Weekend Winners Club

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Monday, March 18, 2019. Oaklawn Park had a big race day on Saturday, picking up some slack for the cancellation of the San Felipe by adding a 2nd Rebel Stakes. They officially stamped at least 2 Kentucky Derby tickets given that each Rebel G2 win was worth 37.5 points, and 2 others look to have acquired enough to get in as well.
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After a brief recap of the Kentucky Derby implications, what we have to do next of course is look at what impact the Grid had in respect to winners and payouts, which is always fun to prove what a valuable tool it is. Then we will actually break down the fractions and who the fastest horses on the day were.
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KENTUCKY DERBY POINTS IMPLICATIONS
As shown in the Kentucky Derby Points leaderboard, the two Rebel winners will get in to the Kentucky Derby if desired. Long Range Toddy already had points and Omaha Beach won’t need more than the 37.5 he earned. 2 others look like they earned enough points with their Rebel runs.
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Improbable did not have enough points but the 25 now should be enough. Gunmetal Gray only got 4th but that may end up being the points he needed to run for the roses, since the cutoff is normally 20. BC Juvenile winner Game Winner already had enough points with the 30 he had coming in.
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OAKLAWN SATURDAY WITH THE GRID
Now for the fun part, Grid After Action Review (GAAR, we just made it up.) The Grid started and ended the day by providing some great long shots, including in both Rebel runs. Here are the highlights.
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R1 2:05ET 6f D Md Sp Wt 3 YO: 7-1 winner had 3rd EP rating, just 2 points from the top mark with 95. He also had the best trainer percentages shown in the Grid.
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R2 2:38ET 12f D Alw 8000s 3 UP: 19-1 winner was top 4 in LP and Stamina, and just 1 point off top Power ranking with 92.
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R3 3:11ET 8.5f D Md Sp Wt 3 YO: 6-1 winner had top LP and 3rd in Stamina just 2 points off top mark
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The next 4 races were mostly chalky in the top 3 or 4 positions, including the 5 horse Azeri field.
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R8 5:57ET 8.5f D Rebel-G2 3 YO: 8-1 winner Long Range Toddy was top 3 in LP, Stamina, and Power, trailing only Improbable and Galilean in those categories, who finished 2nd and 3rd at low odds. In 4th was 9-1 Extra Hope, who was top 4 or 5 in all categories. Easy super in a 7 horse field.

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R9 6:29ET 8.5f D EssexHL350k 4 UP: 15-1 winner Rated R Superstar was 2nd in LP and 4th in Stamina rating. In 2nd was 6-1 Snapper Sinclair, 1st in Speed, 2nd in Stamina, and top 3 in all other categories. In 3rd was the favorite, and 4th was 19-1 Nanoosh, 2nd in Power and top 4 in other cats.
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R10 7:06ET 8.5f D Rebel-G2 3 YO: Omaha Beach wasn’t a long shot at 4-1, but was 2nd in Power and top 4 in other categories. Game Winner was the fav and obvious key horse. It was a hard reach to Market King in 3rd but he actually was 3rd in EP. Needless to say at 48-1 he was overlooked by most. Gunmetal Gray in 4th at 11-1 was top 5 in Stamina and LP.

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R11 7:38ET 6f D Md Sp Wt 3 YO: The Grid doesn’t really give you 1st time starters as winners, but at 20-1 with Asmussen training, and the great trainer stat percentages shown, it would have been a great win bet and inclusion in exotics.
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So there were some great long shots and value plays according to the Grid, and some nice resulting exotic and WPS payouts as well. Don’t believe?
Check out the Oaklawn Grid here, provided free last Saturday.
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ANALYSIS OF FRACTIONS AND TIMES FOR SATURDAY’S OAKLAWN.
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The format of Oaklawn’s Saturday card lends itself to a way in which we can make a lot of comparisons between the races and evaluate many more 3yo’s than in just the 2 Rebel runs. For example, there were 7 races at 8.5f and 1 at 8f. There were also 7 3yo races, including 5 at the same distance of 8.5.
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For our purposes here we’re going to mostly skip over the two 6f races and just mention that Youvesaiditall won the Battleofthebulge in those 2 as the fastest 3yo of the day with his 6f of 1:10.50 seconds. The 12f race is not valid for any comparisons either as it was much slower than any other.
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Not too surprisingly, the 2 fastest 8.5f times of the day were registered by the Rebel runners, the top 4 of which were very close in times. For our purposes we’ll approximate fractions of a full length which is generally accepted to be about 0.17 seconds.
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The fastest 8.5 furlong times of the day were:
1:42.42 Omaha Beach, 1st in Rebel 2
1:42.43 Game Winner, 2nd in Rebel 2
1:42.49 Long Range Toddy, 1st in Rebel 1
1:42.53 Improbable, 2nd in Rebel 1
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So the top 4 3yo’s at 8.5f were definitely the Rebel winners and runners up, beating the times of the winners of the older horse stakes races. If the 3yos were theoretically in the same race they would all be within a length of each other.
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As it was, both of the Rebels did play out much differently, as Long Range Toddy didn’t lead until the last few strides of Rebel 1 while Omaha Beach clung for dear life to his early lead which posted slightly faster fractions throughout than the Rebel 1 win.
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Indeed the fastest 6f of those that went 8.5f was Omaha Beach, tied with Nanoosh who finished 4th in the Essex. In addition, the Rebel 2 had a field of 10 compared to the prior field of 7. So we could be correct in deducing that the 2nd Rebel run was the strongest with Omaha Beach and Game Winner.
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But the top 4 were all very close, and both races were ran differently. In addition, with Game Winner gaining with every stride, it was clear in that particular race he would have passed Omaha Beach with just another 0.5f. “In that race” being the key words. In a 10f race, Omaha Beach may not run that fast early either.
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So, all of these comparisons are somewhat subjective, and any deductions speculative. But with Game Winner coming in as the top ranked 3yo and barely losing to the best runner of the day, we can also deduce that these 4 are probably the cream of the crop of 3yos.
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They also just appeared in the top 10 of the 3yo Beyer Leaderboard today, with Game Winner and Omaha Beach in a virtual tie for 4th . On a related note, Alwaysmining is just 1 Beyer behind them after registering his 4th consecutive stakes at Laurel in the Private Terms.
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The results for that race, the Rebels, and all other relevant 3yo races are posted on the Kentucky Derby Prep Resultss page. Stay tuned to the Kentucky Derby Central Page for more analysis, results, articles, rankings, and of course changes in the point standings.
Derby Double Dozen will also be updated this week.

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