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 A Closer Look Charismatic getting faster with every race
Posted: Sunday May 16, 1999 03:25 PM
By Mark Beech, CNN/SI BALTIMORE (CNN/SI) -- Charismatic's decisive victory in Saturday's Preakness Stakes may have been an upset -- he went off at odds of 8-1 -- but it should have been no surprise. Even though the muscular chestnut has now run four races in the last six weeks, an awesome workload for a three-year old, he shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, he's speeding up, thriving on frequent, hard efforts that wind him tighter and tighter with every powerful stride. An especially telling example of his rapid improvement can be found in the colt's Beyer Speed Figures. Developed by Washington Post and Daily Racing Form turfwriter Andrew Beyer, the figures account for differences in racing surfaces and distances, and translate a horse's performance in a race into a single number that tells railbirds which horse is on the muscle. A horse with a speed figure of 100, for example, is faster than a horse with a figure of 90. Ever since Charismatic's trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, ran him for a claiming tag of $62,500 on Feb. 11, the colt's numbers have jumped dramatically. Before running in the claiming race, where his Beyer figure was 80, Charismatic's career-best speed rating had been an 85, achieved last December in an allowance race at Santa Anita. When Lukas ran him on Feb. 18, just eight days after the now-infamous claimer, Charismatic put up a 94. Fifteen days after that, he ran a 95 while finishing second in the El Camino Real Derby at Bay Meadows. Lukas then laid off of him for almost a month before the colt ran in the Santa Anita Derby on April 3. His Beyer actually went down to a 94, and he finished fourth, 8 1/4 lengths behind Kentucky Derby also-ran General Challenge. Lukas got the message, and two weeks later, Charismatic ran huge, running a 108 while winning at Keeneland. He followed that two weeks later, on May 1, with another 108 at Churchill Downs. Yesterday, of course, he ran everybody into the ground at Pimlico. Andrew Beyer hasn't posted the colt's speed figure from the Preakness, but it would be a surprise if it wasn't at least comparable to his Derby number. On a track that favored the rail all day, Chris Antley steered Charismatic down the middle of the course the entire way and won easy. Unfortunately for the colt and his team, though, the Belmont isn't for three weeks. Perhaps Lukas will be able to breeze him in one more claimer before then. But don't bet on it.
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