The Derby’s pot of gold doesn’t stipulate that horses with dosages exceeding 4.00 need not apply. But some high-profile horses, including Cairo Prince’s grandsire and for whom last Saturday’s Holy Bull Stakes is named, were not able to prove the dosage theory wrong.
Though five of the last 10 Kentucky Derby winners were not weighted on The Jockey Club’s Experimental Free Handicap, including Orb last year, the dual-qualifier theory is still of interest to some Derby bettors.
The weighting is not such a big deal anymore, because horses are so lightly raced. (Though being a dual qualifier still remains a good sign that a horse has the class and pedigree to win the Derby.)
But dosage (a rating system based on bloodlines) still can be a big deal — not so much for saying who can win the Derby, but identifying horses who look like strong contenders but may be vulnerable running 1 1/4 miles in early May, according to the handicapping and breeding theory invented by Dr. Steven Roman.
(More on his website, chef-de-race.com)
Cairo Prince, shown returning to the winner’s circle after his romp in the Holy Bull, is not a so-called Derby dual-qualifier, with a dosage index of 7.00. Coglianese Photography/Lauren King
And this year, there is a notable omission from the dual-qualifiers: Cairo Prince, the imposing winner of last Saturday’s Holy Bull, qualifies on weight, being rated at 118 pounds on the Experimental — or well within the 10-pound guideline of the high weight, the retired New Year’s Day. (As as an aside, it’s curious that Cairo Prince would be rated six pounds below Honor Code when Cairo Prince lost the 1 1/8-mile Remsen by only a nose to that rival while giving him six pounds that day.)
If you adhere to dosage — and many of our readers do, which is why we keep publishing it — that’s the problem for Cairo Prince.
His dosage index — explained somewhat in the story linked to above — is 7.00, well above the 4.00 cutoff that, according to the Dosage theory, intimates which horses might be able to handle 1 1/4 miles early in their lives and which very likely won’t be able to go that far at that time. The textbook example of eliminating a Derby favorite came with Holy Bull himself.
Holy Bull, the grandsire of Cairo Prince, had a dosage of 5.00. He was the brilliant winner of Keeneland’s Blue Grass and the strong 2-1 favorite for the 1994 Derby. A tip off that he might be in trouble Derby Day was how hard he was blowing after a workout at Churchill Downs, which very well had nothing to do with pedigree and more to do that the gray colt wasn’t handling the sandy-loam surface.
Who knows if it was the slop or the fact that Holy Bull didn’t break well or maybe the horse knew he had a dosage of 5.00 and couldn’t possibly expect to win. Whatever, Go for Gin was the virtual wire-to-wire winner while Holy Bull faded to 12th, beating two horses.
Of course, Holy Bull went on to be Horse of the Year, beating older horses in the Metropolitan Mile the race after the Kentucky Derby and capping his season beating his elders again in the 1 1/8-mile Woodward. In his only other start at 1 1/4 miles, he beat eventual Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Concern by a neck (with Preakness and Belmont winner Tabasco Cat third) in Saratoga’s Travers.
High dosage doesn’t mean a horse won’t ever get 10 furlongs, just that it’s not supposed to happen early in the year. (Another notable horse who was too high on dosage but later won at 1 1/4 miles was 1984 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner and champion Chief’s Crown, third in the 1985 Kentucky Derby as the 6-5 favorite.)
While the dosage theory had a great track record for eliminating horses for years, it is hardly infallible. There have been dosage-busters four times since 1998 with Derby winners Real Quiet, Charismatic, and the very late-running Giacomo and Mine That Bird (whose sire won the Belmont Stakes).
I love Cairo Prince. He’s a fantastic horse, and surely trainer Kiaran McLaughlin will win the Kentucky Derby same day — it would be something if it came the year after another racing luminary and good guy from Lexington (Shug McGaughey) won his first Derby.
If Cairo Prince continues to run as well as he has, McLaughlin and the partners in the colt will not decide to save the $50,000 entry fees and gouging hotel prices because a theory says their horse cannot win the Derby.
If Cairo Prince does wind up wearing the fabled blanket of red roses, becoming the ultimate Derby dosage-drubber, I hereby vow that we will quit listing horses’ dosages. If he runs in the Derby and doesn’t win, he could join the list of notable, top-class horses that dosage ruled out as being at their best at a mile and a quarter on the first Saturday in May.