PEDIGREE NO LONGER VITAL.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI INGLEWOOD - For the first time in almost a decade, the Kentucky Derby Kentucky Derby One of the classic U.S. Thoroughbred horse races. It was established in 1875 and run annually on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs track in Louisville, Ky. With the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, it makes up U.S. racing's coveted Triple Crown. a week from Saturday will include not a single son of a Kentucky Derby winner. This would be just another of those trivial sports' "rarities" if it didn't seem to be emblematic of a change in the culture of America's greatest thoroughbred race. Part of the fun of handicapping the Derby is studying the names of the runners' sires and dams, looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. signs of innate talent and stamina. Some fans cheer for the offspring of famous stallions to win and carry on their fathers' royal names, and others root for cheaply bred horses to upset the caste. There's nothing like a little class warfare to spice up the search for a superfecta su·per·fec·ta n. A method of betting in which the bettor, in order to win, must pick the first four finishers of a race in the correct sequence. [super- + (per)fecta.] Noun 1. jackpot. But the notion that a horse must have classic bloodlines to win the Kentucky Derby has taken a beating in recent years, as sons of lightly regarded Our Emblem (War Emblem War Emblem was the winner of the Kentucky Derby in 2002. This Thoroughbred's time was 2:01.13 around the 1 1/4 mile track. Victor Espinoza was his jockey for the Derby, never having seen the horse until the morning of the race. ), Distorted Humor Distorted Humor, born in 1993, is an American thoroughbred racehorse, although he is much better known for his stud career. His bloodline Distorted Humor's sire is Forty Niner, 1987's Eclipse Award winning Outstanding Two-Year-Old Male Horse by the champion sire, Mr. (Funny Cide) and Elusive Quality (Smarty Jones) won the race in 2002, '03 and '04. A casualty has been the pedigree rating known as Dosage, which dominated Derby handicapping debate for most of the 1980s and '90s, before victories in the past 15 years by poorly rated Strike the Gold, Real Quiet, Charismatic and Giacomo. Many sharp handicappers now hold the attitude that because American thoroughbreds increasingly are bred for speed instead of stamina, nobody in the Derby is truly cut out for the long 1 1/4-mile distance, and so pedigree analysis pedigree analysis n. The study of an inherited trait in a group of related individuals to determine the pattern and characteristics of the trait, including its mode of inheritance, age of onset, and phenotypic variability. is an anachronism a·nach·ro·nism n. 1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order. 2. . Some well-known sires are represented in this year's prospective Derby field, which will be finalized Wednesday in Louisville, Ky., with a full starting gate of 20 expected. They include horses who might have deserved to win the Derby - A.P. Indy (sire of A.P. Warrior), scratched on the morning of the 1992 Derby before going on to be Horse of the Year; Holy Bull (sire of Sacred Light and Flashy Bull), 12th in 1994 after a terrible start; and Point Given (sire of Point Determined), fifth as the favorite in 2001 before winning Horse of the Year. But no actual Derby winners, the first time this has happened since 1997 - a year the Derby would have featured an unbeaten son of Seattle Slew (Event of the Year) had that colt not been injured in the weeks before the race. Handicappers are putting more of their attention where it belongs. They're assessing horses' prep-race performances, often employing speed figures and other tools that weren't generally available until a decade ago. They're trying to forecast the way the Derby will be run, realizing the pace may have more than heredity heredity, transmission from generation to generation through the process of reproduction in plants and animals of factors which cause the offspring to resemble their parents. That like begets like has been a maxim since ancient times. to do with horses' abilities to go 1 1/4 miles. The result is that horses' reputations more than ever are being made on the track, not in the breeding shed. Which is as it should be. CAPTION(S): box Box: HORSE RACING - Kevin Modesti |
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