With the draw happening tomorrow, I've been really trying to zero in on my decision with Fierceness of whether to KEY or TOSS. After all, he is the fastest horse in the race.

I saw an interesting stat from @Horseplayernow on X that the last 12 Derby favorites are 12: 6-3-2-1. So, one has to use Fierceness right? On the other hand, favorites in the Derby who lost in their 3yo Derby prep season are 1 for 17 since 1993. The lone winner was Street Sense who lost in a 3-way photo I believe in the Bluegrass. The other 9 winning favorites were 26 for 26 in their pre-Derby starts. These stats came from @TravisStone who posts some excellent information at times. But these somewhat juxtaposing stats don't sway me one way or the other for my decision on Fierceness. I'm more interested in this horse and his trainer's ability to get him to the winner's circle.

I went back and I looked at the PP's for Dreaming of Julia as I have been daydreaming about how to really make this decision. She ran the fastest figure in the history of TG back in the Gulfstream Park Oaks in 2013. In the Kentucky Oaks, she went off at odds of 3-2 (which at the time and now I think is a bit higher than I expected), she got bumped around at the start, and finished with a solid run albeit too late as the others got the jump on her in what was a heck of a field. What happened with her has ZERO bearing on what happens with Fierceness. But again, I was just hunting around with a Todd flop with the fastest horse. This lead me to search the following as I thought about TAP some more: How does Todd do after winning a graded stakes and putting them back into a graded stakes? More specifically, what percentage of the time has he won consecutive graded stakes on DIRT?

It was quite a little task to figure this out as it doesn't just pop that feature up in the popular program most use for trainer stats. Regardless of that, here is what I found over the past 5 years plus*:

Pletcher has 40 horses that totaled 71 starts attempting to win Consecutive Graded Stakes on Dirt.

71 starts-19 wins. 26.7%. Very solid win percentage.

However, those 19 wins were won by only 7 of those horses as follows in that scenario:

Forte: 6 starts-4 wins
Life is Good: 6 starts-4 wins
Malathaat: 7 starts-4 wins
Nest: 5 starts-2 wins
Tapit Trice: 2 starts-1 win
Prince Lucky: 1 start-1 win (*Asterisk above. NOTE: this is beyond 5 years but his PP's showed up under broader parameters of the search so I have included him which is favorable to TAP's record in this situation).
Coal Front: 4 starts-3 wins

The other 33 horses that won a graded stakes on dirt and attempted to win another graded stakes on dirt in the very next start were 0 (Zero) for 40. Interestingly, of those 33 horses only 1 of them attempted it more than twice and that was Fearless at 0 for 3 in that situation.

Once Todd figures out a horse is not capable of winning at the graded stakes level twice in a row, he generally didn't try it again. On the other hand, with the really good ones, he would keep firing them and they collected wins. But the number of those horses is few as listed above.

So, is Fierceness in the category of Forte, Life is Good, Malathaat, Nest, Coal Front, or even Tapit Trice and Prince Lucky? Or is he one of the other 33 horses that couldn't win consecutive dirt graded stakes over the past 5 plus years? Well, he is already included in the stat as he has failed once and is 0 for 1 on the list.

There's more to the decision than this but barring a perfect draw outside of all the other speed, I can not play this horse. Even with a perfect draw, I still can't play the favorite for Todd stretching out 2 furlongs in a field of 20 at odds of 5-2/3-1 give or take.

I think the horse is very, very talented obviously when he gets the perfect setup. But based on these statistics I cited along with Todd's Derby history in the prior post, the added distance, his 2 losses, and the likely favorite's role, I can not play this horse. I also believe the pace will be hot and will be a disadvantage for the colt as the field stands at the moment. If he wins, I'll tip my cap to the horse and Pletcher for an outstanding job. But my money will be against him and I'm going to Toss him altogether UNLESS he draws absolutely perfect to my mind (and I've already set out what that needs to be) and then I will likely just watch the race without a wager. But I highly doubt he gets that Perfect draw I would require.

Hopefully, JB doesn't roast me for using wins and not TG figures for this stance or the pace scenario. But hopefully, it will lead to some discussion on what others are doing with Fierceness.

As always, no guarantee on these stats as it was quite the task by pencil and paper for a good part of it but they are very, very close if not 100% accurate.


**Second Asterisk** Vino Rosso was one of the 33 listed above and his record in the scenario described was 0 for 1. However, in addition to that one attempt, he did cross the wire first in the JC Gold Cup but was DQ-ed (Code of Honor put up) and then won the BC Classic in the next start.**