1. Irish War Cry

2. Practical Joke

3. Gormley

4. McCraken

IRISH WAR CRY enters in top form and with the field’s top speed figures. He has an up-front running style, and recent Derby winners have been forwardly placed. Irish War Cry has won four of five starts and established his class by winning graded stakes at two tracks. Lots to like. His impressive victory last out in the Wood Memorial was the result of a perfect trip, which is expected. He usually gets a perfect trip due to his running style.

1. McCraken

2. Practical Joke

3. Lookin At Lee

4. Gunnevera

The road to this year’s Kentucky Derby has been a bumpy one, and even the most accomplished of this 3-year-old crop have managed to find a pothole or two on the way to Louisville.

That inconsistency, when added to a group of 20 3-year-olds who have top Beyer Speed Figures residing in a tight range, makes for a Derby that, while maybe a bit top-heavy, still seems open to one of several different outcomes.

Isabelle de Tomaso says her favorite racecar was a red OSCA 750S. De Tomaso is still fond of horsepower that comes in a red package, only now it has four hooves instead of four tires.

A New Jersey homebred, the chestnut colt Irish War Cry is revving up for the Kentucky Derby for de Tomaso, whose father was the late Amory L. Haskell, the first president and chairman of the Monmouth Park Jockey Club and the namesake of its signature race.

Assessing the pace scenario is one of the more critical aspects of handicapping the Kentucky Derby. Historically, the Derby has featured fast early paces, enabling even the deepest one-run closers a chance to hit the board. Recently, however, the Derby has featured more moderate paces during the early stages, making it very difficult to catch the horses who are forwardly placed throughout. This year’s pace scenario is an intriguing one; below, you’ll find runners grouped based on where they’re likely to reside during Saturday’s race.

FORWARD

CHURCHILL DOWNS Weather: Cloudy

Track: Fast

Temp.: 50

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Time is running out to form those all-important final impressions about this year’s Kentucky Derby field. Each of the 20 horses in the main body of the field was on the track to train Wednesday at Churchill Downs, with the majority of the action taking place, as usual, during the special Oaks-Derby session immediately following the renovation break.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Some of Vinnie Viola’s earliest memories as a child are of going to Aqueduct and Belmont Park with his father, who would put his son right in front of the tote board with specific instructions to watch the fluctuation of odds.

“My father handicapped and bet every day,” Viola said. “He would tell me to try to memorize every change in the last two minutes before post time of every horse. I think it greatly helped me when I got to Wall Street. It made it a lot slower for me as I got comfortable with the movement of numbers to risk.”

How does the Projector work? The TimeformUS Pace Projector attempts to predict how a race will unfold early. It displays the horses ranked by the TimeformUS Early Speed Rating – fastest in the front, slowest in the rear. The image shows where the horses are projected to be after the first half-mile of a route race. The front is displayed to the right. It also attempts to determine if the pace of the race is likely to be fast, average, or slow.

Dominick Schettino will watch Saturday’s 143rd Kentucky Derby with mixed emotions.

As the original trainer and co-owner of Always Dreaming, Schettino can’t help but feel some remorse about no longer having a stake in a horse who has a very live chance to win the world’s most famous horse race.

Flavien Prat was acting like a kid at Christmas. No, check that. He was acting like a kid the week before Christmas, dizzy with anticipation.

“He kept saying, ‘Let’s get to the big stuff,’ ” said his agent, Derek Lawson, as last Saturday’s Santa Anita program began. “I told him to be patient. Do his job, and then we would be heading for Kentucky. It would be here before he knew it.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – On the first Saturday in May 2016, the jockey Florent Geroux angled for home in his first Kentucky Derby with not a single horse between his mount, Gun Runner, and the distant finish line.

Gun Runner had been third at the first call behind runaway pacesetter Danzing Candy and eventual winner Nyquist, but he took up a position in front of Nyquist and was the first to attack a fading Danzing Candy.