Lightly Raced

With more horses prepping for the Derby with only 2 starts this year, I decided to take a look at some of the more recent lightly raced horses and some of the patterns on the way to Louisville.

My database has every Kentucky Derby Starter from 1981 to 2007.  For every starter in the Derby I have the number of furlongs raced before the Derby.

The top 5 most lightly raced horses by number of furlongs heading into Kentucky since 1981?

China Visit 15.5 furlongs

Disposal  18 furlongs

Pendleton Ridge  23

Wavering Monarch -23

Showing Up - 23

Three of those horses had a negative continuum based on their odds and expected finish.  

Next I have projected the number of furlongs for Colonel John and El Gato Malo who both will only have one mar start before Louisville.

Colonel John currently has raced 39 furlongs with 9 more in the Santa Anita Derby expected for a total of 48 furlongs

El Gato Malo has raced a total of 31 furlongs through 4 races and will race 9 more in the Santa Anita Derby for a total of 40 furlongs possibly heading into Louisville.

I next had the database give me a list of horses who have raced between 39 and 49 furlongs since 1981.

Again a total of 473 Derby Starters since 1981.  88 horses fit that profile.

Of those 88 horses 54 have negative Continuum numbers, 10 of those horses have a negative score less than -10, so basically it's a wash. 

Of those 88 starters we have 8 winners and 6, 2nd place finishers.

These aren't no "Giacomo" winners either.  The 8 winners include:  Barbaro, Smarty Jones, Winning Colors, Fusaichai Pegasus, and Sunday Silence.

The bad news is that the 8 winners all had 3 starts as a Sophomore before the Derby.  Two of the 2nd place horses had 2 starts prior to the Derby:  Lion Heart and Proud Citizen.

One of my goals in the next few months is to create a simulation of all the Kentucky Derby Starters and have a "comparable" list or list of horses most similar.  Baseball and Basketball do this with similarity scores.  

With a list of similar horses, we could factor in breeding, workouts, past performances, possibly Trainers and Jockeys as well.

In the meantime, I have to look for similar patterns by filtering the database.

El Gato Malo won as a First Time Start and Colonel John as a 2nd Time starter.

Sunday Silence and Fusiachi Pegasus won as 2nd time starters.  Both won sprinting.  El Gato Malo and Colonel John both won sprinting.

War Pass is projected to race 54 furlongs before the Derby.

I looked up horses with between 52 and 56 furlongs before the Derby.  28 horses fit this profile.  Including Street Sense, Strike the Gold, Summer Squall, and Victory Gallop.   War Pass had 2 sprints before running a route race in his 3rd start.  Street Sense had 2 sprints before running his first route race.

In the next few weeks, I will try to come up with a top 3 list of comparable horses for each derby contender.  This will be a rough draft of what I hope I can computerize by next year's derby.

Meanwhile The list of comparable horses to El Gato Malo, Colonel John and War Pass look pretty good.