Maybe I'm being stubborn, but I'm just not buying the proposition that Albertus Maximus deserves to be strongly favored in the world's richest horse, Saturday's $6 million Dubai World Cup. He looks like a severe underlay and I'll be playing against him.
Invasor and Curlin won the last two World Cups by daylight, so perhaps the nominal leader of the American handicap division is just automatically considered the deserving chalk. Albertus Maximus is a nice enough racehorse and in good hands, but he's no Curlin or Invasor, champions who were fresh off Horse of the Year campaigns that incuded victories in the Breeders' Cup Classic. Albertus Maximus, who doesn't seem to have a whole lot of room for improvement after 19 career starts, has far, far skimpier credentials. He has won exactly one graded race (he is 1 for 6 in such events), the Donn at Gulfstream Jan. 31, where he scored by half a length over Finallymadeit, a confirmed G3 type, and earned a career-best Beyer of only 103 for his nine furlongs in 1:50.96. Going into their World Cups, Curlin had a best Beyer of 119 and Invasor had run a 116.
But he's a Breeders' Cup winner, isn't he? Yeah, but the BC Dirt/Synth Mile isn't exactly the Classic. That race got only a Beyer 102, and don't give me the low-synthetic-figures argument because on the same card Midnight Lute got a 112 in the Sprint and Raven's Pass got a 110 in the Classic. His effort was farther from those efforts than it was from Muhannak's victory in the BC Marathon, which earned a Beyer 100. Are we sure he's so much better than a Muhannak, who drew the dreaded rail for the World Cup but is 20-1 on an ML where Albertus Maximus is the 2-1 favorite? Are we so sure he's any better than the beaten favorites from his last two victories -- Well Armed (6-1 in the World Cup) and Arson Squad (15-1), each of whom has at least three races faster than the favorite's best?
It's a very closely-matched field, and it would probably be splitting hairs to choose among Albertus Maximus Arson Squad, Asiatic Boy, Casino Drive and Well Armed if they were all the same price. But there's just no good reason for Albertus Maximus to be strongly favored among them, and that's the stuff that parimutuel opportunities are made of.
Click here for free World Cup past performances(pdf).
