Kentucky Derby: Future Wager overlays include Mylute, Goldencents

The whole point of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager is to give bettors a chance to get some value out of being ahead of the proverbial curve. So now here it is, Derby Day, and some futures players are sitting in a better spot than others.

[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]

Players who accepted 8-5 win odds on the mutuel field, the 24th or “all others” option, in the first of three futures pools seem to be in a good position. They have Orb, the morning-line favorite on the Derby program, as well as Palace Malice and Java’s War among nine Pool 1 field horses (including the lone also-eligible, Fear the Kitten).

Pool 1 in the 15th annual future wager ran Feb. 8-10. Pool 2 ran March 1-3 and Pool 3 ran March 22-24.

A Pool 1 field horse has wound up winning the Derby in 6 of the 14 prior years. The field has been the Pool 1 favorite all 15 years.
The field was the 3-1 favorite in Pool 2, and there are 10 in that group, with perhaps Java’s War, Mylute, Frac Daddy, and Will Take Charge the strongest of those. The field also was a slight favorite (5-1) in Pool 3, again with Mylute and Frac Daddy perhaps rating the best chances among eight.

As for overlays among individually listed interests, Mylute, with Rosie Napravnik riding, surely will be far shorter odds Saturday than the 123-1 at which he closed in Pool 1. Similarly, Goldencents (20-1, 24-1, 49-1) looks enticing in all three pools, as do the respective prices on Overanalyze (33-1, 37-1, 49-1), the 40-1 and 42-1 that bettors could have gotten on Palace Malice in Pool 2 and Pool 3, or even the 12-1 and 13-1 to be had on Orb in Pool 2 and Pool 3.

Conversely, Vyjack at 11-1 (Pool 2) and 10-1 (Pool 3) most likely is lower than what you can get Saturday, while other dubious plays include Oxbow (26-1, 31-1, 21-1) and Will Take Charge (19-1 in Pool 3). Verrazano (11-1, 9-1, 7-1) offers only minimal value over what his closing price is likely to be Saturday.

Aggregate handle, including exactas, on the three pools was $1,470,019, fourth-highest in history. The Pool 1 handle of $621,493 was the second highest for a single total pool.

The highest win price in futures history remains $188 for a $2 wager on Funny Cide in Pool 1 in 2003. Churchill first offered parimutuel futures in 1999.

A previous version of this article misstated the total handle for Pool 1 in 2013 and incorrectly stated that it was a record for a single pool. The total handle was $621,493, not $631,304, and it was the second highest total for a single pool.