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.
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DRF Past Performances
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.
I had to look back almost 40 years into the Derby charts to find a comparable race shape. In the 1976 Derby, it was Bold Forbes, then Honest Pleasure, then Amano, then Electrocutionist at the Derby’s first call. They finished Bold Forbes, Honest Pleasure, Electrocutionist, Amano.
CHURCHILL DOWNS
Weather: Cloudy
Track: Good
Temp.: 46
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Thursday was the chilliest day yet on the Kentucky Derby watch, with temperatures in the mid-40s when the track opened and still straining to reach 50 by the time the Derby-Oaks training session began at 8:30 a.m.
Once you have been to the Kentucky Derby – and this reporter has been to 21 of them, which is more than anyone deserves – trying to appreciate the race from afar is like watching “The Force Awakens” from the back row of the drive-in theater. You know there is something fascinating going on way off there on the horizon, but it’s hard to appreciate the details.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With the 142nd Kentucky Derby upon us, overlays and underlays abound in the four Derby futures pools that were offered by Churchill Downs in preceding months.
The pools ran Nov. 26-29, Feb. 12-14, March 11-13, and April 1-3, with aggregate handle totaling $1,379,356.
The biggest overlays are in Pool 1, with Nyquist (9-1), Exaggerator (25-1), and Gun Runner (57-1). In Pool 2, Tom’s Ready was 83-1, and Whitmore was 81-1, and neither will be that high Saturday. In Pool 4, Exaggerator had yet to win the Santa Anita Derby and could be had at 27-1.
DRF sales editor Joe Nevills analyzes the Kentucky Derby field, in post position order, in the form of Haiku, a Japanese poem of 17 syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five.
Trojan Nation
The Wood runner-up
Still has maiden conditions
And will on Sunday
Suddenbreakingnews
Plenty of closers
Enter this edition’s gate
He’s not the best one
Creator
From out of nowhere
Arkansas Derby winner
Will gain placing late
Any horse can get a bad trip from a good post in the Kentucky Derby. Meanwhile, others get lucky. A good trip from a bad post is entirely possible. After all, there is a fair bit of unpredictability when 20 horses scramble for position.
But the post-position draw for the 2016 Derby was weird because the field is separated by running style. The draw is random, yet most speed horses, notably Danzing Candy, Outwork, and also-eligible first preference Laoban, drew outside in the auxiliary gate.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Nyquist is named for someone who plays in the cold, but it seems that racing has been relatively lukewarm to Nyquist.
Despite a perfect record of seven wins in seven starts, he heads into the 142nd Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs as the acknowledged favorite, but with 19 others lined up against him.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In the last few months, a quarterback went out on top after winning the Super Bowl, and a president bid farewell to media members with a mic drop.
Bob Baffert didn’t walk away after American Pharoah retired, didn’t say, “Baffert out,” following the Triple Crown. No, one year after training American Pharoah to the first Triple Crown sweep in 37 years, Baffert has taken up his familiar spot preceding the first Saturday in May, Barn 33 at Churchill Downs, where on Saturday, for the 17th time in his career, he will try to win the Kentucky Derby.