Kentucky Derby Picks for Horse Racing's Premiere North American …

While the Belmont, Preakness, Breeder’s Cup Classic in the United States, and the Queen’s Plate, Prince of Wales, and Breeder’s Stakes in Canada may all be great North American stakes races, the most anticipated and watched is the Kentucky Derby. On the first Saturday in May the race for three year olds is held at historic Churchill Downs in Kentucky.

There are Derby prep races such as the Fountain of Youth and Sunland Derby, just to name two, that help the young horses earn enough to qualify for a shot at the Derby. They’re all good races and help the fans and horse players who want to have a winner in the Derby begin to handicap and choose their selections. If you follow those races you may be able to pick a winner, too, but be careful because very few horses that look the best going into the big race look the best when it’s over. Favorites have a way of failing in the big race.

That leads to how to handicap the race and how to pick a winner. Here are a few Kentucky Derby Tips. First of all, breeding is especially important and you need a horse that can run the classic distances. The great front runner Shackleford demonstrated the importance of breeding when he came up a little short in the Derby at 1 3/16 miles, but came back and won the Preakness at the shorter distance that he was bred for. So use Dosage, or the ratings that the past performances supply to rate the horses for distance. Take the top 5 horses as your initial contenders.

Now comes the tricky part of your handicapping and it’s one of the big secrets of successful horse racing handicapping. You need to figure out which of the contenders who are bred for the distance are about to peak physically. Some of the three year olds will have turned in great performances in those prep races but the problem is that they’ve now peaked and may even be losing some of their form. Rather than focusing on horses who won those prep races, look for the horses who finished in the money and earned enough to get into the big one without burning themselves out and without peaking.

Those races helped them to develop character and stamina and they are maturing, but they weren’t quite ready to win. The form cycle is simply the growth rate and conditioning curve that all athletes and developing bodies go through. Other than racing luck and breeding, the form cycle is the most important factor in picking a Derby winner. Put breeding and form together and pray for luck and you may cash a nice ticket on the first Saturday in May.