Record attendance, wagering on Kentucky Oaks card
Wagering and attendance on Friday at Churchill Downs were records for a Kentucky Oaks Day, the second straight year in which the standards fell.
Matt HegartyMay 06, 2016
Wagering and attendance on Friday at Churchill Downs were records for a Kentucky Oaks Day, the second straight year in which the standards fell.
Cathryn Sophia’s victory in the Kentucky Oaks as the 4.70-1 second choice kept the will-pays for the Oaks-Derby double within a moderate range. The lowest payoff for a $1 wager would be $29.40 when paired with early Derby favorite Nyquist. The highest would be $817 if Trojan Nation wins.
Morning-line favorite Nyquist maintained his position as the lowest-priced horse in the Kentucky Derby field, with early wagers floating him down from his program odds of 3-1 to 2-1 after the Kentucky Oaks on Friday.
While the pick four on races 5-8 at Churchill Downs on Saturday includes the Distaff Turf Mile, in which Tepin likely will go off at 1-5 or 2-5, the other three races are competitive enough to make a play possible. And, yes, I will throw in a "B" horse in the Distaff Turf Mile on the odd chance that Tepin doesn’t run her race or encounters a traffic jam.
The 20-horse field for the 2016 Kentucky Derby and the meaning behind their names.
Assessing value in the Kentucky Derby always starts with questioning the favorite. What price will he be? What kind of trip will he get? Is he vulnerable? Nyquist is the 3-1 morning-line favorite for the Derby, and that by definition makes him an underlay in a 20-horse field.
Something remarkable happened in the 2015 Kentucky Derby: The horses who occupied the first three positions after a quarter-mile of the race, Dortmund, Firing Line, and American Pharoah, were the first three horses to cross the finish line.
There should be some giant pools at Churchill Downs over the weekend, and the special Kentucky Oaks/Woodford Reserve Turf Classic/Kentucky Derby pick three looks interesting. I’ll play TicketMaker and hope to beat a favorite or two.
Mike Welsch's impressions of all 20 Kentucky Derby starters from observations made both at Churchill and Keeneland over the past two weeks.
Since 2003 there have been 13 different trainers win the Kentucky Derby, 13 different racing families elevated, for a brief time, above all the rest. At the end of those two minutes, run at a pace that seems both an eternity and a heartbeat, all the thankless toil, the freezing water, the deep muck, the monotonous turning left at the shank disappear in a burst of unfettered joy. There, draped over the shedrow rail as night falls on the Churchill Downs backstretch, is the proof it was not a dream – the garland of roses, proudly displayed at the center of the racing universe.