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The long haul Can two Derby hopefuls go the distance?Posted: Friday April 05, 2002 5:52 PM
ARCADIA, Calif. -- The mystery is the best part. The Kentucky Derby is four weeks away, and among the small army of 3-year-olds still entertaining hopes (some unrealistic) of running the most important race in the world, much more remains unknown than known. It is a racing year beyond weird. One morning earlier this week, Bob Baffert was standing near the top of the stretch at Santa Anita. Baffert, you'll recall, trained Derby winners in 1997 (Silver Charm) and 1998 (Real Quiet), and the Derby favorite a year ago (Point Given, who didn't win at Churchill Downs but went on to be named Horse of the Year). His brain was as foggy as the clouds that enshrouded the San Gabriel Mountains hovering over the track. (Note: It's required of any writer at Santa Anita to mention the mounts; ditto for anybody at the Rose Bowl. Done.) "We're all in the same boat," Baffert said, referring to the men training 3-year-olds. "None of us knows what we've got. And we're all going to find out this weekend." This is the second-to-last weekend of Derby preps. Came Home and Mayakovsky will run in the Santa Anita Derby against Baffert's Danthebluegrassman, USS Tinosa, Easy Grades and three others with little hope. At Sportsman's Park in Chicago, Repent will try to win his third consecutive race in the Illinois Derby. And the biggest mystery of all, 2001 Breeders' Cup juvenile winner Johannesburg, will run a grass race in Ireland, his only competition before the Derby. In California, fast horses Came Home and Mayakovsky face one of the most enduring and intriguing questions in the game: Can they run far enough to win the Derby? Let's oversimplify all this for a minute, OK? Let's say there are two types of horses, ones that are fast and ones that are not as fast. Came Home and Mayakovsky are fast. Period. Came Home, a son of Gone West, has won five of six career starts, losing only when he got hooked into a speed duel with Officer in the Breeders' Cup. He has never gone more than a mile. Mayakovsky won the Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct on March 2, running a blistering 1:34 4/5 mile, but he also has never gone past a mile. Can they carry speed for nine furlongs, and then 10, on the first Saturday in May? Can they be taught to relax enough to use their speed in the final quarter-mile? These are critical questions in any 3-year-old spring, but especially so in a season when there seems to be no super horse and the Derby might go to a horse from which just a little distance can be coaxed. Except that trainers all say it's impossible. "Either they can do it or they can't. " says Baffert. "You can't make them do it. It's all lung capacity and heart." Says Patrick Biancone , who trains Mayakovsky: "You can give a horse speed through training, but you cannot give him stamina. You can help, but stamina is something a horse has inside of him." The Santa Anita Derby is a mile and 1/8th. The ability to last a mile and 1/8th generally separates a sprinter (or a miler) from a horse with classic abilities. But it does not guarantee that the horse will last the mile and 1/4 of the Kentucky Derby; the extra furlong can go on and on. "They can all get a mile, a mile and 1/16th," says Baffert. "But at a mile and 1/8th, that's when the rubber band starts to stretch. That's when they start to separate." It is the purest form a athleticism, then. Somewhere in the Santa Anita stretch Saturday afternoon, the horses will speak with their performance. Then there will be no more mystery. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is a regular contributor to
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