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The field breaks out of the gate at the 2009 Kentucky Derby.
They call the Kentucky Derby the most exciting two minutes in sports, but it also contains the most bizarre, fascinating and harrowing millisecond—the moment the steel starting gates pop open and release 20 half-mad, inexperienced thoroughbreds that zoom to 30 miles per hour in just a couple of strides.
As jockeys use all their strength to hold their horses' manes, they're given about 30 seconds to make some of the race's most important, and delicate, tactical moves. Unless they maneuver to the track's "sweet spot" on the inside among the top five or so horses, history suggests they've already lost.
Saturday's Derby, like most modern versions of the race, will be a highly combustible affair. The pressure that comes with the big crowd at Louisville's Churchill Downs, the huge TV audience and the $2.1 million prize is amplified by the number of horses in the field. With 20-odd entries, the Derby is more than twice the size of an average thoroughbred race.
What's more, the 3-year-old Derby horses are unaccustomed to the 1¼-mile distance and the size and raucousness of the crowd. By the time the gates open, some of the horses will have been waiting for two minutes—enough time to go nuts.
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Since 1976, the rate at which starting positions have produced horses in the money at the Kentucky Derby.
To prepare for the chaos, some trainers and jockeys watch video of other horses to study tendencies. Kent Desormeaux, a jockey who has won three times at the Derby, says he uses the colors the jockeys will be wearing to help him navigate at the start. "I memorize the colors so I can find those colors and know where I should be in relation to those colors," he says. Trainer Todd Pletcher, who won last year's Derby, says his horses spend large chunks of time before the race going in and out of the gates to get familiar with the surroundings and with the crew. "Keeping the horses calm in the gate is key," he says. "Some horses take a lot of therapy."
In the past, horse owners were allowed to pick gate positions in an order determined by a drawing. Since last year, assignments have been made at random, eliminating the strategy and opening the door for even more dyspepsia. The only way to win the Derby is to have "the best day in your life," says trainer Carl Nafzger, who won in 1990 with Unbridled and in 2007 with Street Sense. "The start is crucial."
For many decades, the winningest gate was the one closest to the rail—gate 1—because it offered the shortest route around the track. From 1900 to 1963, there were 10 winners from that post. But in the 1960s, as Derby fields grew, the gate had to be moved closer to the rail and angled, which led to some of the horses there getting sandwiched into the rail and squeezed out of contention. That's what happened to Lookin At Lucky, last year's Derby favorite. He finished sixth. Another problem with gate 1: to deal with the large field, Derby handlers load the horses two at a time, from the inside out, starting with the Nos. 1 and 11. By the time the last horse is loaded, then, the horses in Nos. 1 and 11 have been crammed into their tiny box for about two minutes—enough time to become distracted, agitated or hyper. Since 1980, only one horse has won from gate 1.
Today, conventional Derby wisdom says "pace setters" like to be on the inside in gates 2 through 5. They'll try to hold the lead the entire race. "Closers," who like to finish strong, don't mind being on the outside, in spots 14 to 18, where they can stay out of traffic. "Stalkers," who prefer to settle in just behind the leaders, tend to like starting from the middle.
Since 1980, six horses have won from Gate 10 (one of the last gates to load), while gates 15 and 16 have produced a combined six winners. Desormeaux says his favorite gate is No. 15, from which he won the Derby in 2000. The reason, he says, is that Churchill Downs has two gates joined together—one that has 14 stalls and the other six. At the spot where they're joined, there's a large gap that gives the horse in gate 15 a buffer from other horses. Desormeaux says it gives the jockey a nice vantage point to scope out how the other horses are breaking and a clear view of the colors on their saddles. "That's the perfect gate, actually," he says.
Not everyone obsesses over the gate situation. Elliott Walden, a former trainer and now president and chief executive of Kentucky-based WinStar Farm, says his jockeys are given very little specific instruction before races. "You give them tendencies. This horse is wanting to go early, this one is lazy, this horse likes the inside," he says. Other than that, he says, he lets the jockeys do their thing. "You can overthink it."
This year's race is considered wide open. The fastest horse, Uncle Mo, was given the 18 spot and is battling a stomach bug. When Dialed In was given gate 8, considered prime real estate, the horse became the favorite at 4/1. Jockey Calvin Borel, who has won the race two years in a row, is on Twice the Appeal and starting out of gate 3. Archarcharch got saddled with gate 1.
Churchill Downs tries to do everything it can to keep things even at the start, including 25 handlers hired for their ability to keep horses calm. Scott Jordan, who manages the crew and hits the button that launches the gates open, says he tries to match the horses with the most compatible crew members. When the race starts, Jordan says, the silence is eerie. "It's amazing how quiet 150,000 people can be," he says. But what happens next is something no one can prepare a horse for. "When I push that button, the noise level is out of this world," Jordan says. "It's a lot of pressure."
Write to Reed Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com
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