COMMENTARY : Criminal Type Looks Near Unbeatable for Horse-of-Year Honor

Housebuster and Go for Wand are on his heels in the Horse-of-the-Year race, but with the Breeders’ Cup approaching, the title is Criminal Type’s to lose. It has been so since his victories over Easy Goer in the Met Mile and Sunday Silence in the Hollywood Gold Cup were followed by the retirements of both. Suddenly, the muscular, deep-girthed Criminal Type, a 5-year-old who has taken late development to a new frontier, was alone and brandishing a streak of three Grade I victories going into the Whitney Handicap on Aug. 4 at Saratoga.

Five opposed him that day, none with a prayer of outrunning the former middling allowance horse turned behemoth of the handicap division. This is an animal who was anonymous at age 2, nondescript at 3 and forgettable at 4, when he earned less than $67,000. But by midsummer of his fifth year, Criminal Type looked unbeatable.

Having won hard-fought, photo-finish decisions over Housebuster in the Met Mile and Sunday Silence in the Hollywood Gold Cup, he won the Whitney as he pleased in a quickly run 9 furlongs, an effort comparable to his other victories.

In Saturday’s Woodward Handicap, Criminal Type will encounter Rhythm, winner of the Travers Stakes, the high point of a largely disappointing season for last year’s 2-year-old champion; Dispersal, who has not raced in New York since taking the NYRA Mile last fall at Aqueduct but who is on a more modest streak of his own; two California shippers who may have Breeders’ Cup aspirations; Thirty Six Red, who has spent the summer attempting to recapture his spring form, and a few others whose prospects appear dim at best.

On paper, the Woodward looks much like a repeat of the Whitney. The distance, 9 furlongs, is probably Criminal Type’s best, and the stakes are much larger than the winner’s share of a $500,000 purse.

A Woodward victory would be of substantial importance to Criminal Type’s Horse-of-the-Year prospects and his value as a progenitor of the breed for his owner, Calumet Farm. It also increases the already considerable value of his wildly successful sire, Alydar, who stands at Calumet.

A loss in a race Criminal Type is expected to win easily could be overcome in the Jockey Club Gold Cup and Breeders’ Cup Classic. A defeat, however, would allow no margin for setback in light of the seasons being enjoyed by the 3-year-old filly Go for Wand and Housebuster, who in many eyes became the leading 3-year-old male with his overpowering performance in the Jerome Handicap despite his absence from the Triple Crown and the Travers.

The Woodward is the first significant race of the fall meeting at Belmont that has substantial Breeders’ Cup implications. Rhythm, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last year, is a candidate for the Classic but must duplicate his come-from-behind Travers effort if he is to be taken seriously as a threat. Not even his connections are certain he will.

Having coped with an erratic Rhythm, who raced close to the pace throughout the summer, trainer Shug McGaughey and jockey Craig Perret elected to allow the colt to relax early and finish with one long run, which resulted in a solid if not altogether convincing victory. It worked at Saratoga. “Now, we have to hope it will work again,” McGaughey said.

But like the ultimate title that trainer D. Wayne Lukas and Calumet Farm seek for Criminal Type, the Woodward is his to lose. Criminal Type put a signature to the preparation Tuesday with a 5-furlong move in 0:59 2/5 that was almost effortless. “He’s been working fast since the Whitney,” assistant trainer Jeff Lukas said. “It falls into his pattern. He’s been a good work horse in the last four or five months.”

In the last four or five months, he’s been an indomitable racehorse.