Commentator (right) bests St. Liam in the 2006 Whitney

Commentator (right) bests St. Liam in the 2006 Whitney

Commentator (on the right) bests St. Liam in the 2006 Whitney Stakes

The 2008 Breeders’ Cup Classic has been billed as a showdown between three-year-old star Big Brown and Curlin. Big Brown dominated the Kentucky Derby and Preakness while Curlin is reigning BC Classic champion, Horse of the Year, and all-time leading money winner. But this analysis leaves out one of the three best horses in the country, Commentator. Considering that the seven-year-old veteran has never won a divisional championship, never finished in the top six in a Breeders’ Cup race, and has never even raced beyond 1 1/8 miles, this ranking would seem laughable. These factors also indicate that Commentator would be a poor fit for the BC Classic at 1 ¼ miles against the best horses in the world. Commentator, however, has been the sport’s most underrated older male horse in the years from 2005-2008. My analysis predicts that if he were to run in the Classic, he would be a contender in the biggest race of the year.

Commentator’s Beyer Speed Figures indicate that he is one of the top horses in the country. Commentator has run twenty times in his career, and three times has run a Beyer above 120. Another three times he ran in the 110-120 range, and six other races he ran a 100 or better. Curlin’s career high is a 119 over a sloppy track (he normally runs about 110) while Big Brown consistently runs in the 100-110 range.

One of Commentator’s most notable characteristics is his affinity for longer distances. Two of his three best performances came at 1 1/8 miles, one a thrilling defeat of eventual Horse of the Year St. Liam in the 2006 Whitney Stakes. In his next race, the Woodward at 1 1/8, he was third against the very best horses in the country despite being pressured by “rabbits” into setting an extremely fast early pace. He earned an 82 in this race under unfair conditions. If we eliminate this race, he displays a pronounced tendency to favor long distances such as the Classic’s 1 ¼. In fact, my regression analysis predicts that he would run a 120.1 in the Classic, definitely good enough to beat Big Brown and Curlin.

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The only factor that could deter Commentator from a dominating race in the Classic would be weight. In the Classic Commentator would carry 126 pounds. The only times in his career he has carried 126 pounds or more were an awful run in the BC Sprint at ¾ miles in which he earned a 75 Beyer and the pace-pressured Woodward against St. Liam in which he earned an 82. But we have already seen that Commentator would not appreciate the short distance of the Sprint and that no horse could have won the Woodward that year on the lead. Nevertheless, Commentator does have a negative correlation between performance and weight. If we extrapolate to compute his performance in the Classic considering both length and weight, we find that he would run an excellent 111.8.

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This year has been Commentator’s best ever. He won the Massachusetts by an incredible 14 lengths, dominated by 4 ¾ in the Grade I Whitney, won the Richter Scale by 13 ¾, and finished a game second in the Metropolitan. The Whitney win earned him a trip to the BC Classic. If his owner decides to run him in the Classic, he will give Big Brown and Curlin a run for the Horse of the Year championship. If not, he will still be an underrated star who deserves a chance to run in a 1¼ mile race and show his distance ability. Either way, no horse since John Henry has done as well as Commentator at age six or older.

Commentator’s career past performances can be found at http://www.drf.com/bc/2008/pps/commentator.pdf