Horse racing

Whose Derby is it anyway?

And so it has come to this: The horse who won an insignificant stakes on an artificial surface at a minor racetrack in England has a reserved spot in the starting gate for the Kentucky Derby, and the horse who ran second in the Florida Derby may not even get a chance to race for the world’s most famous roses.

Yes, it’s stunningly, shockingly and even frighteningly absurd. Horse racing finds itself in a bizarre place of distortion and warped priorities, a place not unlike the Fun House at the Texas State Fair. Only it’s not fun.

Dunkirk gave an excellent performance while finishing second to Quality Road in Saturday’s Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. On a speed-favoring, jazzed up surface, Dunkirk rallied from far back despite a wide trip around the second turn. His effort was nearly as impressive as the winner’s, and it emphatically insisted, not that there was much doubt about it, that he deserves to be included among the top 3-year-olds in the country. In other words, he’s just the sort of horse everybody wants to see in the Kentucky Derby.

But by my calculations, updated through Saturday, Dunkirk is tied for 21st in graded earnings among the Kentucky Derby possibilities. Only 19 spots are available in the starting gate, with preference based on earnings in graded stakes. And, of course, one spot is reserved for Mafaaz, the winner of the $115,000 Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes at Kempton Park, a race that was created in an embarrassingly wrong-headed display of propitiation.

And so Mafaaz is in, and Dunkirk isn’t. Not yet anyway. Some with more earnings could pass on the Derby, moving him into the top 19, but with several lucrative stakes remaining, some with smaller bankrolls could soon surpass him. Imperial Council has $50,000 in graded earnings going into Saturday’s Wood Memorial at Aqueduct, and Charitable Man will take $150,000 into the Blue Grass. Dunkirk’s Derby status is very uncertain.

The silly Kempton Park race wasn’t one of Churchill Downs’ better ideas. But the entire process of restricting the field to 20 starters is flawed. First of all, it relinquishes authority to the American Graded Stakes Committee, allowing the committee, in effect, to determine who will or won’t start in the Kentucky Derby. Why would Churchill abnegate control of its showcase attraction, and why do so to a committee that consistently botches up its primary task of grading stakes?

Second, the process doesn’t distinguish in any way among the graded stakes. Dollars that a 2-year-old earns in the Grade III Bashford Manor at six furlongs count just as much as the money earned by a 3-year-old in the Grade I Wood Memorial at 1 1/8 miles. The Delta Jackpot, with its $750,000 purse, is just as important in terms of qualifying for the roseate run as the Florida Derby. In fact, the runner-up in the Delta Jackpot, West Side Bernie, is virtually certain to have a place the Derby lineup, unlike the runner-up in Florida.

And then there’s the problem of Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed has created a race, the $2 million UAE Derby, where his own horses can collect tickets to Kentucky. With his victory Saturday, Regal Ransom sits atop the graded earnings list with $1,250,000. The UAE runner-up, Desert Party, is fourth with $641,667.

Churchill should ask itself whether the Kentucky Derby is run for the graded stakes committee, the Europeans, the Sheikhs or the American racing fans. Whose Derby is it anyway?

Some will argue that Todd Pletcher could have run Dunkirk in another graded stakes or that he could still. Many of these same people argue that trainers should always do what’s best for their horses. Well, isn’t that precisely why Dunkirk is so lightly raced. He had some shin problems last year, Pletcher explained, and so didn’t race as a 2-year-old. Pletcher brought Dunkirk along slowly and incrementally. He did, in other words, what was best for the horse. Should the price of that be exclusion from the Derby?

The problem has no easy solution. Some will point out that the Kentucky Derby got along very nicely thank you for many years without limiting the field to 20. But in recent years, the Kentucky Derby has become so popular and such a monolithic objective in the minds of so many owners and trainers that there must be some process for limiting the field should more than 20 horses be entered.

And so here’s a suggestion, provided not so much by me as by recent history. Since 1980, the Blue Grass (114), Santa Anita Derby (96), Florida Derby (93), Arkansas Derby (81) and Wood Memorial (73) have produced the most Kentucky Derby starters. During that same period, the Louisiana Derby has produced two Kentucky Derby winners and more than 50 starters. Clearly, those are the most meaningful preparatory races for the Triple Crown.

Horses that finish first or second in any of those stakes should automatically have a place reserved for them in the starting gate for the Kentucky Derby. Beyond that, should more  than 20 horses be entered, or pre-entered, a committee could rate the remaining horses by preference based on their accomplishments.

Yes, some would no doubt question the committee’s ratings. They will be only as good as the committee itself. But that’s where Churchill can regain control of the Derby to ensure it will be the best race possible for the sport’s fans: by appointing a committee of respected experts that won’t include the marketing genius who dreamed up the Kentucky Derby Challenge at Kempton Park.  

Pulling a rabbit out of the barn

Todd Pletcher said one thing worries him about Saturday’s Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park: Quality Road running easily and unchallenged. Actually, Pletcher said the one thing he didn’t want to see Saturday was “a horse the caliber of Quality Road” alone and cruising on the lead. But the only horse the caliber of Quality Road is, well, Quality Road. And from Pletcher’s point of view, that’s the problem.

That’s why the trainer said he’s “strongly considering” entering a maiden named Europe in the Florida Derby. Europe would be, of course, nothing more than a “rabbit,” a horse with little chance -- or, in this case, absolutely no chance -- of winning, but a horse with a mission -- in this case, a suicidal one. And that mission, of course, is to ensure a lively pace, or, as Pletcher put it, “to make sure it’s at least an honestly run race.”

And this magic act, this pulling a rabbit out of his barn, might be a good thing -- not only for Pletcher and the Florida Derby, but also for Quality Road.

Dunkirk, of course, is Pletcher’s hope for the Florida Derby. A $3.7 million yearling who’s unbeaten in two races, Dunkirk looked just about as good as a horse possibly can at this point in his development when he won an allowance race at Gulfstream on Feb. 19 by nearly five lengths despite a wide trip.

But he has no graded earnings, and Saturday’s race may be his only opportunity to collect some. That’s why a good performance is essential: Without it, Dunkirk probably won’t get into the Kentucky Derby field.

Dunkirk could very well be as talented as Quality Road, the Fountain of Youth winner, and at longer distances he could even prove to be superior. But Dunkirk doesn’t have Quality Road’s speed. Nor do Beethoven and Theregoesjojo, who’ll be the other contenders in what’s expected to be a small Florida Derby field. And so Quality Road could indeed control the pace Saturday and have everything his own way; he could turn the Florida Derby into a Florida Strollinthepark.

In the Fountain of Youth, Quality Road pressed an opening half-mile of 45.55 -- and, keep in mind, the opening splits for the one-mile distance at Gulfstream are typically and deceptively slow -- and then drew clear down the lane to win by more than four lengths. Of course, as his trainer, Jimmy Jerkens, pointed out, the two turns of the Florida Derby represent a very different challenge from the one-turn of the Fountain of Youth, which was essentially a long sprint. Still, if the long-striding colt who’s a silky mover gets into a loping, cruise-control sort of rhythm on an unchallenged lead in, say, 47.20 for the opening half-mile, he’ll be as hard to catch as your shadow.

Who can run with him? Well, maybe Europe, although only briefly. He has started only once, on Feb. 21 at Gulfstream: He didn’t break sharply and was about 7 1/2 lengths behind a swift opening half-mile in 45.12 before finishing fourth, beaten about 11 lengths after five furlongs by Presto Change O. If asked, Europe could probably find enough early speed to force or set a lively pace in the Florida Derby, and that’s all Pletcher would expect from him.

Is that fair? Is it sporting?  Well, it’s not only sporting, it’s in keeping with one of sport’s time-honored traditions. Using one competitor to ensure a lively pace for the advantage of another has been a traditional ploy in racing of all kinds. Without Chris Chataway as a pacesetter, Roger Bannister wouldn’t have broken the four-minute barrier for the mile, or at least not when he did, on May 6, 1954. Without such a strategy, Buckpasser and Damascus wouldn’t have beaten Dr. Fager. And Jerkens said if he were in Pletcher’s position, he would consider doing the same thing.

The irony is that Europe’s participation could also work to the advantage of Quality Road, not in the Florida Derby perhaps but maybe in the Kentucky Derby. If Quality Road is going to be successful May 2, he may have to rate behind a very lively pace, he may have to stalk a speedy pacesetter, or he may have to do, in other words, exactly what Europe could force him to do Saturday.

Quality Road is fast, very fast, but, Jerkens said, the colt isn’t headstrong. Quality Road will allow himself to be rated.

“I’d be surprised if he didn’t handle it,” Jerkens said about Quality Road’s stretching out around two turns for the first time and to Saturday’s nine-furlong distance. He’s developing, Jerkens said, into the kind of horse who could be “a real good one.” And a European presence might even enhance that development.

Charitable Man to the Blue Grass

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin has circled April 11 and has picked out the Blue Grass Stakes for Charitable Man’s return.

One of the most highly regarded 2-year-olds of 2008, Charitable Man hasn’t raced since winning Belmont’s Futurity in September. An injury cut his juvenile campaign short. But in preparing for his return, the unbeaten son of Lemon Drop Kid has had six workouts in Florida, the latest being Sunday’s five furlongs in 1:00.20. McLaughlin said the colt is training “fabulously.”

McLaughlin said he also considered the Wood Memorial, the Florida Derby and the Arkansas Derby for the colt’s return. But, he said, many reasons -- I Want Revenge, Old Fashioned, Quality Road and Dunkirk among them -- led him to choose the $750,000 Blue Grass at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

McLaughlin will send a large group of horses to Keeneland at the end of the month. The Blue Grass, he said, will give him a week longer than the Wood to prepare Charitable Man. And McLaughlin said he believes Keeneland’s Polytrack would be right for this horse in this situation.

McLaughlin pointed out that Charitable Man probably wouldn’t need much in earnings to get into the Kentucky Derby field. Charitable Man is currently No. 17 in earnings among Kentucky Derby contenders. The field, of course, is limited to 20.

Louisiana Derby day

NEW ORLEANS -- I’ve held off on doing this simply because the rain has held off. The weather handicappers said rain would fall on this city last night, continue until this morning, take a siesta and then return this afternoon or tonight.

That hasn’t happened, and so the new and improved forecast calls for the rain to arrive around 1 o’clock this afternoon, take a break and then return for some serious fun later, just in time for the Louisiana Derby.

And so it’s impossible to guess how fast or wet or muddy or whatever the track will be for today’s major stakes races at Fair Grounds, or how wet the turf course might be. Nevertheless, here are some thoughts.

Fair Grounds Oaks: Rachel Alexandra, I believe, is among the best 3-year-olds in the country, regardless of gender. And it will be a shock if she doesn’t win this, whatever the condition of the track. Four Gifts, who’s quite capable and accomplished, is the most likely runner-up. But War Tigress has sufficient speed to control the pace; she should improve in her second start of the year. And if the track is muddy, well, Flying Spur seems to love it.

New Orleans Handicap: Honest Man could emerge from this race as one of the best older horses in the country. He flashed his talent and potential last year when he won the Iselin at Monmouth. And he made an explosive move to win the recent Mineshaft Handicap. He’s learned to control his speed and to distribute his energy effectively, and he has run well on a wet track. Wishful Tomcat returns to real dirt after two disappointing efforts on the synthetic stuff in California. He has won three of his last four starts on dirt, and he’ll probably enjoy the kind of trip that has produced his best efforts -- that is, he should be on the early lead. At 10-1, he’s very inviting. The two horses from Florida -- It’s a Bird and Dry Martini -- are contenders, based on their Sunshine Millions efforts.

Mervyn Muniz Memorial Handicap: Well, I have to try to guess the weather for this one. Proudinsky prefers a soft over a hard turf course. Last year here, while making his seasonal debut after having finished second in the San Gabriel, he won the Muniz over a “yielding” course. This year he returns, having completed his 2008 campaign with a victory in the San Gabriel, and he once again could find a “yielding” or soft course. Transduction Gold has won three of his five races over the Fair Grounds course, including his last at a distance that’s not his best. Soldier’s Dancer is obviously very sharp, with four stakes wins from his last seven starts.

Louisiana Derby: Well, I’ve narrowed it down to five. The LaDerby field is deep with talent and potential, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of these on May 2 at Churchill Downs. As for immediate investment possibilities, several of these have appeal. Giant Oak had a nightmarish trip in the Risen Star, with Edgar Prado riding. The two just didn’t get along. And James Graham, a very capable jockey who has been getting on Giant Oak in the big colt’s workouts here, will be aboard today. And the instructions will be simple: Keep the horse in the clear.

As Chris Block, Giant Oak’s trainer, pointed out when I spoke with him Thursday morning, this horse is just so big, his stride so long, that he can’t quickly recover his momentum once it’s interrupted. That’s what happened in the Risen Star. Giant Oak advanced into an alley with no exit, had to drop back, shift to the outside and try to recover his momentum. He finished fifth. Anyway, Graham will keep the big colt -- he’s about 17 hands tall -- in the clear today. “We may have to sacrifice some ground for a clear trip,” Block said, meaning Giant Oak will probably be wide. But he’ll be running.

Friesan Fire has won consecutive stakes here, and he turned in a jaw-dropping workout Monday (five furlongs in 58.20). Was that too much? His trainer Larry Jones doesn’t think so. But Jones did say that this will probably be Friesan Fire’s last race before the Kentucky Derby, suggesting he’s concerned about the colt’s peaking too early, as in today. Flying Pegasus raced wide and still finished second in his first start of the year. He should step forward today, along with Patena. And Papa Clem, who’s making his first start on dirt, is intriguing.

Duncan F. Kenner Stakes: Kodiak Kowboy ran the best race of his career when he returned from a layoff to win last year’s Amsterdam. He began his 2008 campaign when he returned from a layoff to win by six at Oaklawn Park. In other words, Kodiak Kowboy has always given an outstanding effort when he’s fresh, and he’s fresh today. He also has the talent to win this. Ikigai, however, has dangerous speed and could control the pace, and Sok Sok is unbeaten in two races at Fair Grounds.

Rachel's out to prove who's best

NEW ORLEANS -- The Kentucky Oaks is the objective; proving she’s the best filly in the country is the priority. And then maybe they’ll think about asking Rachel Alexandra to take on the boys, “somewhere down the road,” as her trainer, Hal Wiggins, put it.

Wiggins said he’s looking forward to Rachel Alexandra’s eventual confrontation with Stardom Bound, the champion juvenile filly of a year ago and the top 3-year-old filly on the West Coast. If both fillies continue to win, their meeting on May 1 in the Kentucky Oaks would be enormously exciting and salubrious for the sport. First up, though, for Rachel Alexandra is Saturday’s Fair Grounds Oaks.

She traveled uneventfully here from Hot Springs, Ark., where she had won Oaklawn Park’s Martha Washington Stakes last month. Since arriving at Fair Grounds, she has found her way to the bottom of the feed tub regularly, and she had a comfortable and easy gallop around the Fair Grounds oval Friday. “Everything’s good,” Wiggins said.

“She has a good, good mind,” the trainer continued, building, as if brick by brick, a description of her virtues. “That’s one of the special qualities about her. Nothing ever seems to bother her; she never gets excited.

“And she’s very, very talented. She does everything so easily. She runs by horses and just looks like she’s galloping.”

Yes, she’s very, very talented. Her juvenile campaign was interrupted by an injury, a non-displaced chip in an ankle; still, she concluded the season with a resounding victory in the Golden Rod Stakes at Churchill, where her winning time for the 1 1/16 miles was a full second faster than the colts’ in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes.

In the Martha Washington, her seasonal debut, she romped, winning by eight lengths. It was arguably the best two-turn effort this year by any 3-year-old (this was, of course, before I Want Revenge’s Gotham) and it was lengths better than any performance Stardom Bound has given.

“She’s the fastest 3-year-old here,” said Scott Blasi about Rachel Alexandra, “and that includes the horses in the (Louisiana) Derby.”

Blasi offered that assessment of the Oaks favorite as he described the formidable task of trying to defeat her Saturday. Blasi is the assistant here to trainer Steve Asmussen; they’ll send out Four Gifts in the Oaks. A stakes winner of $391,029, Four Gifts is an accomplished filly herself, but, as Blasi said, if Rachel Alexandra has brought here best effort with her to New Orleans, they’ll all have “a lot of catching up to do.”

Wiggins said he has no definite plans for Rachel Alexandra following Saturday’s race. She could make her next start, he said, in the Fantasy at Oaklawn or perhaps in the Ashland at Keeneland. Or she could just wait for the Kentucky Oaks.

That’s where, Wiggins said, “we’ll get to find out who’s best.”

Some, of course, already have a firm opinion on that subject. Fast females always have been part of New Orleans’ allure. And that, frankly, is why I’m here: to see the best and fastest 3-year-old filly in the country.

Magna files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

Magna Entertainment Corp., the parent company of Lone Star Park, has filed for bankruptcy. The filing, however, should have little impact on Lone Star or on the upcoming season, which is set to begin April 9. 

Magna made the announcement today, just as a $40 million debt payment came due. In Delaware, Magna has filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

The company's "day-to-day operations,” Magna said in a prepared statement, “will continue uninterrupted throughout the Chapter 11 process while it undertakes to sell its assets and implement a reorganization of the Company.”

Magna also has reached an agreement to sell three of its racetracks -- Lone Star, Golden Gate Fields and Gulfstream Park -- to its parent company and largest creditor, MI Developments.

And so the bankruptcy apparently will have little impact on Lone Star Park. The Grand Prairie Sports Corp., not Magna, actually owns the racetrack. Lone Star has the license and a lease, but is not among the parties filing for bankruptcy.

“There should be no immediate implications for Lone Star Park, our employees, horsemen, vendors or customers,” said track president and general manager Drew Shubeck. “We are proceeding with business as usual.”

Churchill Downs leads the way to safety and integrity

Churchill Downs’ concerns circled around a single event, the Eight Belles breakdown, and after several months produced a pearl, a nacreous policy designed, according to the track’s press release, “to enhance the safety and welfare of jockeys and horses.” Churchill got it right, and that alone, apart from the obvious and salubrious consequences, could be of major significance for the sport.

Churchill will have its new safety initiatives, which were announced Monday, in place for its upcoming spring season – in time, in other words, for the 135th Kentucky Derby. The “Safety from Start to Finish” program – as Churchill cleverly calls it in its release – will be phased in at its other racetracks – Calder, Arlington and Fair Grounds.

Here, from this perspective, are the most important, the essential, elements in the plan, as identified in the release.

1. Supertesting. All winning horses will be tested for more  than 100 performance-enhancing drugs.

2. Banning of steroids.

3. Veterinary inspection of all horses before and after racing.

4. Third-party testing and monitoring of track surfaces.

5. Ban on “milkshaking.”

6. Ban on unsafe horseshoes (front shoe toe grabs longer than two millimeters).

7. Catastrophic injury insurance for jockeys.
 
8. Mandatory and uniform reporting of equine injuries.

9. Mandatory, independent necropsies for any horse that dies as the result of an injury while racing or training.

10. Financial support for equine retirement.

The initiative includes several other provisions, such as requiring the use of low-impact whips, a prohibition on transporting horses from the racetrack for slaughter, and a limit on the field size of some races. Moreover, Churchill general manager Jim Gates explained, the track will attempt to educate fans, at a “Safety Center,” about all the safety precautions.

This is an exemplary program, exactly one of the things horse racing needs if it’s to regain public trust. The sport clearly needed to take steps to ensure the safety of its competitors and the integrity of its events. And with this announcement, Churchill takes a leadership role in moving the sport toward those objectives.

Yes, Churchill Downs got it right, not the regulators or the racing authorities or some congressional hearing, not some witless panel of media prairie dogs, but the racetrack. Churchill got it right, with, it should be noted, assists from The Jockey Club, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium, the Breeders’ Cup, Keeneland, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the NTRA and horsemen. And they got it right because they focused on safety and integrity.

That’s where the regulators often fail. So many regulatory efforts, which often begin with the assumption that simply being on the backside of a racetrack makes a person a suspicious character, seem designed to make good folks into culprits. On his desk, a trainer sets some worming paste, having just taken the oral syringe out of a box, while he checks on a horse, and that’s a medication violation: Can’t have unlabeled medication in the barn, not even perfectly legal, therapeutic or even innocuous medication.

A horse tests “positive” for Clenbuterol by just a trace amount, which is to say that although Clenbuterol is perfectly legal and just about everybody uses it, this horse is 25 picograms over the limit in this state, which is lower than anywhere else -- and how many picograms can dance on the head of pin. And so, strictly speaking, this is a “positive,”  even though it wouldn’t be in most states, and so it’s a medication violation, a blemish on his record. And the next day the trainer finds his name in a headline alongside the words “caught drugging.”

Meanwhile, the scallywag who doesn’t properly train or even care for his horses – no, he  would never spend his money on anything so therapeutic as Clenbuterol or even so necessary as worming medication – goes unnoticed by the regulators. Even when he sends out an erstwhile stakes horse in a cheap claiming race for no other purpose than to get him claimed, and this horse is so physically compromised that no jockey, except a “bug boy” looking for his first mount, will ride him, even then, as the animal is taken away in the horse ambulance, the scallywag escapes notice. The scallywag is one of horse racing’s problems because he wouldn’t waste an ounce of his concern or intelligence – they’re so scarce he must economize them -- on either safety or integrity and because the regulators tend to ignore him.

And so Churchill Downs will emphasize safety and integrity. If all racetracks follow that example and if perhaps as a next step they all get around to a reform of claiming races and procedures – well, the scallywag may have to leave racing and instead take up . . . .    
 

More Quality in the NTRA poll

At No. 4, he could be too low. He could even be too low at No. 3, where I put him.  But since I voted, I’ve looked and analyzed some more. Quality Road’s Fountain of Youth victory Saturday looks better and grander with each return to it, with each new examination and from every perspective.

But Old Fashioned sits atop of the first National Thoroughbred Association Triple Crown poll to come out this year. It’s a poll of 21 media types. Here’s the rundown:

1. Old Fashioned
2. Pioneerof The Nile
3. The Pamplemousse
4. Quality Road
5. Stardom Bound
6. Friesan Fire
7. Dunkirk
8. Desert Party
9. Hello Broadway
10. Beethoven

Among the other horses receiving votes are Take The Points, Patena, Theregoesjojo, Haynesfield, Giant Oak and, strangely enough, Midshipman, who hasn’t raced this year and who, after an injury, is no longer even on the road to the Triple Crown. Almost as strange, three of the top five horses in the poll race on California’s synthetic surfaces and may or may not transcribe their talents accurately onto dirt. Of those, The Pamplemousse in particular looks like a potential turf-synthetic specialist, given his high, pounding action.

Anyway, even at No. 4, Quality Road could be too low. In the context of Saturday’s races at Gulfstream Park, the Fountain of Youth was conspicuously outstanding; but in the context of the track’s peculiar mile races, Quality Road’s effort becomes luminous.

The splits for the Fountain of Youth, you probably noticed, were at the very least odd – 23.83 the first quarter and 21.72 the next, for a 45.55 opening half-mile. The peculiarly slow opening quarter suggests something’s up – a teletimer malfunction, a misplaced pole, an uphill climb. Obviously the horses’  run-up to the pole, where the clocking begins, is negligible for these races, and that’s a large part of the explanation, maybe all of it, but I’m not sure that’s sufficient to account for the discrepancy between what the opening quarter was and what it should have been.

Fortunately, though, for handicappers, the weirdness is consistent. In the 11 one-mile races run last week on Gulfstream’s main track, the average quarter-mile and half-mile splits were 24.55 and 47.70. Take the Fountain of Youth out of the mix, and the averages were 24.63 and 47.91. And, keep in mind, that’s all straightaway. Although the pace didn’t seem especially fast, the Fountain of Youth was the only one-mile race all week with a sub-46 opening half; in only one other race was the opening half under 47 seconds. In Sunday’s Davona Dale, Frolic’s Dream, one of the quickest fillies around, led early through splits of 24.48 and 47.39.

As for the Fountain of Youth’s three-quarter split, 1:09.40, that stands out like a redwood in a pine forest. After the strange opening quarter, This Ones For Phil ran the next half-mile in 45.57, partly around a turn, and Quality Road made up a length on him. The average three-quarter split for the week was 1:12.84. Not counting the Fountain of Youth, it was 1:13.19, and in only four races was the opening six-furlong split under 1:13, the second-fastest for the week being 1:12.30.

As for Quality Road’s final time, 1:35.01, that, too, is towering. The average for the week was 1:38.60. Not including the Fountain of Youth, it was 1:38.96. In winning the Davona Dale by 3 3/4 lengths, Justwhistledixie ran the second-fastest mile of the week, 1:37.67, which, of course, is about 13 lengths slower than Quality Road’s effort.

And so what does all this mean? Well, for one thing, it means the Fountain of Youth was superlative. For another, it means that Quality Road, even though he has yet to race around two turns, probably should be higher than No. 4. And, for yet another, it means he could become a superstar.