Odds, Best Bets, And Why Nobody Can Truly Make Out What Arabian Knight Or Mage Will Do

Monmouth’s $1-million Haskell this afternoon is a deceptively important race, meaning that it will be a more challenging duel for its top runners than their connections, not to mention a ton of players, initially imagined. Yes, the Haskell can still be regarded as a ‘prep’ — but just barely. When we begin to tease out what it means that Kentucky Derby winner Mage is not just not the favorite but a co-second favorite — which is to say, that one athlete is held in higher initial esteem than he and one other is cheek-by-jowl with him — then we have to know that this running will hold some surprises.

The race is a strongbox. In it lie all sorts of keys to the rest of the season, not least the Travers, which looks to feature Mage and his fellow Triple Crown-race victors.

The last really fine thing we saw the Derby winner do was to come from sixth at the mile at Churchill and fight off Two Phil’s, a performance that was both gritty and delightful. Despite that, there was a whiff of a hangover feeling that he squeaked out that victory, so the race didn’t manage to put an end to the questions about him. It did the opposite. Mage is doing well and his connections certainly seem happy to be where they are in the season, and like many of the owners and trainers in the Jim Dandy, they are hell-bent for the Travers, but there is a larger need out in the racing community for this particular Derby-winning colt to restate his qualifications.

For its part, the Haskell field just will not be declaring itself until Monmouth’s starters slam the gate open. But before we wade into Tapit Trice, Geaux Rocket Ride, Extra Anejo, and the looming favorite-by-a-hair Arabian Knight and his robust mode of attack on the track, first, a refresher on the post positions and odds.

1) Geaux Rocket Ride, 9-2

2) Awesome Strong, 30-1

3) Salute the Stars, 8-1

4) Mage, 3-1

5) Tapit Trice, 3-1

6) Howgreatisnate, 20-1

7) Extra Anejo, 5-1

8) Arabian Knight, 5-2

Because no race horse can be held responsible for the shenanigans got up to by any humans, it’s not really Arabian Knight’s fault that he’s raced just twice in his life. It’s axiomatic that, when trainers suffer bans, as Arabian Knight’s trainer Bob Baffert spectacularly did in 2021 only to have it even more spectacularly extended through 2024, the horses in his charge will undergo changes of routine. Arabian Knight came along at a difficult time for Baffert, amid the trainer’s bumptious back-and-forth with Churchill over the positive test results for betamethasone registered in the former Derby winner Medina Spirit’s blood samples.

Arabian Knight’s obviously towering athleticism and talent are out there, on full display in his two races — the January victory of five-plus lengths was in the slop, no less. He is fit and then some. And all can be as it very much seems, namely, that nothing and nobody can get in the way of Arabian Knight doing exactly what he wants to do when he wants to do it. He’s shown that he is by definition ready to run — unlike Tapit Trice, who is infamous for having to be coaxed and cajoled to unlock his skills, a reluctance that accounted for his Kentucky Derby, in fact.

Instead, the question for Arabian Knight lies in that razor thin half-point margin in the morning line that he holds over his two second-favorites, and it’s a question about his mind, or more specifically, about his maturity. Horses grow at different rates and put together their tool-kits for their racing lives in different ways. It’s also true that real grinding competition in a real race is a school very much in and of itself — equine athletes don’t get that blazing chaos in any other way. Which is why we look so closely at horses, such as Arabian Knight, who have endured long layoffs. In this young colt’s case — emphasis on the adjective young — it’s not just that Arabian Night has raced two times in his life. It’s also that it has been six months since he’s has raced at all.

The money — in the form of the morning line — is saying right now that when Arabian Night steps out onto Monmouth’s primarily sand-and-loam ‘dirt’ that he will flick that ‘got-to-run’ switch in his mind all by himself and be rearing to go, no holds barred. We’ll see what the money at the track has to say about that later in the day. Suffice it to say, even if a player plans to use Arabian Knight prominently, up top, on his or her tickets, it’s well worth that player’s while to reserve a little shard of doubt about an adolescent colt who’s only done this a couple of times before, an eternity ago, in horse time.

We can all hope mightily for a fine demonstration of puissance from the favorite. Less diplomatically put, on one or two of those tickets, you might want to box him.