These Two Could Pull a Fast One

When the Laurel Futurity was run two weeks ago, it figured to be a dreary event. Not a soul -- not even the trainers of the horses or the most optimistic members of the track’s management -- could have dreamed that the future winner of the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile might be in the field.

Heavy rain forced the transfer of the Futurity, one of the events in the International Turf Festival, from the grass to the dirt. Virtually all of the horses in the fields had been racing principally on the grass; the European horses in the lineups had never set foot on a dirt track before. Whoever won the Futurity was likely to do it by default.

Instead an invader from Ireland, Go and Go, and a Maryland-based colt, Robyn Dancer, waged a stirring duel. Robyn Dancer opened an early lead, but Go and Go fought relentlessly to wear him down and ended up winning in a photo finish. Yet the most stunning aspect of the Futurity was not the drama of the stretch run, but the time of the race.

When I sat down with the Laurel charts to make my normal speed-figure calculations, I had trouble believing the results. The Futurity had been the fastest race for 2 year olds in America this year. Both Go and Go and Robyn Dancer had earned a figure that would normally be good enough to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and an Eclipse Award.

I know that speed handicapping sometimes produces figures that have to be dismissed as aberrations. If the winner of a daily-double race at Timonium should run as if he were the second coming of Secretariat, I would dismiss the result as a fluke -- possibly created by the electric timer or a sudden change in the racing surface.

But there was nothing freakish about the Futurity. The Laurel racing surface seemed to be consistent all day. Sweet Roberta had won the Selima Stakes that afternoon in 1:46 for 1 1/16 miles, and she must have delivered an excellent effort to win by 10 lengths. An hour later Go and Go won the Futurity at the same distance in 1:44--a performance vastly superior to that of Sweet Roberta.

If several horses had been clustered together at the finish of the Futurity, I still might have distrusted the time, since it would have been implausible for so many horses to run so well. But Go and Go and Robyn Dancer finished 10 1/2 lengths ahead of the third-place finisher. The conclusion was inescapable: Both colts had run brilliant races, and they are the two best horses in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Saturday.

But this remains a minority opinion. Go and Go and Robyn Dancer are listed, respectively, at 15 to 1 and 20 to 1 in Gulfstream Park’s morning line, and the trainers of both are talking as if they are taking a long-shot flyer by running in the country’s richest and most important race for 2 year olds.

Trainer Jerry Robb doesn’t know quite what to make of Robyn Dancer -- whether his good showing in the Futurity was due to an exceptional effort or to the weakness of the field. He did make note of the fast time and the big gap between his colt and the third-place finisher.

But he is clearly not convinced that Robyn Dancer is a budding champion, since owner John E. Owens sold the colt Wednesday to a California-based stable. The price was believed to be in the vicinity of $600,000.

Robb said he would continue to prepare Robyn Dancer for the Breeders’ Cup but will turn him over to trainer Darrell Vienna after the race. He thought the colt ought to run better here with the addition of blinkers, and with the acquisition of Angel Cordero Jr. as his jockey. Cordero actively solicited the mount, telling Robb he wasn’t impressed by the favorites in the race, Adjudicating and Rhythm, both of whom he has ridden.