The a hundred and fiftieth Kentucky Derby shall be run on Saturday, Could 4, on the well-known Churchill Downs racecourse. The sesquicentennial celebration is shaping as much as be a superb one, with a loaded area of rivals backed by the always-high vitality surrounding the Louisville race observe. It must be a memorable race.
As submit time approaches, you will need to take inventory of the horses the viewers will see on the racetrack and the percentages every has to win. A part of what makes the Derby so in style is that there are only a few common rivals. The viewers is yearly launched to a brand new grouping of horses and jockeys. There’s consolation within the acquainted, true, however there’s all the time one thing particular in regards to the Derby and the horse that will get to seize lightning within the bottle yearly.
This is what this 12 months’s crop appears like.
Kentucky Derby Horses 2024
Beneath is a full listing of the 20 horses (and their morning line odds to win, as of time of publication) taking part on this 12 months’s Kentucky Derby, as per the occasion’s official web site.
Fierceness: 5-2
Sierra Leone: 3-1
Catching Freedom: 8-1
Eternally Younger: 10-1
Simply A Contact: 10-1
Dornoch: 20-1
Honor Marie: 20-1
Simply Metal: 20-1
Observe Phantom: 20-1
Stronghold: 20-1
Reilience: 20-1
Mystik Dan: 20-1
Catalyic: 30-1
T O Password: 30-1
Endlessly: 30-1
Home Product: 30-1
Epic Trip: 30-1
Grand Mo The First: 50-1
Society Man: 50-1
West Saratoga: 50-1
The group options horses with easy favorites and different underdogs and nice storylines, like West Saratoga, whose coach is battling most cancers.
How Many Horses Race within the Kentucky Derby?
Every year, 20 horses are permitted to run within the Kentucky Derby. It was not all the time this manner, nevertheless. The primary Kentucky Derby, held 150 years in the past, had 15 horses within the area and the quantity fluctuated from 12 months to 12 months till 1974. That 12 months’s Derby featured 23 horses, which prompted criticism from assembled media and the jockeys themselves. From 1974 on, the Derby was capped at 20 horses to make sure the sphere was aggressive with out placing too many our bodies on the racetrack.
It is also a part of what makes the Derby distinctive. Different main horse races, such because the Preakness and Belmot Stakes, have a most of 14 horses taking part yearly. When the query was raised a couple of years in the past of why the Derby caught with 20 as an alternative of whittling down the sphere to match different occasions of its ilk, the size and recognition of the race was cited by Churchill Downs’ senior director of communications, per the Courier-Journal.
In brief, the Derby’s 1 1/4-mile distance permits there to be extra horses on the observe, and because the capstone occasion of the 12 months it may be afforded a bigger area.
How Does a Horse Qualify For the Kentucky Derby?
To qualify for the 2024 Kentucky Derby, every horse within the area needed to run in a sequence of designated races, titled The Highway to the Kentucky Derby. These races, which quantity within the dozens, happen all around the world between every Derby. The highest 5 horses in every race are awarded a sure variety of factors.
On the finish of the racing season, the highest 20 horses by way of factors totaled all year long are awarded a submit on the Kentucky Derby.
Now you are primed and able to have interaction within the horse racing discourse for this 12 months’s Kentucky Derby. Benefit from the race.
Sport odds refresh periodically and are topic to vary.
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