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.

Gotham Stakes winner Shagaf saw the most dramatic change in his odds, rising from 20-1 on the morning line set by Churchill’s Mike Battaglia to 74-1, making him the longest price on the board.

A total of $862,829 had been wagered into the Kentucky Derby win pool through 7:34 p.m. Eastern.

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.

Here is a $52 play. The ticket is set up to let a "B" horse win in one leg of the sequence. All tickets are in 50-cent increments.

Race 5

Trojan Nation: Co-owner Julie Gilbert’s father graduated from the University of Southern California in 1953; the school's mascot is the Trojans.

Suddenbreakingnews: Owner Sam F. Henderson has no connection to the media business; he said he simply likes the name.

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.

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.

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.

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