The Road To The Winners’ Circle: Analyzing Top Kentucky Derby Prospects And Top Betting Angles

The Road to the Kentucky Derby is well underway, but there is still a long stretch to travel before post time on the First Saturday in May.

The current Qualifying Points Leaderboard for the Kentucky Derby stands as follows: Timberlake, winner of the Grade I Champagne Stakes at two and the Grade II Rebel Stakes at three sits atop the board with 66 points.

There is a tie for second at 60 points; Dornoch, winner of the Grade II Remsen Stakes at two and the Grade II Fountain of Youth Stakes at three has more stakes earnings and is thus given the nod over Domestic Product, winner of the Grade III Tampa Bay Derby.

Next is another tie at 55 points, with Grade II Risen Star Stakes winner Sierra Leone edging out Grade III Lecomte Stakes winner Track Phantom.

However, as there are many preps yet to come- including the lucrative and prestigious 100-point prep races- a new top horse could easily emerge. In fact, at this point in their careers, recent Kentucky Derby winners Mage and Justify had yet to even earn black type. Statistically, at least one unknown horse will emerge as a legitimate contender, and at least one highly regarded and legitimate horse will, for any number of mundane reasons, be withdrawn from the competition.

Still, it is worth analyzing our current Top 5 horses to see which proven factors these extraordinary horses have in their favor, and what weak points each one might struggle with.

Lightning Strikes Twice

One of the most reliable methods of finding one’s way to the Kentucky Derby is to have been there before. As horses are only permitted to run in the Kentucky Derby once in their lifetime, this naturally falls more on the humans preparing the horses for the race than the horses themselves.

Trainers

Of the current top five horses mentioned above, only Timberlake is trained by a Derby winning trainer- and Brad Cox’s lone victor, Mandaloun, never actually made it to the winners’ circle as he was only given the win via the disqualification of Medina Spirit. Chad Brown (trainer of Domestic Product and Sierra Leone) and Steve Asmussen (trainer of Track Phantom) are both extremely talented trainers with Preakness wins to their names but have yet to achieve Kentucky Derby glory.

Dornoch’s trainer, Danny Gargan, however, is by far the least experienced. Although Gargan has been training consistently for more than a decade and has had a handful of graded stakes winners, he has yet to win at the Grade I level. It would be extraordinary for that milestone to come with a Derby win, but admittedly not unheard of- for that is exactly what happened when Eric Reed’s Rich Strike shocked the racing world in 2022.

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Jockeys

Although jockeys spend far less time with the horses, their experience matters as well. Track Phantom’s regular rider, Joel Rosario, won last year’s Kentucky Derby aboard Mage. Florent Geroux, who has ridden Timberlake in most of his starts, was given his Kentucky Derby win when Cox received his; ironically, Luis Saez, rider of Dornoch, lost his Kentucky Derby credit when Maximum Security was disqualified in 2019.

Tyler Gafflione currently has the call aboard Domestic Product and is seeking his first Derby win, while Sierra Leone has been ridden by a different jockey in each start, proving at the very least that he is adaptable to change.

Bloodlines

And finally, while horses themselves cannot race in more than one Kentucky Derby, there is one equine angle where prior experience can be measured, and that is breeding. If a sire has produced a Kentucky Derby, or himself won the Kentucky Derby, it is reasonable to assume that he could pass along his stamina to further descendants.

Good Magic, the sire of Dornoch, has produced a Kentucky Derby winner- that being Dornoch’s full brother (meaning they also share a mother), Mage. Into Mischief, the sire of Timberlake,  sired Mandaloun, who, as already mentioned, did not finish first in the Kentucky Derby but was awarded the win.

The other three horses are sired by stallions who have yet to taste Kentucky Derby victory: Practical Joke (Domestic Product), Quality Road (Track Phantom), and Gun Runner (Sierra Leone), the last of whom did not win the Kentucky Derby but did win the Breeders’ Cup Classic at the same distance.

Horses For Courses

Churchill Downs is a track unlike any other, and unfortunately, some horses simply do not like it, especially if it is wet (and in the springtime in Kentucky, it often is nowadays). The mud at Churchill Downs can be like peanut butter, and is uncomfortable for some horses.

The most famous example of this happened in 2017, when the highly regarded Thunder Snow, who would go on to grow into one of the top Thoroughbreds in the world, felt the Churchill Downs slope hit his face and abruptly bucked and halted.

On the other hand, there are some horses who really seem to favor the Churchill Downs strip. In 2006, Street Sense gave a clue that he liked the surface when he scored a powerful 10-length victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, held that year at Churchill Downs.

He came back the next May and won the Run for the Roses, in doing so becoming the first horse to win both of those races. While Street Sense has also won races at Saratoga, Tampa Bay Downs, and Arlington Park, he never seemed quite so enthusiastic as he did in his two wins at Churchill Downs.

While Dornoch has raced at Keeneland and Timberlake at Ellis Park- other tracks in Kentucky- only Track Phantom has the advantage of having run at Churchill Downs. He did so for his first three races, which resulted in a third, a second, and finally a dominant win.

While it is likely that the top five will change between now and May, each of the horses atop the leaderboard at present displays talent, class, and some amount of factors in their favor!

- Gambling911.com Special Contributor Lindsay Griffin