Dosage, Pedigree, and the Derby

Although talent is needed to win the Derby, breeding has a large impact as well. Most of the Derby entries have pedigrees dripping with blue blood, although there are always a few with relatively obscure breeding. One measure of the quality in a pedigree is Dosage. This is a scheme of assigning points for various sires in a horses pedigree to try and indicate inherited capabilities. It was invented by Dr. Steve Roman and he has a series of articles covering the various factors of Dosage and this year's Derby Contenders on the Blood Horse Triple Crown Mania site that are quite interesting.

Rather than rehash what he has posted, I will just give a summary of the top contenders and point out the ones I like based on Dosage.

                                                      Dosage  Center of
Horse             Sire                Dosage Profile  Index   Distribution
-----             ----                --------------  ------  ------------
Acceptable        Capote              12-2-8-0-0       4.50      1.18
Accelerator       A.P. Indy           15-3-16-0-0      3.25      0.97
Captain Bodgit    Saint Ballado       6-2-12-2-2       1.40      0.33
Concerto          Chief's Crown       9-7-10-0-0       4.20      0.96
Crypto Star       Cryptoclearance     7-9-9-0-1        3.72      0.80
Free House        Smokester           8-4-5-3-0        2.63      0.85
Frisk Me Now      Mr. Frisky          4-2-4-2-0        2.00      0.66
Funontherun       Runaway Groom       9-4-7-0-2        3.00      0.81
Glitter Woman     Glitterman          10-4-4-0-0       8.00      1.33
Hello             Lycius              11-2-13-0-0      3.00      0.92
Jack Flash        Sovereign Dancer    10-9-11-0-0      4.45      0.96
Pacificbounty     Pirate's Bounty     5-8-8-0-3        2.42      0.50
Phantom on Tour   Tour D'Or           5-2-3-0-0        5.67      1.20
Pulpit            A.P. Indy           15-3-13-1-0      3.27      1.00
Shammy Davis      Temperance Hill     4-4-9-1-0        2.27      0.61
Silver Charm      Silver Buck         3-5-17-5-0       1.22      0.20
Stolen Gold       Conquistador Cielo  14-6-8-1-1       4.00      1.03

The rule of thumb says you have to have a Dosage index of 4.0 or less and a CD of 1.25 or less to win the Derby. Dual qualifiers won for a stretch of 20 years or so but that has now been broken a couple of times and dualies are few in this year's probably field. My preference is to look at the Dosage profile. This is made of of 5 numbers which range from speed points on the left to stamina points on the right. The ideal Dosage profile is a bell shaped curve with numbers in all 5 positions. Second choice is to have good representation in the stamina wing.

Using this method, the best selections this year are Captain Bodgit and Silver Charm. Others with interesting Dosage are Crypto Star, Funontherun (who needs an excellent performance in the Lexington to get a ticket to the Derby), Pacific Bounty, Pulpit, and Stolen Gold. You really have to take a second look at Silver Charm since he fits the Dosage guidelines and is one of the few dual qualifiers. Captain Bodgit only missed being a dualie by 2 pounds and many feel he was not weighted high enough, so he could be considered a dual qualifier as well.

The big question is what to do with Pulpit. He did not race at 2 because of an injury so was not weighted on the EFH. He fits the dosage rules, his sire won the Belmont and the Breeders' Cup Classic, his grandsire is a Triple Crown winner, and his dam was a nice stakes winner. All this combined with his excellent performances this year mean he should have the talent to win the Derby but it has been a very long time since a horse that didn't race at 2 won the Derby. I like him very much but can he overcome this jinx?

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