Understand that when a fluke horse wins the Derby, and this was a fluke horse, that all of the months of watching Prep Races, analyzing horses entered that you have not seen race, and that you lose every dollar that you have bet – Win, Exacta, Trifecta, Superfecta, Pick 3’s Daily Doubles, etc and some beautiful person with a fancy hat that doesn’t know what end the horse eats out of, picks a horse trained by a second string trainer, and beats me, really upsets me – so you can probably tell. 

While this comes off as “Sour Grapes”, which it is, I have to credit the race that the winner, Golden Tempo, ran.  Both he and Renegade came from waaayyy back and finished together.  Renegade got crushed early and found himself 20 lengths back – a lot to overcome.  The winner, Golden Tempo had a clean trip from the 16 post position.  My beef is that people cashed tickets on the horse, just because of the “female trainer” angle.  There are a lot of great women trainers out there.  Cherie DeVaux works side by side with Jamie Grubbs with their respective strings of horses at Turfway Park.  DeVaux gets higher class horse flesh from her connections.  This horse was a second stringer, from the Phipps/Claiborne connection.  Sour Grapes, Yes!  Great Logic, Yes, Too!  Just to show what a crapshoot the Derby is – Ocelli, who drew into the race due to main body scratches. is a Maiden (non-winner) who had finished behind Albus, and Right to Party in the Wood Memorial at Aquaduct.  Golden Tempo finished behind Emerging Market and Pavlovian in the Louisiana Derby who finished far back in the Derby.  Yet they (Golden Tempo and Ocelli) both hit the board in the Derby!  Virtually impossible.  I tell you 18-20 horse fields of 3 year olds, going a Mile and A Quarter, carrying 126 pounds makes this race impossible to reliably handicap.  Those of us who piked Renegade definitely picked the “shoulda been” winner, and should have been paid.