Did Dubai Defang the Mighty Arrogate?

There are no certainties in horse racing and we saw that when Arrogate—the indestructible Horse of Steel presumably sent from an imploding equine planet—lost the Grade II San Diego Handicap.
In this case it appears arrogance beat Arrogate.
“I think he’s alright,” trainer Bob Baffert told Paulick Report. “I just think I didn’t have him ready. I think I should have worked him here. [Del Mar]… It’s weird. Every time I run him, I really have him razor sharp, but I came in here thinking ‘ehhh.’ He was short. He didn’t have it.”
That ‘ehhh’ means that he figured an 80-percent Arrogate was probably better than a 100-percent everybody else. This probably happens more than we realize when a trainer has the best horse and doesn’t want him too cranked for what is ultimately a prep for two more Grade Is, those being the Pacific Classic and Breeders’ Cup Classic, both run at a whopping 10 furlongs.
Let’s also remember that this was Arrogate’s first race back since his epic win in the Dubai World Cup. And here’s the thing: Maybe we’ve seen the best of Arrogate. There’s something in the water about that Dubai trip, especially when you see a horse make a huge performance that fundamentally shatters the Horse Racing Internet as we know it and has race callers asking if Arrogate is the “Have we see the Man o’War of the 21st century?”
Look back to Curlin in 2008. That move he made off the turn in Dubai was volcanic, but his skills as an explosive horse began eroding that day. With each win throughout the rest of the year, Curlin had to grind just a bit more. He won races like the Stephen Foster, the Woodward and the Jockey Club Gold Cup, but it wasn’t with 360-degree breakaway dunks. It was with straight-up two-hand jams with a defender on his hip. Grit became his greatest asset before he ultimately lost to Raven’s Pass over Santa Anita’s then cushion track.
Suddenly Baffert has a problem on his hand, one he likely didn’t foresee heading into the San Diego Handicap. He may now realize that Arrogate must be 100 percent prepared every race now. The Arrogate we saw in the 2016 Travers—what you might call his unveiling—then his successive wins in Breeders’ Cup Classic, Pegasus World Cup and Hollywood-style Dubai World Cup, might be gone.
“He just didn’t fire,” Baffert said “He’s flat. He’s a little soft. I think he just was flat and didn’t run. We’ll go through all that. I think that as long as nothing shows up, he’ll just get a few days off.”
There are many possible reasons why Arrogate didn’t fire. Maybe he had an undetected infection. Maybe, as Baffert said, he was soft. Any athlete with a Frisbee-sized bulls eye on his/her back will garner the best effort from those around him.
When Victor Espinoza pumped his fist aboard Accelerate to win the San Diego ’Cap, it wasn’t that he won the race; it was that he and Accelerate defeated Arrogate.
Espinoza ought to know. He lost the Travers aboard American Pharoah to Keen Ice, a fine stamina-loving horse, but a horse that won’t ever say, “I won the Travers,” but, “I beat American Pharoah to win the Travers.”
Which brings us back to Baffert. He openly admitted that American Pharoah wasn’t in top form heading into the 2015 Travers. He wasn’t quite as fit and when something like 30,000 people came to watch Pharoah exercise one morning over the main track, it occupied a bit more RAM from Pharoah, which ultimately led to one or two pistons gumming up the engine.
That’s potentially what happened with Arrogate. He needed the race, but wasn’t given the training he deserved based on his otherworldly talent. He leveled down while others leveled up. The calculus added up to disappointment and stress, as if Baffert’s hair can get any whiter.
Dubai is a devil’s deal. Dubai ages a horse. You may win the second-richest race in the world against the world’s best thoroughbreds, but at what cost?
Should a pitcher throw on three-days’ rest three times in one World Series to win a ring if it means he’ll lose one, two, three years off his career? Competitors always know the answer to that question and the answer is always the same.
No matter how early a horse ships to Dubai, no matter how long they take to come down, it always manages to whittle the pencil down to a nub leaving little left to write the rest of the story.