It isn’t easy for a racing secretary to hang 128 pounds on a star horse in a
handicap race such as Saturday night’s Grade 2, $150,000 Firecracker Handicap
(Grade II), but Churchill Downs’ Director of Racing Ben Huffman relishes the
opportunity.
“I did 128 (pounds) here with Wise Dan and 128 on Curlin in the (2008)
Stephen Foster,” Huffman said. “I’ve done several 125s, but for horses that have
actually shown up in the entries, 128 is the most.”
Reigning Horse of the Year Wise Dan heads a field of eight entered for the
Firecracker, one of three stakes races to be run at Churchill Downs on Saturday
as part of the “Downs After Dark” nighttime racing program.
Wise Dan, who was made the 2-5 favorite by Churchill Downs’ oddsmaker Mike
Battaglia, will give between 11-15 pounds to his six rivals. The next high
weights at 117 pounds are Grade 3 stakes winners Corporate Jungle and Lea.
A handicap is a race where the racing secretary assigns weights to all
nominated horses with the theoretical goal of creating a dead-heat at the
finish.
“It’s a judgment call,” Huffman said. “It’s not an exact science. Some people
say a length is a pound and others say a length is three pounds. A lot of
components are involved in assigning the weights.”
Wise Dan carries a six-race win streak into the Firecracker, including five
Grade 1 races. In his two races of 2013, he won the Maker’s 46 Mile at Keeneland
and the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day.
“You also look to see who horses have been running against and what they’ve
carried in the past,” Huffman said. “Wise Dan is a multiple Grade 1 winner, he’s
the Horse of the Year and he’s the highest-rated horse in training in the world.
He’s not running against horrible horses in here, but they are inferior when
compared to the best turf miler in the world. Not the best turf miler in the
United States…in the world.”
Some are of the opinion that handicap races are a thing of the past and top
horses should not be forced to carry more weight in a race due to their previous
accomplishments. Huffman doesn’t subscribe to that belief.
“I know handicaps are kind of going out of favor a little bit, but if you’re
going to do them then I think you ought to do them right,” Huffman said. “When
you have champions running here for equal weights, I personally don’t think we
could fill the races. I like doing handicaps for route races and I think they
serve a purpose. We don’t weight horses to get them beat. We weight horses to
give other horses a chance, especially against champions.”
Champions like Wise Dan have been known to scare off other horses from
entering, but Huffman believes it is important to feature the best horses
possible at Churchill Downs.
“We are Churchill Downs and we are in a racing town with racing fans that
love and appreciate horse racing,” Huffman said. “Sometimes these champions
cause us to have some short fields, but I know true racing fans appreciate
Horses of the Year and Eclipse champions racing in Louisville, Kentucky. Who
wouldn’t want to come out and see the Horse of the Year Wise Dan and horses like
Curlin and Rachel Alexandra and Royal Delta and Fort Larned? I’ll sacrifice a
couple of runners to get the best horses in the world here for our racing fans
in Louisville.”
Wise Dan, who won the Firecracker in 2011 in his turf debut, will break from
post 2 under Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez. A six-year-old gelded son of
Wiseman’s Ferry, Wise Dan is looking to become the first two-time winner of the
Firecracker.
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