Kentucky Derby 143

Three weeks away from The Greatest Two Minutes In Sports. The final two major preps are today, the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn and the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland. Girvin tops the current ratings list, but all eyes are on two year old champion Classic Empire today in Hot Springs. If the heavily favored colt wins big, he'll most likely jump to the top of the favorites list, or very near it. At Keeneland (which I highly advise adding to your bucket list) Bob Baffert's West Coast is the favorite, but Charismatic in '99 is the only 3 year old to win this race and claim the roses.
But, as I always like to say, the horses don't know any of this.

 

Here are the morning line odds, gate positions and riders for Saturday's Run For The Roses.
4-1 on Empire is decent for a favorite, and his odds may improve, as they seem to in recent years, by post time. Worth a $2 win ticket for me.

Post Time is 6:34 p.m. Saturday, May 6th on your local NBC affiliate.

1 Looking at Lee/ Lanerie 20-1

2 Thunder Snow/ Soumillon (pron: simeon) (20-1)

3 Fast and Accurate / Hill 50-1

4 Untrapped/ Santana 30-1

5 Always Dreaming / Velasquez 5-1

6 State of Honor / Lezcano 30-1

7 Girvin/ Smith 15-1

8 Hence / Geroux 15-1

9 Irap/ Gutierrez 20-1

10 Gunnevera / Castellano 15-1

11 Battle of Midway /Prat 30-1

12 Sonneteer/ Desormeaux 50-1

13 J Boys Echo / Saez 20-1

14 Classic Empire / Leparoux 4-1

15 McCracken /Hernandez Jr. 5-1

16 Tapwrit / Ortiz 20-1

17 Irish War Cry / Maragh 6-1

18 Gormley / Espinoza 15-1

19 Practical Joke / Rosario 20-1

20 Patch / Gaffalione 30-1

 

I have a $2 win ticket on Empire, who broke his maiden on a sloppy track at...Churchill Downs. Oh, and his odds are 8-1 now.

 

Empire got slammed into sideways by McCraken from the auxiliary gate at the start and never recovered. Great horses recover from such mishaps. Empire did not. Rooting for another Triple Crown winner this year because Always Dreaming's connections are from Brooklyn and Elmont, the home of Belmont Park. They grew up on horse racing there and Aqueduct as kids. How cool would it be to come back and win with only the 13th ever Triple Crown winner. Gotta win in Baltimore first.

 

Just out of curiosity, how many of you watched the race?

 

Our normal family tradition is for one of us to look up suddenly from dinner and exclaim "THE KENTUCKY DERBY IS ABOUT TO START!!" and then we all run out fumbling with the remote trying to change the channel in time to see the race. Somehow we have a sixth-sense of when horses are going into the gates.

This year however, I was in the middle of watching my niece's dance recital. I felt the pull, but it would have be rude to have run out to find a TV.