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Secret Circle

Two Early Derby Favorites Run On Saturday

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It’s the last big round of prep races for the Kentucky Derby and two horses who are big threats to take the checkered flag at Churchill Downs will be in action…wait a minute, that’s a car racing analogy. They’ll be in position to hoist the Cup…no, that’s not it. Okay forget it, but whatever the analogy, just know that Hansen and Secret Circle are two of the favorites to win the Kentucky Derby and both horses will be in separate races  in the Bluegrass Stakes and Arkansas Derby respectively.

Hansen is a heavy 6-5 favorite to win the Bluegrass and the horse trained by Mike Maker and ridden by Ramon Dominguez has lived up to the promise he showed last November in winning a Breeders’ Cup race. Hansen followed that up with a second-place finish in the Holy Bull Stakes in January, an early prep race, and finish that was a big disappointment given the expectations. But the horse showed he was legit in winning the Gotham Stakes at New York’s Aqueduct Racetrack in March.

No other horse in the Bluegrass is going off at odds better than 6-1. Running at that price are Dullahan and Howe Great. The former won a futurity race for two-year-olds last October and has had near-misses since. Howe Great is steadily improving, with top two finishes in his last four races, three of them coming at the competitive meet at Florida’s Gulfstream Park.  Javier Castellano, a good jockey, is in the saddle and if there’s a breakout race in his horse, Castellano will find it. Optimism aside though, there’s a big gap between Howe Great’s previous record and stepping up to beat perhaps the best three-year-old in the country. Of the 13-horse field the only longshot that really catches the eye is Midnight Crooner at 15-1, but this is strictly because of Eclipse Award-winning jockey Garrett Gomez and top trainer Bob Baffert. Midnight Crooner has not yet done anything to merit confidence, so to me this looks like a favorite’s race.

No one has dominated Arkansas the way Secret Circle has since Bill Clinton was racking up political wins. The Arkansas Derby is the third of three big prep races at Oaklawn, each one escalating in quality. Secret Circle has already won the first two, the Southwest Stakes and The Rebel Stakes. Trained by Baffert and ridden by West Coast maestro Rafael Bejarano, he ’s a 5-2 favorite to complete the sweep.

For reasons I can’t figure out, Secret Circle has a rival, at least based on the odds. Bodemeister is at 9-5, with only a second-place finish at Santa Anita’s San Felipe Stakes to his credit. He is a Baffert-trained horse, but given that Secret Circle is too, that can’t explain it. The jockey is Mike Smith and while it’s fair to say that Smith has an edge over Bejarano, it’s not so big as to offset this kind of talent disadvantage. Put another way—think of Smith as Nick Saban, but coaching Kentucky against Oklahoma and Bob Stoops. You might think Saban was a better jockey, but you would never bet on him riding this particular horse unless the oddsmaker made it worth your while. And it’s not in this case.

Other possibilities in Arkansas include Isn’t He Clever and Optimizer. The former has run in five straight stakes races and grabbed two firsts and two seconds. The problem? The fourth-place finish at Santa Anita’s Robert B. Lewis Stakes was the highest-caliber racing that Isn’t He Clever has faced, giving rise to the concern he may be out his league on Saturday. Optimizer is more interesting—he finished second at the Rebel, the best showing of his eight-horse career. If you believe that the Derby trail is about the peaking horse maybe Optimizer is that. We’ll find out on Saturday.

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If you want a longshot in the Arkansas Derby—and who doesn’t—let’s look at Stat, Naijaar and Cozzett. I include the latter out of respect for the jockey/trainer team of Jose Lezcano/Dale Romans and at a price of 15-1, that alone can justify a flier. But there’s nothing in previous races that suggest anything special. Naijaar had a disappointing showing here at the Rebel, finishing sixth, but is ridden by Derby legend Calvin Borel, who’s home track is here in Arkansas and is fresh off an upset win in the Florida Derby aboard Take Home Indy. Stat is the best horse of the longshots, having won three of his four races, and while none are majors, regular readers know that the team of John Velazquez/Todd Pletcher has a lot of credibility with TheSportsNotebook.

I don’t see any reason to pick against the favorites in either race and look for Hansen and Secret Circle to get a  lot of hype heading to Churchill Downs. But if I were at the betting window, Stat in the Arkansas Derby would be worth a shot. The Bluegrass goes off about 6:15 PM ET, with the Arkansas a half-hour later.

Rebel Stakes Preview

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If you want to watch some other sporting event besides college basketball without taking the time to watch and NBA or NHL game, then on Saturday night check out horse racing’s Rebel Stakes. The $500,000 race is the biggest prize we’ve seen thus far on The Road To The Triple Crown, and with only one clear favorite in a 12-horse field there’s a chance to look at longshot when the race at Arkansas’ Oaklawn Park goes off at 6:45 PM ET (TVG & HR-TV on your sports channel listing). TheSportsNotebook takes a look at the favorite, the three most likely challengers and a couple of long, longshots.

Secret Circle is priced at 9-5 as of late Friday afternoon and is a top-heavy favorite to win his second big race here in Arkansas. The horse, trained by California mastermind Bob Baffert and ridden by Rafael Bejarano, one of the top jockeys in the West, won the Southwest Stakes at this venue back in February. Secret Circle also won a Breeders’ Cup race for juveniles (the term used for two-year old horses a year away from competing for the Triple Crown—kind of like an All-Star game for AAA players in baseball), and in two stakes races at SoCal’s competitive Santa Anita meet took him a first and a second. There’s a good reason everyone is expecting Baffert to be in the winner’s circle.

The top three challengers are currently listed at either 5-1 or 6-1, and they are Sabercat, Adirondack King and Naijaar. We’ll start with Sabercat, who’s won his last three races at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park and Louisiana’s Delta Downs, including two stakes races. However those tracks, especially Delta Downs, don’t have nearly the caliber of horses as will be in the starting gate on Saturday. On the plus side, Sabercat is trained by Steve Asmussen, who’s won national championships for wins several times in his career and trained Rachel Alexandra, who in 2009 became the first filly in 76 years to win the Preakness Stakes.

Adirondack King ran third in the Southwest Stakes here, won a stakes race in Philadelphia—a relatively small track in spite of its big market—and took third in a Tampa Bay stakes race. But surely the most interesting of the challengers is Naijaar, ridden by Calvin Borel. Casual horse racing fans know Borel is the one who won three Kentucky Derbies in four years, including an epic run with 50-1 longshot Mine That Bird in 2009. What’s noteworthy here is that Borel was long familiar to racing fans here at Oaklawn, which is as close to his home track as a jockey can have. It’s at Oaklawn that Borel mastered the lag back, move to the rail and shoot up the inside that electrified national audiences at Churchill Downs. This would be a fun bet at 6-1, but be aware that as money comes in, the odds change. And unlike football or basketball, the bettor does *not* get the line they bet it, but the line that exists when the book closes. It’s a raw deal, and I’m willing to bet that the Oaklawn crowd and those at off-track betting facilities will put enough money on Naijaar and Borel to bet the line down. If it goes at 5-1 or higher, I’d bet it, otherwise I’d leave it alone and not bother to challenge Secret Circle.

The ultra-longshots aren’t real promising here, although with eight other horse in the field there’s at least raw volume. The ones that caught my eye are Optimizer, trained by legendary D. Wayne Lukas, and Atigun, trained by Ken McPeek, who’s put together a nice record mostly in New York. They have opposite resumes. Optimizer has run in two stakes races, but fared poorly. Atigun has run in off-Broadway races, and gotten a couple wins, although even more so-so performances make him a question mark. I wouldn’t actually step in on either horse.

But it promises to be an exciting couple minutes to watch and perhaps Secret Circle will work his way onto the list of early Derby favorites.