Union Rags - Kentucky Derby 2012 preview

I swear that I have been thinking about this for a while, and am not just coming up with this after Union Rags defeat at the hands of Take Charge Indy in last weekend's Florida Derby, you will just have to believe me on that. As I continue the several month long process of handicapping the Kentucky Derby field, something is sticking out like a sore thumb at me....the expected Derby favorite is once again a hugely overrated horse, and I can draw several legitimate comparisons between Union Rags, and Dialed In from 2011, and Lookin at Lucky (LAL) from 2010.

Speed Figures - Kentucky Derby winners typically have to run a 105 Beyer speed figure, just to have a chance at winning the Derby. For a while it was 108, but in the last few years, these lightly raced 3 year olds have had declining figures, so I'll set 105 as my benchmark. In 2010, LAL had a highest figure of 98 entering the Derby, with a next highest figure of 91. In 2011, Dialed In had a highest figure of 97, with a next highest figure of 93. In both cases, the horses were sent off as lukewarm favorites in the Derby, and in both cases I suggested that they did not deserve favoritism.

For 2012, that highly touted horse is Union Rags, his Fountain of Youth performance was visually impressive, as he appeared to do it easily, though his figure was an unimpressive 95. I should say right up front that I'm not generally a believer in the well subscribed theory that they didn't ask him to run, so he could have run better. Some of the best performances I have ever seen from a speed figure perspective have been when a horse wasn't asked for his all and allowed to run freely. So then Union Rags followed that performance up with his 3rd place in the Florida Derby. He was gaining in the final strides, but it was more of a sustained slow gain, then of a Derby winning rally that you like to see out of a horse. For that race, he got a paltry 93 speed figure. So his last 5 races he has run a 93, 95, 94, 92 and 95 speed figure. Does that sound like a horse that will be able to uncork a 105 on the first Saturday in May? I have my doubts.

In quickly looking at the other major prep races, there are some high speed figures out of horses expected in the field, like Creative Cause (102-San Felipe), Secret Circle (102-Southwest), Daddy Nose Best (100-Sunland), El Padrino (98-Risen Star), and even Hansen (95 - BC Juevenile and Gotham).

One other factor to take into account is that Churchill Downs is the type of track that some horses handle really well and some don't. Union Rags lost the Breeders Cup Juvenile by a head in November, in what many thought was a bad performance (his speed figure was a 94). The simple truth is that he may have run the best race he is capable of running at this point.

Jockey - For this part, I will just compare 2011 to 2012, as Julien Leparoux was on Dialed In in 2011, and will be on Union Rags in 2012. For full disclosure, Leparoux is one of my least favorite riders, but I will try to remain objective for this analysis. In 2011, everyone in the world knew it was going to be a very slow pace, except for maybe Julien Leparoux. While Shackleford was cantoring through fractions of 48 and change to the half (I believe one of the slowest ever in recent Derby history), Dialed In was 20 lengths back, going through a 1/2 mile in about 52-53 seconds (his previous 3 workouts were significantly faster than that, like 48-49 seconds), so he was certainly capable of maintaining better position with the pace. So whether it was poor preparation that led to this bad bit of riding, or poor recognition of the slow pace that was developing, that is squarely on Leparoux. It's no surprise that the horses that finished 1-4 in the Derby were all in the top 6 entering the stretch, as nobody could close into those slow fractions. Dialed In was able to pass some tiring horses but only managed to finish a well beaten 8th.

Now we move on to 2012. In the Florida Derby, Leparoux gave Union Rags a dismal ride. He kept him well back of a loose on the lead Take Charge Indy, through relatively slow fractions at Gulfstream. He kept him on the rail (or was kept on the rail by another rider, depending on what you believe), allowing other horses to be outside of him and bottle him up, and did nothing to try to correct for that. If you believe you have the best horse by a lot (like the Rags connections did in the Florida Derby), you keep yourself in the clear, travelling a wider trip if necessary to keep yourself out of trouble. Leparoux failed to do that.

Type of trip - You are going to hear an awful lot in the upcoming weeks about the type of trip that Union Rags got in the Florida Derby. I agree, he didn't get a good trip, but I wouldn't call it a bad one either. He got a bad ride, no doubt, but it wasn't as if he was checked or steadied, and had to start and stop his momentum. He got in a bad spot and had to wait for an opening, and probably move later than his jock would have preferred. This is the kind of trip that may result in a 2 length difference, if that, not a huge difference as many will suggest.

Now think back to 2010, the horse in question was LAL. He had had several troubled trips, so many figured he was capable of a lot more than he had shown to that point. He also had the added issue of breaking from the 1 hole, almost ensuring traffic troubles in the 20 horse field. In order to win, Garrett Gomez was probably going to have to either run more early than he would have liked to ensure position, or drop to the back of the pack, take a wide trip, covering a lot more ground, and then run everyone down. My suggestion was that the horse wasn't good enough to overcome all of that, and I was right, as he had another troubled trip and finished 6th.

On to 2011, where Dialed In earned the favorite role when Uncle Mo was scratched. Again you had a horse with very little tactical speed, who was going to have to drop to the back of the field, then maneuver through 19 horses to the wire, in what was expected to be a very slow pace. Again, this was way too much for him to overcome, unless he was a superhorse....which I think has been proven that he wasn't.

Now we move on to 2012. It's a little difficult to anticipate the type of trip at this point in the race, since we don't yet know who the pacesetters will be, but I believe Union Rags has more tactical speed than the previous 2 favorites. But I expect Leparoux to ride quite a bit different in the Kentucky Derby than he did in the Florida Derby, which may not be a good thing. Here's some quotes from a recent DRF article about the Florida Derby.

"Michael Matz, trainer of Union Rags, said jockey Julien Leparoux likely learned a lot about Union Rags in the race, and Matz said he had no problems with the tactics employed by jockey Javier Castellano – the former rider of Union Rags – aboard El Padrino.

“Hopefully, Julien learned a lot from it. That part of it is good. The rest was disappointing. He wasn’t able to run until he got to the eighth pole. Next time, maybe he’ll let him run away from the gate a little more. You just have to view it as a good lesson. The good thing is he came out of it okay, and we have five weeks to prepare for his next race.”"

I'm reading between the lines here, but my hunch is that Leparoux has "learned" from his mistakes here, and will be very likely try to keep Union Rags on the outside and in the clear, and maybe even use a little bit more of him early to keep him in good position. This is a great idea if you are the best horse in the field, and can win in spite of any bad trip / luck that you are dealt, but as I pointed out earlier this article, he is not the best horse in the field by any objective measure that one can use. If you force him to travel more ground than other horses in this field, I don't believe he is good enough to overcome it.

Betting strategy - Am I going to throw him off of my tickets? No, I will probably treat him like I did Dialed In last year. He won't be a horse that I key on, but I will probably wheel him in several positions, in case he does live up to his potential. But I will not be surprised in the least if he fails to hit the board, and in fact, I kind of expect a 4th-6th place finish for him.