Derby Notes

- I always try to learn from Derby bets gone bad. So it was in large part the lesson I learned from Bellamy Road in 2005 that made me determined to bet against Big Brown. No, I would not again fall for a lightly raced horse who earned huge Beyers crushing Derby preps of questionable quality. It wasn't that I didn't like Big Brown - I even made a case for him after he drew the outside. But opposing him as the betting favorite given the historical precedent regarding his inexperience which, in my opinion, was a significant one, seemed like the right thing to do.

I don't have any regret as regards to his $6.80 win price. But the triple paid a cool $3,445.60, and consider this - we discussed Eight Belles prominently here; I liked her and at least a couple of readers wrote in to agree. And Denis of Cork is a horse that I came around to late; he was in the third spot on all my tickets.

That triple was with the 2-1 favorite on top of two horses I thought were very logical. I'm thinking almost that it was easy in retrospect, at least relative to that payout. So the lesson I'll try to take from this Derby is that just because a horse is a short price in the win pool doesn't mean that there aren't ample opportunities to make a big score using it on top.

As far as Eight Belles goes, I have to admit that her stock had gone down a bit for me before the race. I was disappointed with the efforts on Friday and Saturday of Pure Clan and Alina, the two fillies she competed against in the Fantasy. I had defended Eight Belles' effort in that race partly on the basis of her competition in that race being quality. I started to question just how good that race was, so I didn't use her in the top spot, though I still had her for second and third.

I was spectacularly wrong about two things (besides last place Monba, UGH). Mike Battaglia's morning line, with some rather insignificant exceptions, was absolutely right on. I didn't think that the top three would be in such a group of their own - after Pyro, at 5-1, was Eight Belles at 13-1. I thought that Pyro would be higher and that we'd see more action on the filly and some of the so-called buzz horses - Court Vision, Z Fortune, Denis of Cork - on which I guess there really wasn't much buzz at all. Been reading too many blogs I suppose.

And then there was the matter of Big Brown clearly being able to rate. If I thought he could, I'd have had a piece of that triple for sure. I said he wouldn't, so good job by those of you who insisted he would. It makes him pretty scary to be sure. Are there any reasons to remain skeptical? Or should we just award him the Triple Crown now?

Well, at the risk of nit-picking considering what he accomplished in his 4th start, a look at Formulator shows that he ran half mile splits of 47 4/5, 48 3/5 followed by a final quarter of 25 2/5. It's of course not unusual for horses to slow down in dirt races. But consider that Barbaro came home in 24 1/5; and Street Sense closed into a 25 second final quarter. Even Funny Cide came home in 25 1/5. So, again at the risk of nit picking, I think it's fair to question what he's beating here. Check out the replay of the stretch run; with only a couple of exceptions, it's a pretty sad sight watching the cream of this year's three-year old crop floundering behind the winner.

- And who's in charge of advertising for Yum! Brands? I don't know how many of you saw this, but they repeated this one ad during the telecast which had the production values of something you might see on your local channel at 3 AM. And I'm not really exaggerating (much) at all. It was as tacky and cheap looking as can be. You'd think that, as the presenting sponsor of the Kentucky Derby, the company would show some pride and spare no expense in presenting itself to millions of viewers on its big day of the year.