Last year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Rich Strike, only got into the race the Friday before as an also-eligible runner, thanks to a late scratch, and broke from the 20th post position — the furthest-outside stall in the Churchill Downs starting gate. He went on to stun the world with an 81-1 upset victory two minutes later.
For years, the 20 post seemed to be the worst place for a horse to start in the Kentucky Derby because of all the ground the runner would lose getting as close to the inside as possible in the first quarter-mile of the race, heading into the first turn. But Rich Strike — and, before him, Big Brown in 2008 — proved that the impossible can and does happen every so often.
There are three also-eligible horses entered in this year’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, where post positions for the 149th running of America’s greatest race were drawn Monday. Cyclone Mischief, Mandarin Hero and Lord Russell will need one or more of the 20 starters to scratch from the field before Friday morning in order to make the race Saturday, and if one or more of the also-eligibles happen to get in, they will get the furthest outside stall(s) in the 20-horse starting gate.
The clear favorite of the 20 scheduled starters, however, is Forte, the juvenile champion and Florida Derby winner trained by Todd Pletcher. With jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. in the saddle, Forte is slated to break from the 15th post, which has seen plenty of success with 6 wins in 61 races with at least 15 horses since the starting gate was introduced in 1930 — the most recent being Authentic in the pandemic-marred 2020 Kentucky Derby, run that September.
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Also getting a great post in this year’s Derby draw is Tapit Trice, another Pletcher trainee, who won the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland last month. Tapit Trice, ridden by Luis Saez, will break from the 5th post, which has seen the most Derby wins overall with 10. Another good sign for Pletcher is that the 5 post was particularly good to him before, as Always Dreaming took the run for the roses from that slot in 2017.
The post position with the second-most Derby wins is the 10 post, from which the Santa Anita Champion Practical Move will break this Saturday. Trained by Tim Yakteen and ridden by Ramon Vazquez, Practical Move will try to become the first horse since Giacomo in 2005 to win the Derby from that stall.
If Practical Move doesn’t win, however, the statistics indicate he stands a decent shot at finishing at least second or third. That’s because 29.1% of all Derby runners since 1930 have finished in the top three, including Zandon, who finished third just last year.
Other post positions with a high rate of in-the-money success include posts 2 (26.9%, with Verifying breaking from the post this year); 5 (23.7% Tapit Trice); and 13 (22.4%, Sun Thunder).
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From zero to hero?
But Monday’s Derby draw also saw plenty of losers when it comes to post position.
The first is Derma Sotogake, the Japanese colt who’s trying to become that country’s first Kentucky Derby winner after a powerful performance in Dubai’s UAE Derby in late March. Trained by Hidetaka Otonashi and ridden by Christophe Lemaire, Derma Sotogake drew the dreaded 17 post — from which none of the previous 43 starters from that stall have ever won the run for the roses.
Another one of the Derby’s top choices, Angel of Empire, also got an unlucky Derby post. Trained by Brad Cox and ridden by Flavien Prat, the convincing Arkansas Derby winner will break from the 14 post, which has seen just two winners in 66 starts. You’d have to go back to the Kennedy administration, to Carry Back in 1961, to find the last winner from that forsaken slot.
Cox experienced all kinds of poor luck in the Derby draw this year with two other entrants. Hit Show, the Withers Stakes winner, got the 1 post, which hasn’t seen a Kentucky Derby winner since Ferdinand in 1987; and Verifying got the 2 post, from which no Derby champion has broken since 1978, when Affirmed took the race en route to a Triple Crown sweep.
Not surprisingly, the three posts with the least success in runners hitting the board are all from the far outside. The 19 post, from which Wood Memorial winner Lord Miles will break, has the lowest in-the-money success in Derby history, with just 6.7% of 30 runners since the gate’s inception hitting the board. The second-worst rate is Derma Sotogake’s 17 post (7%), followed by the 12 post where Jace’s Road will break, which has an 11.5% in-the-money success rate, and last saw a Derby winner with Canonero II in 1971. (Jace’s Road is another unlucky Cox trainee.)
Is the Kentucky Derby post position that big of a deal?
In most cases, yes. Where the horse starts is often critical to their success because those first 24 seconds or so between the gate opening and the first turn often turns into one big equine traffic jam.
Jostling, bumping and shuffling in that stampede can make or break a horse’s chances in a hurry. Usually, it’s the horse that gets clear of the traffic — either in the front pack or from off the pace — that finds their way to the winner’s circle in the end.
There’s plenty of risk with traffic management as well, testing each entrant’s speed and stamina. Go too fast early, and the horse will be spent for the final furlongs; go too slowly, and the horse might get caught very wide on the clubhouse turn, losing valuable ground and time.
With 20 horse fields more commonplace in the last decade or so, horses breaking on the outside part of the gate have had a bit of an advantage.
Seven times the winner has come from the 13-20 stalls, but notably, the other four winners (and two disqualified winners) have come from slots 5, 7, and 8.
Also note that nine of the post positions – nearly half of a 20-horse field – haven’t seen a winner since 1998 (or at all): 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14 and 17.
One more thing: A horse’s saddlecloth does not necessarily equate to their starting gate post position. In a full field that stays intact at post time, what you see is what you get; if a runner scratches after the post position draw, however, your horse may move further inside.
Source: KentuckyDerby.com
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