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Florida Derby conducted on 3/28/2026 at Gulfstream Park…
This years Florida Derby rated out as an unusual race for young 3-year olds, on the road to the Kentucky Derby. Typically, we would expect to see some very fast early horses (horses who get out on or near the lead), running fairly fast fractions and setting things up for the late runners – these tend to be fast horses. If I were to imagine as set of fractions, might look something like 23 1/5, 47 1/5 1:11 4/5… this would mean the horses on the front end were starting to slow down when traveling from the 4 furlongs to 6 furlongs pole. This slowing down is normal throughout horses racing at really all distances and partricularly at 2 turn races for young healthy 3-year olds, considered to be Stakes caliber horses.
However, in this year’s edition of the FL Derby we saw fractions of 24.10, 48.80, 1:13:00…with an average of 12.16 per furlong (furlong = 1/8th per mile) with the 3rd quarter of the race was at a rate of 12.10 per 1/8th ( which is extremely fast considering a big part is run on the turn. So think about it, the horses on the front end, have been running slower than normal and are starting to speed up, making it much harder for the horses who have been laying back, waiting for the frong end speed to tire, now have to accelerate to catch horses that are also acclerating, not tiring!
What is the point, the point is the front runners had a huge advantage with this set up and yet the top two finishers came from the very back of the pack – last and next to last. When seeing this type of race shape – I have 2 immediate thoughts / concerns. My first thought is these 2 horses, Commandment and The Puma were clearly better than the opposition. The 2nd thought, is a concern, the amount of energy they used in the overcoming the negative pace scenario – would make it harder to expect another move in form forward! Cheaper horses would be bounce candidates ( bounce = follows a good race with a worse race). However, these being high caliber horse – who are trained for this type of racing experience, I would not expect either to run poorly next time, but I would be a hesitant to be overly enthusiastic in giving them a much bigger rating going into the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. That being said, I think both of these terrific horses are contenders and considered playable at some odds point, in the KD.
Please drop me a note, at jerryj@cox.net… I will look forward to hearing from you!