in Triple Crown Articles

One of the things that keep you young in this racing game is the new crop of 2-year-olds that emerge every season, and the puzzles they bring with them. In every juvenile crop, there is a horse that will mature and garner the glory the first Saturday in May in the Kentucky Derby at the age of 3, and there lies the beauty of the game.

So what does a handicapper look for in young horses? First and foremost, one should look to who is pulling the strings and training that runner up to a race.

There are some trainers that are super potent with first-timers, and some that only win with first timers during a blue moon. Take, for instance, one of the greatest trainers in the world -- Charlie Whittingham.

He almost never pushed horses early in their careers, and it was a bit of a joke in the Southern California press boxes as to how much of a hold Charlie’s first-string rider Bill Shoemaker would take on any debuters.

A typical Whittingham runner would break a bit tardily, act like a gangly youngster, either be taught how to handle racing between horses, or, on the other end of the spectrum be taken extremely wide, while making up many lengths in the stretch.

With Whittingham, the education process could continue for several races until ‘the money was down’.

In SoCal these days, there are guys that will pop at first asking often and there are guys that, like Whittingham, love to give horses a race. John Sadler, currently 2nd in the Santa Anita standings, seldom has his horses fully cranked to kick it off.

Even Bob Baffert, who has precocious stock year in and year out, is a bit more potent with 2nd timers than with debuters.

In the come and catch me category, Mike Puype has always been solid with first timers. Rafael Becerra, who learned under one of the best first-time starter trainers of all time in Gary Jones, also has his stock ready to roll early and often.

In New York, there are also specialists. For years, Nick Zito used to be patient but he changed his style last summer at the Saratoga meeting and won with 7 or 8 first-time starters. When asked about the change in the tactic, Zito said, basically: in this microwave world of ours, owners want results right away, and he adapted and succeeded.

Other New Yorkers who are good with babies include Todd Pletcher, Linda Rice, Steve Klesaris and Bill Mott, but Mott’s especially potent with firsters on turf. Those following the Whittingham school of thought are legendary conditioners like Shug McGaughey, John Kimmel, and Allen Jerkens.

To get a line on the trainers at your local track, you have to do your homework. The first-time stats are published in the Daily Racing Form but, to get a better handle on the issue, serious players should go back several meetings and dig deep to find long-time statistics on firsters. That information, combined with the rider used on those successful days, will pay huge dividends.

The other paper angles to dealing with young horses are the pedigree and the workouts. Like trainers, certain sires are responsible for horses that are precocious. Sires like In Excess, Forestry, Distorted Humor and Swiss Yodeler come to mind.

Again, sire stats are available through the Form but you also have to read between the lines with workouts. Back East, workouts can be hard to decipher. They are usually slow, are sometimes missed and hard to really read with confidence. Bettors in the West have been privileged to have accurate, honest works in most cases for decades now. I personally know some of the professional clockers and, even though a work falls through the crack now and again, one can generally bet the Western works with confidence.

When evaluating works, the frequency and spacing of the drills is just as important as the speed of the works. Unless one is at the track and sees the work live, you don’t really know if any drill was accomplished with a 115-pound jockey aloft or a 165-pound exercise rider.

For instance, Smarty Jones was not a super-fast work horse, but some people didn’t know that his usual exercise rider could have fought Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler as a 154-pound middleweight.

Look for a pattern of a 6 or 7-day sequence in workouts. With babies, they will get serious with 3-furlong works, move on to a half mile, then start really getting fit when they are asked to go five furlongs.

I always like to see a work farther than the distance of today’s race. It says a horse is dead fit and he will have something in reserve at crunch time.

The most potent-looking work pattern is something that will show a progression of up to 6 or 7 furlongs, and then a quick 3-furlong blowout a day or two or three before the debut.

The blowout works kind of like a shoot-around for an NBA basketball team. It tells the participants the game is coming up and to tighten down the latches.

Just like every other facet of this game, hard work and research will only reap rewards, and the same is true when dealing with young horses and debuters.

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