Malibu Stakes (G1)
“Goal Oriented scores in Grade 1 company”
This was a first success at the highest level for Bob Baffert’s 3-year-old Goal Oriented on his 5th attempt in Grade 1 company. He has always been a fast horse. In both the Preakness Stakes and the Haskell earlier in the season he recorded a faster top speed figure than the winner (Journalism). There will be some who will point to the absence of Barnes, a scratching on the morning of the race and the bizarre incident in the saddling area that resulted in Cornucopian being withdrawn before the race and use that to suggest that this was a below par renewal of the Malibu Stakes, but I don’t think that’s fair. The return to a one bend race over this 7 furlong trip has really helped Goal Oriented to settle and to use his speed to its best effect. A winning time of 1:20.97 compares well with the recent winners of this race and we have to go all the way back to Mind Your Biscuits win in 2016 to find a quicker time. In part that was helped by the presence of Modus Bestia in gate 1, who showed his usual early speed to set the pace with opening fractions of 11.51 and 10.28s. He reached a top speed of 44.49 mph but as expected, he wasn’t able to maintain that kind of pace at this level and he duly faded. That early pace left Madaket Road in a vulnerable position. He raced closest to the early leader and was in front at halfway, but it was too much for the son of Quality Road and his race was also run by the time they turned for home. That then left Midland Money with the run into the straight. He enjoyed a solid run around in the box seat behind the 2 leaders, but despite getting that position, he simply lacked the class to repel the winner in the straight. At no point in the race did Midland Money manage to run the fastest individual split and when we compare his final quarter to Goal Oriented, there is a difference of 0.47s and the winner simply had too much late speed. My reason for telling the story of the race is to highlight the reason for the fast winning time. This was similar to one of those record attempts in athletics, where a series of pacemakers help to maintain the rhythm and early pace before the Champion takes over in the closing stages. Having been ridden patiently, Goal Oriented was able to be towed into the closing stages under Joel Rosario, but once he was asked to go and win his race, his class showed through and his closing splits were exceptional.
Consistency proved to be the key for Goal Oriented. He recorded an average stride frequency of 2.31 per second throughout the race, but that reached a peak of 2.37 per second, a variance of less than 3%. By contrast, both Madaket Road and Speedy Wilson had variances of 0.2 and 0.14 (both above 3.5%). The ability to get there in his own time and maintain the gallop into the latter stages meant that when the time came, Goal Oriented could quicken to the front, and quicken he did! Closing furlongs of 12.01, 11.97 and 12.22s were all “race best” figures and he was over half a second faster than any of his rivals over that part of the course. Unsurprisingly, that left him with a race best late speed figure of 36.89 mph and he backed that up with a run-out speed of 34.94 mph, also ranked 1st. He has form over further and so it’s perhaps not surprising to see him finish his race well and although there was a decent early pace, the race had a finishing speed of 93% and given that both Midland Money and Speedy Wilson have run sub 13-second final furlongs, this wasn’t a case of a patently ridden horse picking up the pieces from a pace collapse. Instead, this was a fast horse getting a clear run around the turn and then using his speed to get the better of his rivals. Tom Ryan’s post-race comments implied that they would be willing to travel, although they would take into account the opposition, most notably Nysos, to try and maximise the opportunities available for Goal Oriented. That would seem to be a sensible approach, especially when we highlight the fact that Nysos closed with furlongs of 11.86 and 11.93s when winning the Laffit Pincay Jr Stakes (G2) earlier on the Santa Anita card. However, the data would suggest that this 7-furlong trip suits Goal Oriented better. Both his average stride frequency and stride length were within 3% of his race average in the final furlong, suggesting that a well run race at this distance has allowed him to finish his race well and use his turn-of-foot to get the better of his rivals.