It's no secret that I'm not big on Remsen winners. I avoid them like the plague in my Triple Crown Fantasy League, and typically go out of my way to bet against them on the Triple Crown trail.
Historically, the race is strong—Carry Back, Northern Dancer, Damascus, Key to the Mint, Believe It (Real Quiet's broodmare sire), Plugged Nickel, and Pleasant Colony among a strong roster in the latter half of the 20th centry that also included a stretch from 1991-1994 that produced classic winners Pine Bluff (1991 Remsen, 1992 Preakness), Go For Gin (1993 Remsen, 1994 Derby), and Thunder Gulch (1994 Remsen, 1995 Derby).
More recently in this century, the 2002 Remsen was a cracker of a contest with Toccet defeating Bham and Empire Maker. Toccet won the Hollywood Futurity in his next start and Empire Maker went on to win the Florida Derby and Belmont Stakes and finished second to Funny Cide in the Kentucky Derby.
Most recently, however, the past four winners have won just one of their next eight starts for an ROI on win bets of -81.25%! The lone win in that two-part span (past four winners, next three starts each) was when Old Fashioned took the 2009 Southwest Stakes at 1-to-2. Unfortunately for his backers, though, he lost his next two starts at 2-to-5 and even money.
Since Saarland won the Remsen in 2001, only seven Remsen winners have made more than one start on the Triple Crown trail, and none of those horses won that second start, though five of them lost as the favorite in key Kentucky Derby prep races.
To be fair, even with the poor ROI of the past four winners in their next-out performance, going back to Toccet in 2002, the Remsen does have a positive ROI for a win bet on the winner's next start thanks to Toccet and Read the Footnotes winning their next starts as the second choices in their respective races, but it really does get ugly after that.
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One of the trouble with Remsen winners these days is that their trainers are reluctant to start them off in their new year with a shorter prep race like The Hutcheson.
ReplyDeleteIf you have the pp's of recent Remsen winners I'd like to know how many raced at 7 furlongs or less before embarking on a two turn race.
The grueling one-turn mile at Gulfstream has the same deleterious effect on a horse's conditioning as it did for To Honor and Serve Fountain of Youth.
Whatever happened to horsemen training up their sophomores one step at a time?
I thought Rockport Harbor and Nobiz Like Shobiz each had a lot of potential. Nobiz underachieved from then on, although he was still a pretty decent horse, and of course Rockport had the injury problem.
ReplyDeleteCourt Vision has had a pretty damn solid career. You do make a pretty valid point here, based on past results, but of course each year is different and i think you're way better off judging each horse on their own individual merit. I think perhaps what it boils down to is that the best horses have generally vacated New York by the time the Remsen rolls around. That'd be my guess, anyway.