LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Pace makes the race — it’s one of the oldest verities and cliches in racing, but seldom was it so plainly evident as in the surprise outcome of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
A week before the race, everyone in the world knew this Derby was going to be decided by pace when the Parhboo boys entered their swift sprinter Trinniberg in the field, ensuring the Derby would be run at breakneck speed and possibly set it up for a come-from-behind horse.
What we didn’t expect was that the suicidal pace would be set, not by Trinniberg, but by the 4-1 betting favorite Bodemeister, a strategic twist that cost him the race and horseplayers uncounted millions.
Some comparisons may illuminate the magnitude of his predicament. When Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby in 1973, the pacemaker, Shecky Greene, ran the opening six furlongs in 1:11.4. When Seattle Slew and Affirmed won their Derbies, the pacemakers got the six in 1:10.4. Spectacular Bid’s pacemaker, General Assembly, got to the 6f in 1:12.2
On Saturday, Bodemeister whistled by the six furlongs in 1:09.8. That’s brutal. Crazy. Bodemeister was running faster than four of the greatest horses of the 20th century, including three Triple Crown winners. That he lost under those conditions should surprise nobody; that he held on for second was stunning.
Doug O’Neill, who trains the 15-1 winner I’ll Have Another, said at the barn yesterday: “When I saw those fractions on the board, I was lickin’ my chops.”
I thought jockey Mike Smith might have harnessed Bode’s speed better without strangling him, but trainer Bob Baffert was blaming nobody but the circumstances yesterday.
“With our post position [gate 6], I did not want to be compromised,” he said. “So I told Mike that if Bode breaks well, go on. I knew they were going to try and take us off. When he ran the first quarter in nearly 23 seconds, I thought that wasn’t too bad.
“When he went the half in 45 and change, he looked to be doing it easily. But at the sixteenth pole I could see he had shut it down. He’s a remarkable horse. I wanted like a 16-post so Mike could see all the other horses. But he was inside and he came out of there like a flier.”
Baffert’s shoot-the-works tactics might have been influenced by his last Derby winner, War Emblem, in 2002, who went wire to wire. If he could do it, why not Bodemeister?
But War Emblem was not pressured like Bodemeister. War Emblem rolled around the track in 47.04 and 1:11.7 fractions, against Bodemeister’s 45.3 and 1:09.8
“That other horse [Trinniberg] didn’t give Bode a breather,” Baffert said. “Afterwards, you could say maybe he [Smith] should have slowed him up or rated him, but turning for home it looked like he was going to keep on sailing.”
Baffert said he would wait a week before deciding whether to send Bodemeister to the Preakness at Pimlico in two weeks.
“Right now, it’s 50-50, but I have to wait for my gut to tell me,” he said.
Then, with a mischievous glint in his eye, he asked: “What do you think? Should I replace Mike Smith with Chantal Sutherland?”
That’s a whole other story, a jockey love story featured on a TV show that ended up on the rocks in real life:
* The public loved this Derby. It pulled the biggest crowd in history at 165,300, the biggest Derby betting splurge in history at $133 million and the biggest total day’s handle at $187 million. A good day all round, especially for Churchill’s stockholders.
* Bode’s principal owner, Ahmed Zayat, must think he’s hexed. Three of his horses — Pioneer of the Nile, Nehro and Bodemeister — have finished second in the Derby in the last four years.