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Maybe there's a new way to handicap these races. When trainer Nick Zito has a horse who looks absolutely hopeless, bet your money. You will be on a lot of losers, but when you have a winner, you will make lots of money.
Anak Nakal was 16-1 in the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby. You could make a good case the colt would have been a bad bet at 26-1 or 36-1. Anak Nakal ran in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes and a few of the big prep races, but had never shown much of anything.
Well, Anak Nakal showed something big in the Pa. Derby. Eleventh of 13 early, Anak Nakal was given a perfect ride by "Jersey Joe" Bravo. The jockey found every hole, but the horse had to take him there. And Anak Nakal did that.
Still, it looked like the race was going to another longshot. Akai was 9-1 as part of the three-horse mutuel field. Co-owned by the IEAH Stable of Big Brown fame, Akai probably would have been 20-1 on his own merits.
Akai and jockey Corey Nakatani shook off slight favorite Smooth Air in the stretch and really looked like the winner. Then, Anak Nakal came rolling late and caught them near the wire to win by a neck. The time was 1:48.99 for the mile-and-an-eighth. Anak Nakal paid $34.60.
Proving there are true Philadelphia fans everywhere, one guy, hanging just outside the winner's circle, kept saying as the trophy was being presented, "This horse sucks. Got to be the worst horse ever."
Not on this day. Anak Nakal was the best horse.
No rider has ever won the Pa. Derby more than once. Except Bravo who has now won it three times.
"It's like walking into my living room," said Bravo, who started his career at Philadelphia Park when he was 16. "I've been coming here for so many years."
Bravo will turn 37 on Sept. 10.
"It's nice to see my living room doing nice," Bravo said. "You look around and see the people that are here. They're building the new [casino]."
Zito was not there. He was watching from Saratoga. The man who gave us Birdstone and Da' Tara in the Belmont Stakes really could not have been expecting this.
Anak Nakal had been 17-1, 34-1, 53-1 and 45-1 in his last four starts.
"Horses kind of have spurts," assistant trainer Tim Poole said. "As a 2-year-old, he showed great promise. We knew the ability was there. It's just a matter of bringing it to the fore. The spring campaign really wasn't his thing."
Whatever that was, the $532,000 first prize spends nicely. Anak Nakal has now won $875,416 while winning just three of 10 starts. The colt won two of three last year and looked like a Derby contender. The Pa. Derby was his first win of 2008.
On paper, this was a very evenly matched field. But it turned out to be all about Akai, who had raced in just one stakes, finishing eighth in the Calder Derby, and Anak Nakal.
Akai was at least as unlikely as Anak Nakal. The colt was purchased privately this spring.
"I saw Nakatani at the sixteenth pole still looking around," said IEAH's Michael Iavarone, thinking they had it won. "Amazing. That's not a good way to lose a million-dollar race, but we came in here taking a shot. To come out of it getting beat a neck for a horse we didn't give a lot of money for, what else can you ask for?"
Iavarone said the second money of $184,000 was more than the purchase price. Losing is never easy, but it can always be worse.
"When you're 1-5 for the Triple Crown and get beat, nothing else is going to hurt like that," Iavarone said.
Scott Lake has trained more winners at Philadelphia Park than anyone. This year, jockey Kendrick Carmouche is riding races at the Pha with total confidence and winning like someone who knows he's going to win.
In yesterday's sub feature, the $250,000 Turf Monster Handicap, Lake had 5-1 shot True to Tradition very ready and Carmouche rode the 6-year-old perfectly.
In a race loaded with early speed, Carmouche had his mount battling for the lead from the start, opened up on the turn and won it by 4 lengths over favored Hero's Reward.
Lake claimed True to Tradition last summer at Saratoga for $35,000. Now he is thinking about pointing the horse for the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint, a new BC race this year. The $1 million race on Oct. 25 will be run at 6 1/2 furlongs down the hill at Santa Anita. *
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