Quote:
Originally Posted by f2tornado
Fair point however Secretariat supposedly had a mouth abscess that day and Turcotte was not aware of it. He mentioned how the horse didn't seem right out of the gate. Typically, but certainly not always, a Derby winner will run the final 3/8th of the final 9F prep in less than 38 seconds. Most of the handful of winners that didn't in recent decades were Raise A Native sire line.
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I am not questioning your last 3/8M assumption, but that distance begins with the horses about 43% into the far turn at Churchill Downs which would lead me to believe that the last 1/8M or at least the last 1/4M should be the distance of concern in the Derby.
Last year Nyquist stopped the timer in the Derby at a fast 1:47.23, but “crawled” the last 1/8M in a paltry 14:08 seconds for the last 664 feet.
He had a 1.01 second advantage over Exaggerator at the eighth pole and finished with a .22 second margin.
However, Nyquist final time for the 2016 Derby will show in history as a respectable 2:01.31 for the 1-1/4M Derby distance.