Kentucky Derby 'bubble' horses worth a close look

Twenty-three horses ran in a rough-and-tumble edition of the Kentucky Derby in 1974, and that was too many, track officials decided before the 1975 Derby, capping the maximum number of starters at 20, though a court injunction permitted a 21st runner in 1981.

It wasn’t until 1999 that the Derby drew more than 20 entrants again and the 20-horse maximum, determined by graded-stakes earnings, had to be invoked, but since 2004, a full Derby entry box of 20 horses has become the rule.

Last year, the graded-stakes-earnings protocol was replaced by a points system devised by Churchill Downs and intended to emphasize 3-year-old, two-turn races. Regardless of whether points, graded earnings, or a horse’s ability to dance the tango determine who’s in and who’s out, as long as the connections of more than 20 horses want a spot in the field (and they most certainly do), the days leading up to Derby entries will, somewhat perversely, focus attention on the least-qualified horses trying to get into the race.

But there is more than mere big-event hype in play here. During the 10-year reign of the overfilled Derby field, the last horses into the Derby have frequently been far from the last to cross the finish line. Two days before Derby entries were due, Candy Boy, Uncle Sigh, Vinceremos, Harry’s Holiday, and Commanding Curve held down the last five qualifying spots, and history suggests that at least one of them has a decent chance of hitting the board Saturday.

[ROAD TO THE KENTUCKY DERBY: Prep races, point standings, replays]

“The bubble.” That’s what the gray zone between the runners and the excluded is called. In the decade since it became a matter of course that the Derby would attract a full field, a bubble horse – which we’ll limit to the last five horses into the race – never has won the Derby, and only one has finished as high as second. Until Golden Soul, the second-to-last horse in the Derby, nabbed second last year, no bottom-five qualifier over the last decade had finished better than third, though 15th-ranked Closing Argument finished second as the longest shot in the 2005 field at 71-1. That year’s winner, of course, was 50-1 Giacomo, ranked 14th in graded earnings, with Don’t Get Mad, 19th on the earnings list, filling out the mother of all superfectas ($864,253.50 for a $1 bet), finishing fourth at odds of 29-1.

Closing Argument had finished second in the $1 million Delta Jackpot, but that was before the race got a grade and started (ridiculously) automatically qualifying its winner for the Derby, and Closing Argument punched his ticket by winning the Holy Bull and finishing a tame third in the Blue Grass. Giacomo never won a race of consequence before the Derby and earned his way in with high placings in a series of graded races, while Don’t Get Mad used two graded stakes placings to get into the field.

Almost every year, some horse from the lowest quartile of qualifiers crashes the black-tie portion of the party, and you can rest assured they will do so at a price: Of the 50 bottom-five qualifiers over the last 10 years, only Paddy O’Prado, third at 12-1 in 2010, went postward at odds lower than 20-1.

In 2006, it was Jazil, 17th on the earnings list, filling out the bottom hole in the superfecta at 24-1. Sedgefield, at odds of 58-1 in 2007, came home fifth as the 17th horse on the earnings list, while Paddy O’Prado, the 16th qualifier in the 2010 Derby, finished third. Shackleford, like Paddy O’Prado trained by Dale Romans, finished fourth at 23-1 in the 2011 Derby after moving into the 18th spot in graded earnings with an out-of-nowhere second in the Florida Derby, his only pre-Derby graded placing. And in 2012, Went the Day Well, whose only pre-Derby graded-stakes start came in the Grade 3 Spiral, which he won, rounded out the Derby superfecta at 30-1.

Most remarkable is the surprising success of horses who were the very last qualifier on the graded-stakes scale, a list onto which we’ll throw the 2013 Derby runner-up Golden Soul. Golden Soul was 19th last year on the new points system, his spot in the Derby field not secured until the day before entries were taken. He went off at 34-1 and finished better than any of his 19 rivals save the victorious Orb.

The 20th-ranked qualifier in the 2007, 2008, and 2010 editions of the Derby managed to hit the board. Imawildandcrazyguy, like Giacomo, snared a Derby berth in 2007 by getting pieces of several different graded-stakes purses without ever turning in a breakthrough performance. He probably didn’t even move forward much in the Derby, but his grinding running style pushed him from 20th in the early going to fourth at the finish, and his 28-1 odds basically made the five-figure superfecta with the well-backed Street Sense, Hard Spun, and Curlin home in front of him.

In 2008, a horse named Behindatthebar was removed from Derby consideration a couple of days before entries were taken, which opened the door for Denis of Cork, the Southwest Stakes winner whose qualifying candidacy had taken a hit when he finished fifth in the Illinois Derby. Denis of Cork also rallied from 20th, finishing third behind Big Brown and Eight Belles, completing a $3,445.60 trifecta.

The last five in the 2009 Derby did little running (though subsequent Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird, ranked 17th on graded earnings, got a dreadful trip while finishing sixth), but once again, in 2010, the last horse in proved more than an afterthought, as Make Music for Me, a 30-1 shot, finished fourth to complete another stupefying Derby superfecta, this one paying $202,569.20 for a $2 wager.

And guess where Make Music for Me came from? That’s right – like Denis of Cork and Imawildandcrazyguy, Make Music for Me rallied from 20th to get his number up on the board.

In fact, every bottom-five qualifier to finish fifth or better in the Derby over the last 10 years, save Shackleford in 2011, was a deep closer. It’s a stark trend, and one that makes sense, particularly in the era of graded-stakes qualifying, where 2-year-old standouts who could run well in rich races like the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the Delta Jackpot occupied high spots on the list. Meanwhile, late-blooming, stamina-oriented runners who could truly get the Derby’s 1 1/4-mile distance were left to creep in through the back door after failing to amass earnings in races too short for them. Commanding Curve, who just got into the Derby on Sunday, is this year’s obvious fit into the recent pattern of success.

Also striking is the fairly small separation between the average finishing position of the five top qualifiers and the five bottom qualifiers during the last decade: The top five had an average finish of 9.14, the bottom five an average finish of 11.17.

Only twice during the last 10 years has the top qualifier for the Derby actually won the race: Street Sense did it in 2007, as did Orb, the winner of the first points-based Derby in 2013. A Churchill Downs booster might tout Orb’s victory as a validation of the points-based system over the graded-earnings method, but that would be ignoring another fact. In 2013, the bottom five qualifiers had an average finish position of 9.2, the top five an average finish of 11.4 – the second time in 10 years that the supposedly least qualified had outperformed the purportedly most qualified.