Caracortado and Rule both moved forward on Saturday with impressive wins on the Derby Trail. Not everyone is enamoured with these two, but that's 9 wins in a row between them. Horse Racing Nation breaks down the races. What do they mean for these two going forward?
Robert B. Lewis Stakes - Santa AnitaTiz Chrome and American Lion were the big stories going in, but Caracortado pulled away from both of them. He rated perfectly under jockey Paul Atkinson, and drew off in the stretch.
It is too early to draw too many conclusions from this race, other than that Caracortado keeps winning. He's now five for five and doesn't know how to lose. That alone makes him a serious contender on the Derby trail.
In fairness to Tiz Chrome and American Lion, they dueled in one of the fastest paces of the day. Consider these paces for other stakes on Saturday at Santa Anita:
Robert Lewis - Three year old males,
1 1/16 miles23 1/5,
47, 1:11 1/5, 1:35 1/5, 1:41 3/5
Caracortado closed 1 1/2 lengths - finishing in approximately 30 seconds for 5/16 miles
Las Virgenes - Three year old fillies,
1 Mile24 1/5,
48 2/5, 1:12 2/5, 1:24, 1:35 4/5
Blind Luck closed 5 lengths in stretch - finishing in :22 2/5 for 1/4 mile
Santa Maria - Fillies and Mares, Four and Up,
1 1/16 miles23 4/5,
48, 1:12 2/5, 1:35 4/5, 1:41 3/5
St Trinians closed about 2 lengths - finishing in :28 4/5 for 5/16 miles
Strub - Males, Four and up,
1 1/8 miles24 1/5,
48 1/5, 1:12, 1:35 4/5, 1:47 4/5
Jeranimo closed four lengths - finishing in 35 seconds for 3/8 of a mile
Looking at this information, it is clear that Tiz Chrome and American Lion set the fastest pace of the day. Caracortado finished up in the same time as the females in the Santa Maria, but he clearly demonstrated the slowest closing time of the day.
With this in mind, we won't take anything away from Caracortado's impressive win, but it did set up for him a bit. Tiz Chrome and American Lion took the worst of it - probably American Lion moreso as he hounded his rival from the outside the entire way and then finished 2 1/4 lengths ahead of Tiz Chrome, only getting beat for second by Dave in Dixie right at the wire. So it will be important to give American Lion this race and figure he will improve next time. Still, we would have liked to see more rating ability from American Lion like Caracortado did.
So, for now, we're going to put Caracortado in the top group of Derby contenders, but we want to see more from him - just like we want to see one more from American Lion.
Sam F. Davis Stakes - Tampa Bay Downs
Just like Caracortado, Rule was impressive and now carries a four-length winning streak. But we didn't learn that much about Rule today. We already knew he could win on the lead going two turns. We knew he could grab the lead from an inside post. And we knew he could withstand pressure and rate nicely with only a slight lead. But he has enough speed to always stay nearly a half length ahead of his rivals, so he never truly has to look them in the eye and duel head to head. At least not yet. And that will be the true test. Since he likely can't win the Derby on the lead and go a mile and a quarter by always staying just a step in front, he's going to have to show the abililty to rate off the lead.
All that being said, this guy is a tough fighter and it will take some good pressure to soften him up. He can be very tough on the Derby trail, but do we like him for the Kentucky Derby - not so much.
Two horses we were really excited to see go two turns were Schoolyard Dreams and the much-hyped Uptowncharlybrown, and it was Schoolyard Dreams that really made an impression. He broke alertly and flanked Rule two-wide around the first turn, then rated nicely about two lengths off the lead, went three wide on the backside and four wide on the turn for home. After all that, we didn't expect him to have much punch, but he ran right up to Rule and tried to make a race of it. When Rule pulled away, Schoolyard Dreams hung with him for a bit before tiring. He will improve off this race and we are very interested to see how he does next time out.
As for Uptowncharlybrown, he closed late but looked overmatched today. He will gain experience off his two-turn debut, so he bears watching, although with much less enthusiasm after today.