When I think of older horses who maintain their class as they age, I think of turf routers. It's not clear in my mind whether these are horses who could once compete at other games and switched to longer races on the turf, or if they were always turf routers, but the idea is there.
Calculating Jimmy, 2nd in a non-winners-of-two-other-than (nw2x) allowance on the turf at Keeneland Sunday, not only runs short as he pushes his 9th equine birthday, but usually dashes out to the lead. Of his last 13 races (which encompass his Sunday past performances and the Sunday race) he's been first at the first call eight times, and up by a length or more on seven of those occasions. It's one thing to lead early in routes, when many of the horses in the race can physically get the lead if their jockeys seek it, and another to lead early in sprints, when the run out of the gate is almost a race unto itself. As Calculating Jimmy has been a moderate horse, never trying a stake in 47 starts, he is clearly a horse who has maintained his speed.
And that makes me question my whole assumption. Do older really horses lose more ability in the early stages and in sprints than they lose overall? I know I've heard trainers talk about good older horses adopting a closer's role as they age, so I'm not making the idea up. But I also think of Caller One, the two-time Golden Shaheen winner, who eschewed other spots for the 2f Rocket Man Stakes at 7, 8, and 9, and won the race at age 10. And when a couple of our ex-horses have been considered as lead ponies, they've been described as still quick. So maybe the quickness remains, but not the speed, power, and soundness to run a good full 6f. Not that it's much different, but Calculating Jimmy's preferred distance seems to be 5.5 furlongs.
The story also falls a bit flat since I opened the post talking about older horses preferring long, turf races, and Calculating Jimmy was running on the turf Sunday. So he only defied the norm in one respect. However, 11 of his 12 races previous to Sunday's race were on synthetic, and he's been very competitive in his those races. He was 5-1 on Sunday off the synthetic form, and it would be premature at this point to conclude from the second-place finish that turf moves him up.
Calculating Jimmy's viability as an 8-year-old synthetic sprinter does beg the question of whether the theory of older horses maintaining their form on the turf also applies with synthetic. It's not as if Calculating Jimmy shifted to synthetic late in his career, though; he's only run on dirt four times in 47 races, and never hit the board on it. He's by Cozar out of a Housebuster mare, which fits with turf. We can't get anywhere comparing his dirt and synthetic performances as an older and younger horse, because there haven't been dirt races for him as an older horse.
Even setting aside distance and surface, Calculating Jimmy has aged well (how many 8-year-olds do you see almost breaking through in a straight nw2x allowance, not in a nw2x/optional claimer where they start by virtue of the tag?) This brings up the thought of whether Calculating Jimmy's durability has in some measure resulted from his unusual career of 64% synthetic races, 28% turf races, and 9% dirt races. We heard a lot about racing on the synthetic cutting down on injuries and breakdowns when it was first introduced, and a byproduct of that would be longer careers with less decline.
Calculating Jimmy's career has been noteworthy in one more respect: he's finished second 17 times and only won four times. If you're new to this kind of thinking, firsts and seconds should be more or less equal, if not for a trend or luck. There aren't many walkovers in racing, which means there are almost exactly the same number of firsts and seconds.
Calculating Jimmy didn't get stuck in race after race trying to break his maiden and just missing; that's often how a horse acquires a large number of seconds. He didn't finish second until his 14th start, and he broke his maiden in his seventh start. It doesn't appear he got stuck in pursuit of any other condition, either; he's an equal opportunity second-place finisher, with eight runner-ups in claiming races, seven in allowance races, and two in optional claiming races.
Getting back to the original direction of the post, Calculating Jimmy was 5th by
2 1/2 after 3/8ths of a mile on Sunday, unusual territory for him. He of course ended up performing very well. But it's too early to say that he's going over to the supposed norm for his age of relying on stong finishes in turf races.
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