Weekend Winners Club

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Wednesday, April 21. The Final Analysis of the Arkansas Derby and undercard reveals a lot, including that Magnum Moon won’t win the Kentucky Derby this year. If he does somehow, it will be the result of no front end runners being in the race, which is possible but not likely at this point.
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There are probably people out there ready to crown Magnum Moon as the next Triple Crown champion after his 4 career races and Arkansas Derby win, if they haven’t done it already with Justify and his 3 career races. Why not just make it Hofburg with his 3 career races and 1 maiden win? That’s why we’re here, to put things in perspective.
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How did Magnum Moon’s running away from the field after setting a marginal pace measure up to the other races at the track that day? This is not only an interesting but useful perspective for the study. There were 7 route races that day, but the Trails End was 14f so it’s kind of irrelevant. We focused on the 6 that were between 8 and 9 furlongs.
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We expected that the fastest fractions and mile time would likely belong to either the optional claimers running only 8 furlongs, or the older Oaklawn Handicap stars to have the best times. The latter ended up being the case, as the Handicap field set the best times across the board, despite racing the longest distance. In fact their 9f time even beat extrapolated 9f times for the horses running shorter distances.
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The other thing we would expect is for 1 of the MSW groups to have the slowest times. Indeed the second group did have the slowest fractions and times except for the initial ¼ mile. However, keep in mind the track was different earlier in the day, rated Good for the 2 MSW groups in races 1 and 3 before it dried out.
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What may be surprising is that the Arkansas Derby group was the second slowest behind that MSW race at half mile and ¾ miles, and only beat the 2 MSW groups at a mile and 8.5f. They were nowhere near the Handicap field, who was much faster at every step in a race run about 40 minutes earlier.
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Thus the pair of 9f stakes races should be the most comparable, but the fields weren’t. The Derby horses were 6/10ths slower at 1st call, 2 full seconds slower at ½ mile, almost 2 seconds slower at 3C, 1.7 seconds slower for the mile and 8.5f, and final times.
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In fact, the only prize the Derby field won was the fastest final furlong, beating the Handicap field by 1/10th of a second. That makes sense because Magnum Moon had plenty of energy left at the end after lollygagging 2 seconds slower at 2C and 3C.
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Thus the Arkansas Derby win was not very impressive, statistically and thus factually. The only field they would have beat at ¾ mile was the 1st maiden group, and the only fields they would have beat at a mile or 8.5f were the two maiden fields running on a wet track not yet rated fast.
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The Derby was at best the 3rd slowest of the 6 races competed at 8-9 furlongs. You would expect more from a Grade 1 field, and the fraction times should have been more comparable to the Handicap field. But in fact it was nowhere near that caliber. They were basically almost 2 seconds slower across the board.
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The bottom line is that Magnum Moon has yet in his vast 4 race career to face a fast pace. It may be that he would hang back and thrive on it, but there’s no evidence of that. It’s easy to have a nice late kick when you gallop around in 48’3 for the half and 1:13’2 for ¾ mile, but not as easy if you’re stalking a 46’3 pace for 10 furlongs.
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So we’re obviously not selling Magnum Moon as a Kentucky Derby champion at this point, and that’s the main reason. He will need to do better than that, and probably can take another step up in class, but he will definitely need to step up in the Run for Roses.

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