Thursday, January 12, 2012

Toasting the flukiness of a few Champagne winners (in honor of Homeboykris)

You'd think I'd be inured to one-time stars running in claiming races these days, but for some reason I still feel compelled to mark the occurrences. I guess it bothers me that people are just betting #3 and not giving the horse any special respect. I have a bit of a weakness for famous people, and I suppose I'm the same with horses. When Joe Louis was poor and working in the casinos, I'm one of the people who would have wanted to know who he was. Maybe I'd like it if all grade I winners had "sir" or "lady" preceding their names for ever after. Or maybe they could just be called grade I winners -- that fans would be as conscientious about doing this as journalists are about telling us the sponsorships of stakes races.

The horse who motivates this post is Homeboykris, a winner on Sunday for the first time in his 16 races since the Champagne. It came in a $10,000 non-winners-of-three-lifetime claiming race at Gulfstream. I had lost track of what level Homeboykris usually competed at, but the answer was $30,000. So the $10,000 level did represent a change.

We don't need to worry that the Champagne has fallen on hard times. Homeboykris beat Discreetly Mine and Super Saver in that race. The roster of Champagne winners hasn't been as overpowering in the Breeders' Cup era as it was before, but it probably still surpasses 85% of grade Is.

The flukish winners that jump out at me besides Homeboykris are The Groom Is Red, 1998; Tri to Watch, 1991; and For Certain Doc, 1984.

The Groom Is Red's career line of 18 4 2 2/$401,153 looks remarkably like Homeboykris's current 19 3 4 0/$307,837. The Groom Is Red never ran in a claiming race, and I suspect he would have beaten Homeboykris at most points in their respective careers, but he ran 12 times after the Champagne, winning just once, and that at the allowance level, while he placed in one non-graded stake. There's no getting around that he didn't amount to much after the Champagne.

Tri to Watch and For Certain Doc were both geldings and unequivocal post-Champagne busts. Tri to Watch started 50 times after the Champagne, competing through his 6-year-old year. His stakes successes were a win and 3rd at Fairplex at 4, and a 2nd at Hialeah at 5. None of those races were graded. His first claiming appearance came in July of his 4-year-old year. He maintained some degree of dignity (if such a thing applies to race horses and class level); his final start was for a good claiming price of $35,000.

For Certain Doc was a more extreme case. He was a very unlikely Champagne winner at the time; the race came in his 14th start, and he had taken 9 starts to break his maiden, including three maiden claimers. He had one stakes placing subsequent to the Champagne. He was returned to claimers in November of his 3-year-old year, but kept running through July of his 10-year-old year -- 112 times in all. Equibase won't let me look at the chart of his final claiming race at Mountaineer, but I can tell you that he ran last in a $4,000 claimer at Delaware earlier in the year at 81-1. I wouldn't criticize anyone who has been involved with Homeboykris's descent for the mere fact of it, but the For Certain Doc final starts do give cause for pause. Doc's owner and trainer in the Delaware race was Craig Kastle.

I don't know who was training him at the time (it may have been Oscar Barrera), but For Certain Doc ran 18 times in a 5 1/2 month span from November of his 3-year-old year to April of his 4-year-old year. His career starts exactly doubled Tri to Watch's, by the way.

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