By Dick Jerardi
It is the annual puzzle that everybody who plays the game wants to solve: Find the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
There are some years I am very confident and right (California Chrome, 2014), some years where I am very confident and wrong (Journalism, 2025). This is one of those years where I have spent the necessary time watching all the Derby prep races over and over, analyzing the workouts, reading whatever I can find about the horses now on site at Churchill Downs and don’t have an overwhelming amount of confidence. But I do have an opinion and, because of the likely win odds, will be backing that opinion with enough money to make me smile if I am correct.
I came to my conclusion after making the decision that none of the obvious American contenders are so much better than any of the others that I would feel confident picking any of them, especially since most of the money is going to gravitate there.
The top three in the Florida Derby – Commandment, The Puma, and Chief Wallabee – all kind of look the same to me. Can’t knock any of them, but can’t pick one to win over the other two either.
Arkansas Derby winner Renegade, the morning line favorite by the Churchill oddsmaker, is solid with improving figures and a closing running style that has been effective in this race recently. I am not as concerned about the 1 post as I would be if the 20-horse starting gate had not been introduced in 2020. Back with the two gates, the horse in the 1 post actually had to angle outward to get onto the main track. That is no longer the case and I don’t see it as an issue for Renegade. My issue is a. the odds and b. trainer Todd Pletcher’s Derby record.
Pletcher is obviously one of the greatest trainers of all time, but his Derby horses typically run their best races in the preps and not in the Derby itself. I can’t explain why, I just know that it happens. In the 2000s, Pletcher horses have won 30 Derby preps and just two Derbies.
Blue Grass Stakes winner Further Ado is the most fascinating of the American horses to me. The colt has the best last-race Beyer (106) and a great outside post (18), perfect for his just off the pace running style. If he gets the trip I expect, there is a chance he gets first run on all the closers and opens up such a nice margin none of them can catch him.
Bob Baffert goes for his record seventh Derby win with Potente and Litmus Test. Neither has run fast enough yet to win the Derby, but it is Baffert so you can’t dismiss them.
So Happy got the dream trip when he won the Santa Anita Derby and you do wonder about the pedigree as a son of sprint champion Runhappy.
If Louisiana Derby winner Emerging Market (2-for-2), with just two starts, was trained by anybody other than Chad Brown, I would likely just toss. But…
Can Golden Tempo make Cherie DeVaux the first female trainer to win the Derby? Fulleffort was impressive winning the Jeff Ruby Steaks, but does that artificial-surface form translate to the main track? How long with the frontrunners, Six Speed and Pavlovian, last?
Any other American horses winning would be a shock. So what of the two Japanese horses? The UAE Derby was a slow race this year so no Wonder Dean for me.
Which brings me to my pick – Danon Bourbon, the Kentucky bred son of Maxfield, owned by Japanese interests who comes back to Kentucky as one of two unbeaten (3-for-3) horses in the race.
When I first watched the replays of his three races in Japan, I kept having to rewind because I could not believe what I was seeing. It was like watching a great athlete for the first time and saying he is just so much better than the others that it’s almost unfair.
But I wanted data to back up what I was seeing. His times matched up very nicely with the other times on the days he raced. This is not only a visually impressive horse, but a very fast horse.
Forever Young was very unlucky not to win the 2024 Derby when finishing third. The horse has since proven to be the best dirt horse in the world. Japanese-based horses can compete anywhere in the world so that is not a concern for me.
My concern is that neither the trainer nor the jockey have any Derby experience. But the talent and the price (15-1 ML) trump that lack of experience for me.
Danon Bourbon has been in big fields (16, 9, 13) and has such great tactical speed that he has been able to work out great trips. I am hopeful he has maybe four horses in front of him and then 15 behind him coming out of the first turn. Then, I hope to see those videos from Japan come to life in the Derby.
Whatever horse wins, it is always a great two minutes. The 16 (of the 20 horses) sold at auction for a combined $8,315,000, an average of $519,688. It’s a fun fact, but none of that will matter when the stall doors open around 7 p.m. Saturday evening. It will just be about the one horse that can get from gate to wire the fastest.
