Kentucky Derby Handicapping Factors
With less than a week until the post position draw for the Kentucky Derby, let’s look at two factors that are key to your handicapping, post position and pace.
Post Position
The most unusual thing about the Kentucky Derby is the field size. It’s the only race in the United States that will have 20 horses head postward, which creates a boatload of chaos. Because of the large field size, what post position you break from is a huge determining factor in winning the race and hitting the board. Positioning early in the race can make or break an entrant’s opportunity to win, and that is highlighted in the numbers.
Breaking from between the 5 and 16 posts is a massive advantage. If you narrow that to just the 5 to 10 posts, the results are even more extreme. Of the 20 posts, the only three to produce winners at a 10% or higher rate are the 5, 8 and 10 posts. Every post between 5 and 10 has also hit the board at least 14% of the time with five of the six at over 20% (the 6 is the lagger at 14%).
Conversely, gates 17-20 are just 4-127 to win the race (3.1%) and 13-127 finishing in the top 3 (10.2%). The inside posts do have a better win percentage at 6.7%, but those numbers are skewed heavily by early Kentucky Derbies before the field grew to 20 horses. All 15 of the winners in the 1 or 2 post won before 1986 and no horse in post 1 through 4 has won since 2010 before the current points era began.
Last year, No. 3 Two Phils ran second in the Derby, which was the first time since 2017 that any horse who drew the 1 through 4 post finished in the top three.
While it’s not impossible to win or hit the board from the inside or the outside, there is much more that the horse will have to overcome to get the correct trip.
Pace and Positioning
It’s important to note that the current points era of the Kentucky Derby started in 2013. Before that, entries were earned by stakes earnings in both sprints and longer races. That allowed more sprinters into the field since you did not have to run two turns to qualify for the Kentucky Derby. Now, every major points prep is at least one mile long, making it difficult for a sprinter to get into the field.
In the 11 Kentucky Derbies since the points era began, eight of the 11 horses who crossed the finish line first were in the top 3 at the half-mile mark. The three to pull off wins from the back of the pack — Orb, Rick Strike and Mage — had the luxury of chasing the three quickest opening half-mile times in the points era, all 45.73 seconds or less. For the winner to close, a fast pace is required.
We cannot estimate the pace yet in this year’s Kentucky Derby without the final field and post positions, but with the current probables, I would be surprised if we saw a sub-46-second half-mile. If that is the case, being forwardly placed will be a huge advantage.
Make sure to check back at VSiN.com next week to look at the winners and losers of the draw as we dive deeper into this year’s running of the Kentucky Derby.
