Is the 2016 Kentucky Derby the Year of Tapit?

Is the 2016 Kentucky Derby the Year of Tapit?: One of the toughest achievements for a stallion in United States is to produce a Kentucky Derby winner. It’s a difficult task due to a lot of reasons: injuries, distance limitations, and simple bad luck can rob a horse of a Kentucky Derby victory. Lately, the “Run for the Roses” has been elusive to very good stallions like A.P. Indy, Giant’s Causeway, and Tapit, among others.

The 2014 and 2015 leading sire, the gray Tapit with a current $300,000 stud fee, entered stud in 2005, and since 2012 the stallion has had at least one horse run in the Kentucky Derby without tasting the sweetness of victory.

In 2012, two-year-old champion Hansen with Ramon Dominguez up arrived in Louisville with some perceived distance limitations, which he fulfilled in the Derby by fading in the stretch to finish in the middle of the pack.

In 2013, Tapit was represented by Normandy Invasion, a horse who almost beat Verrazano in the Wood Memorial. In a wide open Derby, Normandy Invasion made an aggressive move into the stretch (reminds me Bernardini’s move in the BC Classic) but faded to finish fourth.

The next year, Tapit had another chance in the Derby with Tapiture, a horse who did not want to run 1¼ miles and thus finished in a disappointing 15th place. At that moment, the feeling was that the Tapits couldn’t handle the classic distance.

The 2015 Kentucky Derby edition was the year in which a Tapit had the best performance. The Godolphin horse Frosted ran wide throughout the trip and was able to finish fourth behind three tremendous horses, American Pharoah, Firing Line, and Dortmund, with plenty of gas left in the tank.

This year, it looks like Tapit has the best chance of his stallion career to produce a Kentucky Derby winner. Mohaymen, a half-sibling to the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile hero New Year’s Day, is undefeated in four starts and has been spectacular, looking better in each start, especially in the Holy Bull Stakes when he responded to everything his jockey asked. Immediately after crossing the wire, Mohaymen became the favorite to win the Kentucky Derby. However, a lot of people still maintain that since he is a Tapit, he won’t be able to handle the classic distance.

At this point, Tapit has produced a few horses considered to be exceptions with the ability to run 1¼ miles, like Frosted and Tonalist. It is no coincidence that both horses are backed by strong female bloodlines that helped them to relish the classic distance. Looking at Tapit’s stallion statistics, the big question is whether or not Mohaymen wants to run the Kentucky Derby distance.

A positive note is that Mohaymen is out of a Dixie Union mare, which could be a stamina influence since Dixie Union produced Belmont Stakes winner Union Rags. Coincidentally, Mor Spirit, another top Kentucky Derby contender, is out of a Dixie Union mare as well. If we go deeper into Mohaymen’s pedigree, we can see names like Honour and Glory (Relaunch), an important early speed and slop influence, so in theory, Mohaymen could handle a sloppy track if rains on Derby day.

Surely Mohaymen will have both fans and detractors, a phenomenon that usually occurs with good horses, but again, Mohaymen is by Tapit, so only time will tell if he wants to run the classic distance. Let’s see what happens this week in the Fountain of Youth (GII), the toughest competition he has ever faced. At this point, though, he is going in the right direction.