“Don't believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear” – Lou Reed
Whatever the degree to which Bob Baffert is culpable for events surrounding Medina Spirit, the positive test given by the apparent winner of the Kentucky Derby has brought disgrace on the sport and confusion over the U.S. Triple Crown.
As we approach the second leg of the series, the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, Medina Spirit’s participation seems to fly in the face of the sporting ethic. Make no mistake, this is a tainted contest, which potentially has a result capable of turning the stomach.
Regardless of any propriety, the handicapper must face the task of assessing Medina Spirit with a clear head and an open mind. The question we all have to answer is, what brought about the pattern in his form clearly shown by the spike in the colt’s TRC Computer Race Ratings:
On Derby day, Medina Spirit looked an unlikely winner. His resume included two comprehensive defeats: The first by eight lengths at the hands of stablemate Life Is Good in the G2 San Felipe Stakes, the second by 4¼ lengths by Rock Your World in the G1 Santa Anita Derby.
There seemed no conceivable excuse for Medina Spirit on either occasion.
Our ratings originally pegged his best efforts at TRC 113 – well short of the standard required of a prospective Derby winner. Yet, there he was at Churchill Downs fighting off horses who had seemed more talented and more progressive as if his previous form had suggested no limitations.
We have been here before, of course. Only 12 months previously, former barnmate Authentic improved sharply to win the Derby and battled on tenaciously while doing it, having formerly seemed something of a weak finisher. To be fair, regardless by whom 3-year-old dirt horses are trained, it isn’t unusual to see them take off as they become habituated to the fight and inured to the darker side of what goes with it.
Authentic’s Derby spike turned out to be genuine, and he ended the year being draped in the winner’s sheet after the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Still, it would be staggering if history repeated itself because Medina Spirit has put forth so much of what they call in other sports ‘bad tape’. Can he really go from being ironed out by one contender after another and end up the champion of his generation? It has happened before and it is possible.
The positive side of the Derby was provided by Medina Spirit’s great rider John Velazquez. A truly brilliant athlete-on-horseback in the bracket of Frankie Dettori in Europe, he might have excelled in baseball had horses not been his calling. There is no rider perhaps worldwide who you want hitting with two out in the bottom of the ninth and the scores tied, and he delivered the home-run ball again in the plate on Derby day.
All things considered – the troubling spike in form, the draining effort, the great ride he received – it does seem like the percentage call is to oppose Medina Spirit in this spot. But the opposition doesn’t exactly encourage anyone of that persuasion to become emboldened.
We should start with another Baffert horse, Concert Tour.
It becomes easy to lose your confidence when thinking that one of the trainer’s horses is not good enough for a Triple Crown race, but that seemed to be the case judged on his defeat by the absent Derby also-ran Super Stock and Caddo River in the G1 Arkansas Derby. One race does not define a horse, however – the ethos of TRC Global Rankings, no less – and prior to that Concert Tour was a solid winner of both the G2 San Vicente Stakes and Rebel Stakes.
Concert Tour comes off more like a miler than a mid-distance horse because he seemed to be stopping over the nine furlongs at Oaklawn Park, but making judgements like that in today’s racing environment is fraught with danger. Perhaps he, too, will be a different horse this time.
If all these views seem to be pointedly uncertain, this is the way many handicappers are feeling right now. What to do with this race is a conundrum, and when that is the feeling then inaction is usually the right strategy. But, with due respect to the Japanese challenger France Go de Ina and the worthy Midnight Bourbon, the colt worth entertaining at long odds may be KEEPMEINMIND.
The Roberto Diodoro-trained colt is a quirky type who needs a daring, patient ride to be seen at his best. But he has some of the best form on the table here, placed efforts behind still our highest-rated 3-year-old in the U.S., Essential Quality, in the G1 Breeders’ Futurity and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland:
Those two efforts could have knocked another juvenile out for the campaign, but Keepmeinmind regrouped and showed how strong the form was when winning the G2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs last November.
Keepmeinmind’s 3-year-old campaign has not gone well so far, but there may have been excuses for him.
When he ran only sixth to Concert Tour in the G2 Rebel at Oaklawn Park on his reappearance, he had previously missed two weeks of work and was thought to need the race. Then, in the G2 Blue Grass Stakes back at Keeneland, Canadian-born Diodoro (the country after a trainer’s name is that where he has saddled most runners in our database) thinks he was ridden too close to the pace.
Both those efforts suggested that Keepmeinmind was not going to reproduce his smart juvenile form, but the Derby was much more like it and a step in the right direction. He had an impossible trip, forced widest of all a day when the rail was good and asked to make up a lot of ground on a day when such tactics were hard to pull off. In the event, a seventh-placed finish behind Medina Spirit was praiseworthy – and it could presage a return to his best.
In truth, Keepmeinmind doesn’t have that much to find in an average year. The table of Preakness winners during the TRC era shows that he already has a figure commensurate with the likes of Oxbow and the filly Swiss Skydiver, which is the median for race winners (shown in the box).
But, unlike with the Derby winner, it is easy to see where Keepmeinmind could step up markedly on recent form – deep closers like him are beholden to a certain set of circumstances. Though Pimlico is hardly renowed as a venue for horses like him, he could grab a piece of the action late on.
