LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When telecaster Chris Lincoln co-hosted the Kentucky Derby trainers' dinner here Tuesday night, his first name should have been Frank.
"The Santa Anita Derby horses [stink]," Lincoln told the audience. A little later, in case the crowd hadn't heard him the first time, he repeated his remark.
Lincoln's blunt assessment of the four Santa Anita Derby horses running at Churchill Downs on Saturday in the 131st Kentucky Derby is not an isolated opinion.
"When I handicap a race, the first thing I do is throw out the horses I know can't win," said Richie Eng, the Las Vegas newspaperman who has written the book "Betting on Horse Racing for Dummies."
"For this Derby, four of those horses are the ones who ran at Santa Anita."
Trainer Bobby Frankel is trying to win the Kentucky Derby with High Limit.
"Can a Santa Anita Derby horse win this race?" Frankel was asked.
"I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but the answer is no," Frankel said. "The tipoff to the Santa Anita Derby is the horse who ran second [General John B]. That race was like everything else in California racing, subpar."
Frankel, who stables horses at tracks in New York, Kentucky, Florida and Canada, also has a division at Hollywood Park, but recently he shipped 10 horses out of there because he said he couldn't find races to run them in.
General John B, second to Buzzards Bay in the Santa Anita Derby, is out of the Kentucky Derby because of a knee injury. Missing by half a length in California at 64-1, General John B is typical of California shippers that have sought intersectional wins this year. Before the Santa Anita Derby, run on April 9, General John B had beaten one horse, losing by 26 lengths in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.
Going Wild, a stakes winner at Santa Anita, was beaten by 57 1/4 lengths in two races, in New York and Kentucky.
Besides Buzzards Bay, the other Santa Anita Derby horses running Saturday are Wilko (third at Santa Anita), Giacomo (fourth) and Don't Get Mad (sixth). Mike Battaglia's Kentucky Derby morning line brings more disparagement: Buzzards Bay and Wilko are the shortest-priced horses of the four, both at 20-1. Don't Get Mad's opening odds are 30-1, Giacomo's 50-1.
