2010 Moments of the Year: Super Saver wins the Kentucky Derby

For the second consecutive year the rain gods descended upon Louisville, Kentucky on the first Saturday in May. And for the second consecutive year, and third in the last four, jockey Calvin Borel crossed the finish line first, this time with the WinStar colt Super Saver.  Not only did Super Saver's triumph in the Greatest Two Minutes in Sports provide Calvin Borel with additional accolades, but the win gave trainer Todd Pletcher his first Kentucky Derby win.  

While Pletcher and Borel dominated the storyline of the 2010 Derby, the key moment of the race occurred  just after the horses left the starting gate when Lookin At Lucky, the most accomplished colt in the field, had his Derby end before it even started.  Breaking from the one-hole, Lucky had the choice of taking up and shuffling to the back of the pack or finding himself slammed into the rail.  Garret Gomez wisely chose to shuffle back, although the traffic trouble dashed his hopes for the roses.  It's tough to really tell on the video (at the bottom of this post), but you can see Lucky along the rail for about three or four steps...and then he disappears behind a wall of horses.  

With Lookin at Lucky's chances gone almost from the moment he left the gate, the 2010 Derby became a wide-open affair.  Conveyance and Sidney's Candy set solid fractions on the front-end, while Noble's Promise found himself in a good stalking position from which he moved to the front of the field as the field came off the far turn.  Nobel's Promise held the lead for only a brief moment as Super Saver and Borel gained the advantage from the rail and pulled away from the field inside the final quarter mile.  Nick Zito's Ice Box put in a spirited late run down the middle of the track in the closing stride, but it's too little, too late to catch Pletcher's first Derby winner.

One of the things I like to do at the end of each year is to look back at the Derby and see what the horses in the field ended up doing in the months that followed.  Below is a summary of the accomplishments (or lack thereof) for each of the nineteen horses to run in this year's Derby.  With the exception of Lookin At Lucky, most Derby horses ended up switching surfaces or cutting back in distance in order to find success during the summer and fall.

• Super Saver: 8^th in the Preakness; 4^th in the Haskell; 10^th in the Travers. 
  
  Super Saver was retired just prior to the Breeders' Cup.
• Ice Box: 8^th in the Belmont; 6^th in the Haskell; 8^th in the Travers; 5^th in the Monmouth Cup. 
  
  A deep closer that tends to be a slave to the pace situation, Ice Box was unable to carry his spring form through the summer.
• Paddy O'Prado: 6^th in the Preakness; 1^st Colonial Turf Cup, Virginia Derby and Secretariat Stakes; 2^nd in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic, 5^th in the Breeders' Cup Classic. 
  
  Next to Lookin At Lucky, Paddy was probably the most successful three-year-old of 2010, and that is due to an excellent training job by Dale Romans.  Instead of continuing to point to dirt Classic races, Romans ran Paddy on the turf where he displayed an excellent affinity for the surface.  Breeding value pushed Paddy back to the main track for the Breeders' Cup, but he stamped himself a top turf runner throughout the summer.
• Make Music For Me: 9^th in the Belmont, 8^th in the Oak Tree Derby; 1^st in an Allowance. 
• Noble's Promise: 5^th in the St. James's Palace (Royal Ascot), 1^st in the Jimmy V.
  
  His connections took him to England to try the big boys at Royal Ascot where he ran credibly.  From there he was given a long lay-off from which he came back to win a listed stake at Churchill prior to the Breeders' Cup.  Noble's Promise is expected to run in the Grade 1 Malibu at Santa Anita this weekend.
• Lookin At Lucky: 1^st in the Preakness; 1^st in the Haskell; 1^st in the Indiana Derby; 4^th in the Breeders' Cup Classic.
  
  Bob Baffert's colt was by far the most successful three-year-old of 2010 by following up his tough luck trip in the Derby with two Grade 1 wins and a Grade 2. 
• Dublin: 5^th in the Preakness. 
  
  I haven't heard a peep about this horse in a long, long time.  I don't believe he's retried, but he's also not racing.
• Stately Victor: 7^th in the Belmont; 5^th in the Virginia Derby; 1^st in the Ontario Derby; 3^rd in the Fayette; 9^th in the Clark Hcp., 2^nd in the Prairie Bayou.
  
  The upset winner of the Blue Grass raced on traditional dirt two times after the Kentucky Derby, and was well beaten in every one of those races.  In his three synthetic starts following the Derby, he finished 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd. 
• Mission Impazible: Hasn't raced since the Derby after suffering from a bone chip in the knee.
• Devil May Care: 1^st in the Mother Goose; 1^st in the Coaching Club American Oaks; 4^th in the Alabama.
  
  The lone filly in this year's Derby missed the Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic due to an illness.
• American Lion: Hasn't raced since the Derby.
• Jackson Bend: 3^rd in the Preakness; 5^th in the Pegasus; 6^th in the Star of Cozzene; 4^th in the Ack Ack.
• Discreetly Mine: 2^nd in the Woody Stephens; 1^st in the Jersey Shore; 1^st in the Amsterdam; 1^st in the King's Bishiop.
  
  The key to the post-Derby success of this Todd Pletcher trainee was abandoning any thought of running two-turns and concentrating on sprint races.  Discreetly Mine was retired prior to the Breeders' Cup.
• Dean's Kitten: 5^th in the Colonial Turf Cup; 4^th in the American Derby; 5^th in the Secretariat; 5^th in the Hawthorne Derby.
• Conveyance: Hasn't raced since the Derby.
• Homeboykris: 6^th in an Allowance
• Sidney's Candy: 2^nd in the Swaps; 1^st in the La Jolla; 6^th in the Breeders' Cup Mile.
  
  Another Derby contender that found success when switched to a different surface (turf).
• Line of David:  Retired almost immediately following the Derby.  A picture of Line of David should be in the horse racing dictionary next to the phrase "Early Retirement".
• Awesome Act: Hasn't raced since the Derby.
• Backtalk: 3^rd in the Red Legend; 2^nd in the Jimmy V.; 3^rd in the Bonapaw.