Not running Preakness winner Cloud Computing in Kentucky Derby proves to be a timely decision | Dick Jerardi
Cloud Computing took advantage of having six weeks between races instead of two.
BALTIMORE - The Kentucky Derby has 20 horses every year because it is impossible to resist. Horse owners Seth Klarman and Bill Lawrence along with their trainer Chad Brown had two horses with enough points to get into the 2017 Derby. They ran just one. That decision almost certainly won them Saturday's Preakness at Pimlico.
They ran Practical Joke in the Derby and held back Cloud Computing for the Preakness, giving the colt six weeks between races instead of the two that the Derby horses got. Practical Joke finished fifth behind Derby winner Always Dreaming. Cloud Computing brushed slightly against a retreating Always Dreaming with 300 yards to go in the Preakness and then set sail after 2016 2-year-old champion Classic Empire, catching up in the final 50 yards and then edging past to win by a head.
Brown, with one of the most powerful stables in the country, had one overwhelming thought in the winner's circle - his mentor Bobby Frankel, high on any list of the greatest American trainers. Frankel died in 2009 after an incredible career that included a still American record 25 Grade I stakes wins in 2003, the year he won his only Triple Crown race with Empire Maker in the Belmont Stakes.
"I've always praised Bobby Frankel who taught me so much,'' Brown said. "And it just seems like he's won every race but the Derby and Preakness, really I feel this is for him, at least from my viewpoint. And without his mentorship, I certainly wouldn't be here."
Brown thinks like Frankel and trains like him, always giving his horses plenty of time between races and pointing for specific races weeks and sometimes months ahead of time.
A Preakness record crowd of 140,327 was there for what should be the first of many Brown Triple Crown race wins. Getting 13-1 on one of his horses in a TC race again is less likely. A record $97 million was bet on the Pimlico card and those sharp enough to keep the Derby winner off all tickets and put Cloud Computing on top had the potential for some very nice payoffs.
Cloud Computing was racing for just the fourth time, but was ridden by champion jockey Javier Castellano for the first time. And Brown had him exactly right for the big moment. Classic Empire was a very unlucky second. Always Dreaming, favored at 6-5, finished eighth. Classic Empire went right after Always Dreaming at the start and they raced together until the far turn.
"He won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile going out after it and I said to (jockey) Julien (Leparoux), 'second doesn't mean anything."' Classic Empire's trainer Mark Casse said. "I said, 'Let's go and try to win this thing.' It ended up getting us in the end.''
The early pace was reasonably quick, but so was the pace in the Derby. That day, Always Dreaming was near the rail, which had the more favorable footing. Always Dreaming's trainer Todd Pletcher did not think the Preakness pace was too fast.
"Classic Empire held on for second,'' Pletcher said. "He probably went pretty ambitiously at us and maybe cost himself the race. But we didn't have an excuse. We were in the position we expected to be and I think the turnaround was a little too quick. He ran so hard in the Derby . . . That's kind of what we anticipated Classic Empire would do, take it to us, but (Always Dreaming) just didn't have that reserve."
Pletcher almost never runs his top horses back in two weeks. It is just not part of his program. He had no choice in the Preakness.
Neither Pletcher nor Brown has ruled the June 10 Belmont Stakes in or out. Casse said Classic Empire is a go. Always Dreaming seems unlikely. Cloud Computing ran the mile and three sixteenths in a solid 1:55.98 on a track turned from muddy to fast late in the day, but is no cinch to run in the Belmont either. The Derby and Preakness wins, however, don't change.
"Grew up three blocks from here,'' Klarman said. "Was a big fan of racing from a kid and came to the Preakness many, many times. Never imagined I'd own a horse, let alone be in the winner's circle of the Preakness.''
Klarman is "a long-term value investor.'' Horse racing is a far different kind of investment where the long-term view can be six weeks instead of two weeks.
"This is gambling,'' Klarman said. "This is a risky undertaking. This is not at all like what I do in the rest of my life, but it does provide one of the highest levels of excitement.''
And he has no second thoughts about not running in the Derby.
"No regrets,'' Klarman said. "I think possibly some of the reason that we won was because we were patient and didn't throw an inexperienced horse against a 20-horse field in the Derby on a very difficult track . . . I've also learned in life that you don't look back with a lot of would have, could have, should have, that we made a great call and we're ecstatic and we'll worry about the future, not the past.''
@DickJerardi