Loading ...May 05 2022
Derby Lesson 22-02: Jockeys and Trainers, Connections, and Impact values
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May 5 2022. The Derby Lesson Series continues with issue 22-02 regarding the jockey and trainer connections and what kind of impact they have on a Kentucky Derby performance. First let’s take a look at an extraction from our Triple Crown Master Database.
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You may not be surprised to find many repeat offenders in the jockey and trainer columns. For example, the names John Velazquez, Victor Espinoza, Bob Baffert, and Todd Pletcher appear a lot.
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In fact, by far a majority of Kentucky Derby editions in the past 25 years have been jockey or trainer repeats. You might also be surprised to see that Wayne Lukas trained his first of many Derby champions 34 years ago, and in fact has a horse in the 2022 edition.
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What does it all mean? Is it because these jockeys and trainers are better than everyone, or do they just get the best horses to enter? It’s the age old chicken and egg question. The truth is that it’s a combination of the above. They get the best horses to train and ride because they’re at the top of the profession.
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The great thing about the Derby Grid is that it has all this information, and much more, in it. For example you’ll see in this extraction of data from the spreadsheet version of the Grid, little markers in the corners of the cells. When you click or hover on the cell, you see additional embedded information.
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For example, the horse name cell contains the horses’ owner, silks colors, date of birth, lifetime record and earnings. The Sire column comments include the grandsire, dam, and damsire, and who and where the horse was bred.
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The trainer and jockey cells in the Derby Grid contain the Triple Crown race record of each. Let’s see what this looks like when expanded.
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For the purposes of this exercise, we are treating the Yakteen trainees as Baffert trainees, for very legitimate reasons. They were issued to Baffert for training to begin with because they are high class horses. But Baffert had to transfer them to his former assistant trainer (or somebody else he trusts) in order to even earn Kentucky Derby points, because the Derby organization has him suspended.
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Interestingly enough, the rules of the suspension do not preclude the two trainers from talking to each other, over the phone or in person, or even going out to Jeff Ruby Steaks and enjoying some great food and drink. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them there this week, but I guarantee they’re talking daily.
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To emphasize the best thoroughbred trainer in history getting the best horses, consider that Taiba was a whopping $1.7 million dollar yearling at auction, almost 4 times the next nearest auction price, which was stablemate Messier. Taiba has lived up to it so far, taking the Santa Anita Derby in his second career race, leaving Messier and others in the dust.
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There’s a lot of info to digest here, and I will be giving grades to these in the final lesson Derby for Dummies. But I can guarantee you two things: The 2 trainers and 2 jockeys that have never Run for the Roses, won’t touch any purse money. And the winner will be a repeat trainer and/or jockey.
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The Kentucky Derby Grid has all of this information and more than 80 historical and performance factors, and final rankings on such if you desire. Or you can just stay tuned to Derby Lessons, get most of the information, and await the Derby for Dummies on Saturday if I can even get to it. 3-4 more lessons need to be crammed in before that.
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