While currently ranked 28th in points and on the outside looking in for the GI Kentucky Derby, Red Route One punched his ticket to the second jewel of the Triple Crown with a win Saturday in the Bath House Row S.
After bursting onto the scene with a third to Derby favorite Forte (Violence) in the GI Claiborne Breeders' Futurity last fall, Red Route One earned a pair of placings in both the GIII Southwest S. and the GII Rebel S. before faltering to sixth when last spotted in the GI Arkansas Derby. Racing with Lasix for the first time Saturday, the chestnut put his typical running style into action, breaking nicely but falling back to trail the field as Victory Formation paced them through a :22.87 opening quarter. Under an easy ride from eighth, he started to pick up the bridle into the far turn and tipped out to carry his momentum past the furlong pole. Tapit Shoes was game to the inside but Red Route One got the better bob to take the narrow win on the wire.
Out of a full-sister to champion 3-year-old filly Untapable, Red Route One is also out of a half to GISW Paddy O'Prado (El Prado {Ire}). Red House has not produced a foal or been reported bred since Red Route One. Click for the Equibase.com chart or VIDEO, sponsored by TVG.
BATH HOUSE ROW S., $200,000, Oaklawn, 4-22, 3yo, 1 1/8m, 1:50.94, ft.
1–RED ROUTE ONE, 118, c, 3, by Gun Runner 1st Dam: Red House, by Tapit 2nd Dam: Fun House, by Prized 3rd Dam: Bistra, by Classic Go Go 1ST BLACK TYPE WIN. O/B-Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC (KY);
T-Steven M. Asmussen; J-Joel Rosario. $120,250. Lifetime
Record: GISP, 9-2-2-1, $631,575. *Full to Red Run, SW,
$299,818.
2–Tapit Shoes, 118, c, 3, Tapit–Awesome Flower, by Flower
Alley. ($300,000 Ylg '21 FTKOCT). 1ST BLACK TYPE.
O-Spendthrift Farm LLC, Steve Landers Racing LLC, Martin S.
Schwartz, Michael Dubb, Ten Strike Racing, Jim Bakke,
Titletown Racing, LLC, Kueber Racing, LLC, Big Easy Racing LLC,
Winners Win, Michael Caruso and WinStar Farm, LLC;
B-Kenneth L. & Sarah K. Ramsey & Tapit Syndicate (KY); T-Brad
Cox. $37,000.
3–Victory Formation, 124, c, 3, Tapwrit–Smart N Soft, by Smart
Strike. 'TDN Rising Star'. ($100,000 Wlg '20 KEENOV; $150,000
Ylg '21 FTKJUL; $340,000 2yo '22 EASMAY). O-Spendthrift Farm
LLC and Frank Fletcher Racing Operations, Inc.; B-Gainesway
Thoroughbreds Ltd. (KY); T-Brad H. Cox. $18,500.
Margins: HD, HF, 7HF. Odds: 2.00, 5.20, 1.70.
Also Ran: Two Eagles River, Interlock Empire, Aristocracy, Line to Gain, Mazing Mark, Powerful.
The road to the Triple Crown heats up in New Orleans Saturday with the GII Risen Star S. and GII Rachel Alexandra S.
A full field of 14 will line up in the former, led by unbeaten 'TDN Rising Star' Victory Formation (Tapwrit). One of three entered for Brad Cox, the 3-1 morning-line favorite heads to the post off a front-running tally over stablemate Angel of Empire (Classic Empire) in the Smarty Jones S. going a mile at Oaklawn Jan. 1.
Drawn on the outside in post 13, Victory Formation figures to have plenty of company on the front end if similar tactics are employed in this first attempt at 1 1/8 miles.
“I think he should be able to break well and get a good position,” Cox said. “I'm not too worried about the outside post. He's very quick from the gate and broke really sharp in all three of his starts. Obviously, Flavien [Prat] is a great rider; we're not going to give him too many instructions, and he rode him last time so he does know the horse.”
Cox will also saddle second-choice Tapit's Conquest (Tapit), who looks primed for a breakthrough performance following a strong second with a less-than-ideal trip behind the re-opposing Determinedly (Cairo Prince) in his sophomore debut at Fair Grounds Jan. 21.
“I think he got a lot out of it and he hadn't run since October,” Cox said. “He needed the last race, he's still learning. He didn't really get involved as much as we'd like last time, but ultimately came running, and I think he got a lot out of it from an educational standpoint. He should love a mile and an eighth even more.”
Only two Risen Star entrants–Curly Jack (Good Magic) and Two Phil's (Hard Spun)–have posted wins versus graded stakes company so far.
Curly Jack, winner of the GIII Iroquois S. Sept. 17 and a well-beaten fifth in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, capped his 2-year-old campaign with a very good second behind subsequent GIII Lecomte S. winner Instant Coffee (Bolt d'Oro) in the GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. Nov. 26. Last term's GIII Street Sense S. winner Two Phil's, meanwhile, completed the exacta in the Lecomte last time.
The six-deep Rachel Alexandra is headlined by the highly regarded Hoosier Philly (Into Mischief), who puts a perfect three-for-three record on the line. She concluded her juvenile campaign with a dominating win in Churchill's GII Golden Rod S. Nov. 26.
“We have a lot of expectations for her based on what she's done so far, so there's a lot of anticipation about how she's going to come back at three,” trainer Tom Amoss said. “Her morning preparation has been just as it was when she was two, so that gives us some feeling of confidence going into the race. But still, it is just her first race at three.”
Hoosier Philly closed at 11-1 in the Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool 4, the third choice in wagering.
“That's just noise,” Amoss said. “We're not looking at anything other than this race right now.”
The 13-race card at Fair Grounds also includes the GIII Mineshaft S. and GIII Fair Grounds S.
There are four other graded stakes around the country Saturday–the GIII Royal Delta S. at Gulfstream; the GIII Barbara Fritchie S. and GIII General George S. at Laurel; and the GIII Razorback H. at Oaklawn.
The road to the Kentucky Derby runs through Louisiana Saturday, Feb. 18 and FanDuel TV will be live on-site at Fair Grounds with exclusive coverage of the $400,000 GII Risen Star S. as undefeated Victory Formation (Tapwrit) takes on a field of 12 rivals. There are 50-20-15-10-5 Kentucky Derby qualifying points on the line for the top five finishers.
In addition to the Kentucky Derby prep race, a Kentucky Oaks prep race on Saturday–the $300,000 GII Rachel Alexandra S.–will feature the 3-year-old seasonal bow of GSW Hoosier Philly (Into Mischief).
The world we share with these amazing animals may be an ever-changing one, but its mysteries abide. We consider ourselves ever more knowledgeable, ever more certain, riding the slipstream of science. Yet how much do we truly know, when Afternoon Deelites holds out for all those years and then waits just six days before following his owner to whatever shore may (or may not) lie beyond the horizon of life?
The same journey was made this week by the trainer of Alydar. John Veitch laid the ground for the greatest Triple Crown campaign of any horse that never won a Triple Crown race by giving him 10 starts as a juvenile. Curiously, however, trainers of the succeeding generation appear to have decided either that they have found a better way; or at least that the materials provided, since breeding became an almost exclusively commercial enterprise, are no longer equal to the same kind of treatment.
Trainers today map out the road to the Derby with two priorities: minimize gas consumption, and avoid traffic. That way, they feel, their charges can reach Churchill with a relatively full tank and pristine engine. But the fact is that you always feel able to drive a car more aggressively once it has taken a few bumps and scratches. And you also learn far more about its capacity and response if you have repeatedly had to accelerate or brake to get out of trouble, as compared with cruising along an open road and every six weeks overtaking a laboring truck while barely changing gear.
In the prevailing environment, then, we must give credit to the people at Fair Grounds for redressing the shortfall in conditioning by extending the distance of all three legs of their trials program. If horses can no longer get the kind of mental and physical foundation they once derived from sheer volume of racing, then at least they can have a little more aggregate. With a field of 14, moreover, the GII Risen Star S. is meanwhile guaranteed to steepen the learning curve.
(To listen to this article as a podcast, click the arrow above.)
Saturday will be only the fourth time the race has been run over this extra 1/16th, yet its last two winners have both gone on to finish second in the Derby. One, of course, was actually promoted to first place; while much the same was done for the other by voters at the recent Eclipse Awards.
To be fair, the Risen Star was already on a roll, having lately produced a GI Preakness winner, the phenomenal Gun Runner and the promising stallion Girvin. Between here and Oaklawn, then, you won't find many handicappers nowadays still reducing the quest for the Derby winner to the two dimensions of East and West Coasts. Paradoxically, however, I feel that a still better way to regenerate the Triple Crown trail lurks right at the other end of the spectrum.
Alydar started his Classic campaign over seven furlongs; so too, as it happens, did Afternoon Deelites. With Diana Firestone also among the week's obituaries, we might mention Honest Pleasure and Genuine Risk, who both resumed in sprints as well. That had long been standard procedure, for the old school, as a way of sharpening a horse without penetrating to a vulnerable margin of fitness.
I've often remarked on the dilution of the Derby since the willful exclusion of sprinters under the starting points system. Okay, so they finally managed a meltdown last year and so set up a historic aberration in every way. But otherwise the race has lately been dominated by those setting or sharing a pace shorn of raw sprint competition. And I do think that the Derby's status as the definitive test of the American Thoroughbred, identifying the kind of genes we should want to replicate, is suffering as a result.
Between trainers' dread of running horses at all, and the imperative to bank points when they actually do, we're ending up with the worst of both worlds. Remember that it was as recently as 2015 that Nyquist and Exaggerator cranked each other up over seven in the GII San Vicente S., in 1:20.7, and that didn't work out too badly on Derby day.
I really do think that loading a few points into the San Vicente and the GIII Swale S. would be a smart move by Churchill. Because it doesn't feel as though the model nowadays favored by trainers is working on too many levels. It certainly doesn't work for fans, who get a woefully condensed narrative and reduced engagement; it arguably doesn't help the horses, sent straight into the red zone when they can't be fully fit; and I'm not sure it's working for the Derby, either as a spectacle or as a signpost to genes that can carry meaningful speed.
In the meantime, aptitudes of more obvious pertinence to the Derby scenario will at least be examined in this crowd scene for the Risen Star. And wait, look at this: there's actually a horse in the field with eight starts to his name already. Determinedly (Cairo Prince) is followed here by the pair of Tapits he held off in an allowance last month, a performance rather too faintly praised because everyone had written a different script in advance. Actually this horse's own part keeps being rewritten, having started out on turf and apparently flirted with a return to sprinting. But maybe he can keep some of these flashier types honest, and help to measure the kind of talent Victory Formation (Tapwrit) will need to maintain his unbeaten record from a post out near Baton Rouge.
From a European perspective, it's always surprising that people should be so specific, almost dogmatic, about the optimality of dirt horses operating within so narrow a range. The way people talk, you would think that the poor creatures will drop clean off the edge of the world if venturing that crucial 1/16th too far.
That's why I like to see them given the chance to work on their all-around game, and develop different strengths. Because, if the oldest of Old Friends can be so susceptible even in the span of his years, then what limits might we be putting on the things they do in their prime?
