiment turns against our sport? I love to watch boxing but sometimes it makes me cringe. It is truly barbaric but at least the participants are there voluntarily. Two people getting into a ring, with rules, to decide who is better is as old as two owners racing their horses to decide who is faster. But, unlike in boxing, the horses are volunteered by their owners to race. We can make all the excuses about horses getting hurt all the time, racing in fields far away from a racetrack, and that it is in their blood. I have a horse buried on my property at home and have seen what they can do while running around. But the public ain't buying it. They see what's at stake, they see the rider whipping the horse, they hear about the drug issues and now they are questioning it. It won't go away. We have to make racetracks safer and we have no choice. As for the race itself: Knowing how hard the track was, it was no surprise that Big Brown was able run as fast as he did. 2:01.82 might not seem that fast but considering how much ground he lost and how they had to run into the strong headwind twice, it was remarkable. In my estimation, he would have run 2:00 under better circumstances. To show you how fast the track was, Illinois Derby (G2) winner Recapturetheglory (Cherokee Run) melted down on his way into the paddock, was a handful while being saddled, melted down again in the tunnel going out to the track, prompted the pace while four wide, actually took the lead at the top of the stretch and was still in third with a furlong to go before tiring to place fifth. Don't think the track carried him around? With the exception of Denis of Cork (Harlan's Holiday), who rallied from dead last to get up for third, five of the first six finishers raced on or in striking distance of the pace. Big Brown's decimation of his 19 rivals looks like he's going to face none of them in the Preakness (G1). Some will wait for the Belmont (G1) and most will recognize that they have no shot in any race that he's running in. Big Brown won the Derby with only three prior starts and only two of them were on dirt. In fact, his seasonal debut this year was scheduled for turf but was switched to the main track. On the one hand, he should have the greatest chance of winning the Triple Crown since he's so lightly-raced and still improving. As much as trainer Rick Dutrow keeps saying that he loves to have lots of time between races, this is a guy that has run in stakes races on consecutive days. The question that Big Brown has to answer is can a horse go into the Derby with bad feet and run over a rock-hard track without damaging them even more?
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