Weekend Winners Club

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Monday, May 6, 2018. Last week, we pummeled you with articles, all of which pointed to a winning trifecta and possibly even a superfecta if you had the Grid. You would have been hard pressed to get better information somewhere else, but then again, it wasn’t too difficult to get the top 3.
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While armchair jockeys and trainers bragged about picking the favorite to win, as if that’s difficult, or complained that another favorite won, as if there’s anything that we can do about that, we just keep cranking out great info that gives you the best shot.
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This discussion is in terms of where the top 4 Derby finishers ranked in these articles. And let’s be honest right away, INSTILLED REGARD was the longest shot in the field. NOBODY saw him coming, or did they? Stay tuned to the end when the Derby Grid A-LIST is shown.
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Let’s start with the Derby Dozen posted April 16. This was the last Kentucky Derby ranking list that we posted, so we have to consider it as the official final Derby ranking list on our site. Yes we were ready to bet the race 3 weeks beforehand.
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JUSTIFY: 4th
GOOD MAGIC: 1st
AUDIBLE: 3rd
INSTILLED REGARD: not in the top 20 and had not drawn into the race yet. Still behind 2 alternates.
SYNOPSIS: You could have just boxed the top 4 for the trifecta right there. We can Justify 4th because he only ran 3 career races and had 2 big curses to overcome, which he must have used Good Magic for.
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Just going chronologically, I noticed we did a special article focusing just on Magnum Moon and his Arkansas Derby win, and why he would NOT win the Kentucky Derby. He actually finished 19th, so that article was well placed.

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Moving along, Kentucky Derby 2018 sires and sirelines was another big one that combined a lot of history with knowledge and memory from experience. 14 sirelines listed, here’s how they measured up.
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JUSTIFY: 4th
GOOD MAGIC: 1st
AUDIBLE: 11th
INSTILLED REGARD: 14th
SYNOPSIS: It was somewhat subjective but solid. Maybe Into Mischief moves up next time.
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The next article was called Major Preps Winners and Runners Up, 1997-Present. The purpose of the article was emphasizing that statistically, there is a 62% chance the Derby winner won his final major prep race, and 90% chance he was 1st or 2nd. Meaning your A-LIST was the 6 major prep winners.
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JUSTIFY: 1st final prep
GOOD MAGIC: 1st final prep
AUDIBLE: 1st final prep
INSTILLED REGARD: 4th final prep
SYNOPSIS: As advertised, not only the winner but 2nd and 3rd place were from the 6 A-list horses.
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Next up was Kentucky Derby Jockeys and Trainers, which showed the list of the past 20 winners of the Derby, and highlighting those who were repeat winners. This resulted in 6 A-List trainers, ranked accordingly, who had already won the Derby before. Then there were B-List trainers who hadn’t won yet, but probably will.
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JUSTIFY: 1st on A-List, now 5 time Derby winning trainer Baffert.
GOOD MAGIC: 1st on B-List, Derby runner up Brown
AUDIBLE: 3rd on A-List, 2 time Derby winner Pletcher
INSTILLED REGARD: Hollendorfer didn’t make either list, but he’s been around for a while and is a legit trainer.
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In the same article, we also covered the Jockeys, as advertised, and sorted them similarly, according to prior Derby wins and potential to win 1 if they haven’t. Only 4 made the A-List as previous winners.

JUSTIFY: 4th on A-List, Mike Smith won his 2nd Derby
GOOD MAGIC: B-List jockey Jose Ortiz
AUDIBLE: B-List Javier Castellano is Pletcher’s 2nd fav rider but still hasn’t won the big one.
INSTILLED REGARD: C-List newcomer Drayden Van Dyke had a hell of a first run.
SYNOPSIS: Ortiz and especially Castellano are considered A-List jockeys by most people, but for the purposes of this article, A-List was only prior Derby winners. If we had taken the time to rank all those on the B-List, Castellano would be #1 on that list. Ortiz would have been maybe 5. But alas, the winner was another repeat jockey from A-List.

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The last article written on Derby day itself was, called Kentucky Derby for Complete Dummies, and although sprinkled with humor, it greatly simplified a way to rank horses based on qualifications. Assigning an A or B to 5 different categories, it left us with 5 A-List horses and 5 B-List contenders.
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JUSTIFY: A-LIST
GOOD MAGIC: A-LIST
AUDIBLE: A-LIST
INSTILLED REGARD: D-LIST?
SYNOPSIS: Top 3 all from 5 on the A-List. Dummies should have bet them.
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That brings us to the real deal, distributed only to paid subscribers and buyers, the 2018 Kentucky Derby Grid itself, which you may or may not have seen. The Derby Grid does assign scores and even gives some rankings, but the key is that the horse must have a critical score of 16 or up to qualify as Derby champion (A-List).
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This year was odd as there were 8 top qualifiers in the field. Normally there are about 4-6, as in last year there were 4 and Derby Champ Always Dreaming was 1 of them. The good news is that of this year’s top 4 Derby finishers, all 4 were on the A-List or qualified contenders. Including Instilled Regard!
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JUSTIFY: A-List. Missed 2 factors: only 3 lifetime races, no wins (or races) at age 2.
GOOD MAGIC: A-List. Missed factors: only 2 3yo prep races, speed fig over >= 100 as 3yo.
AUDIBLE: A-List: Missed factors: only 2 3yo preps, dosage points less than 16
INSTILLED REGARD: A-List. Finally! Missed: Top 5 in speed average, 1st or 2nd in G1/G2 as 3yo.
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SYNOPSIS:
People spoke very seriously about the Curse of Apollo, and Justify’s short racing career. Yes those are important factors, but the purpose behind the Derby Grid is that NO SINGLE FACTOR disqualifies a horse from winning the Derby. The point is to have most of the factors. As you can see, all of the above missed two factors.
Justify’s short racing career cost him 2 factors, but that was it. His blazing speed and class that he showed in the G1 Santa Anita Derby and prior 2 races took care of all the other factors. Instilled Regard nailed all the historical factors and only missed out on 2 speed/class factors.
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But the Grid gives you a lot more information than that. It actually shows you all the critical factors, where they finished in their last prep, and like 80 different factors. For example, there were only 5 horses with auction prices of $500k or more. 3 of them finished top 3. The most expensive, $3M Mendessohn, finished last after his debacle.
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So there you have it. If you ingested any of the information above beforehand, I don’t see how you don’t get an easy exacta and trifecta out of it. Of course, a lot of people did, because it wasn’t that difficult, and as evidence it didn’t pay much. But if you did several combinations of logical horses, you could have had several winning tickets.
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The superfecta was a lot harder. You’d almost have to wheel all at the bottom, or just get lucky. Wheeling the 4 spot is usually a good strategy, but almost as often, the illogical long shot comes in the 2 or 3 spot. And worse, sometimes multiple ridiculous long shots in the super.
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A logical long shot for the super would have been Solomini or My Boy Jack, who did get 5th, horses that finish 2nd or 3rd a lot, and have won stakes races. Not a horse coming off 4th place finishes in his last 2 preps. But the stars and muddy track aligned just right for him. We also need to upgrade Drayden Van Dyke, whose previous ride on Instilled Regard resulted in a narrow loss by ¾ length in the Los Al G1 Futurity.
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What does this all mean for the Preakness? Not much! That’s for the next article. Stay tuned!

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