Kentucky Derby Winner Prediction - Will CPT 2017 Winning Streak Reach Five in a Row?

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After Picking Four Straight Thoroughbred Stakes Winners This Year...

It is time for the 143rd Run for the Roses, the Kentucky Derby, Saturday, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.  Not only is this the greatest two minutes in sports for the year, but the Derby is the longest continuous held sporting event in the United States.

The Kentucky Derby is the hardest race to handicap because of the large field of 20 horses and this year is no exception as there is no clear favorite.  It is further complicated by the fact few of the top horses ran against each other in the various Derby preps.

This year might just be more special because the Coltons Point Times (CPT) has predicted the winners of four straight major thoroughbred stakes races this year from around the world.  We accurately picked winners of the Pegasus World Cup Invitational, the Dubai World Cup, the Santa Anita Derby, and the Bluegrass Stakes.

In the Pegasus it was Arrogate overwhelming the early favorite California Chrome with Shaman Ghost and Neolithic second and third.  The first three were picked by the CPT to be in the money.  In the Dubai Arrogate again won after a near disastrous break and stumble at the beginning.

On the West Coast Gormley was the pick for the Santa Anita, third in the odds for the race, who won at 6-1.  Then there was the Bluegrass Stakes in which the Coltons Point Times picked Irap to win, at a staggering 31-1 odds.

If you add in the prediction of a Trump victory in the Presidential race on October 18, 2016, also posted in the Huffington Post, on a day when Trump was 14% behind in the polls, this could be the sixth straight accurate prediction.

By the way, the Trump prediction was 22 days before the election and the CPT might be the only newspaper to predict Trump the winner.

Listen to the drum roll and here is the prediction and our effort to achieve a streak of picking five straight major thoroughbred stakes winners for the year.

The winner of the 143rd Kentucky Derby will be...Classic Empire

Second place will be...Always Dreaming   

Third place will be...Irap

Fourth Place...Gormley

As for the potential for a Triple Crown winner in 2017, our prediction is ...No winner

Good luck and keep watching for further predictions of major events by the CPT.

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Kentucky Derby 2017 post position and odds

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Kentucky Derby 2017

post position and odds

1. Lookin At Lee (20-1)

2. Thunder Snow (20-1)

3. Fast And Accurate (50-1)

4. Untrapped (30-1)

5. Always Dreaming (5-1)

6. State of Honor (30-1)

7. Girvin (15-1)

8. Hence (15-1)

9. Irap (20-1)

10. Gunnevera (15-1)

11. Battle Of Midway (30-1)

12. Sonneteer (50-1)

13. J Boys Echo (20-1)

14. Classic Empire (4-1)

15. McCraken (5-1)

16. Tapwrit (20-1)

17. Irish War Cry (6-1)

18. Gormley (15-1)

19. Practical Joke (20-1)

20. Patch (30-1)

Kentucky Derby draw set;

favorites get good gate positions

 Jay Busbee,The Turnstile 2 hours 16 minutes ago 

Royal Moe and Master Plan are also eligible to race if one of the horses above is unable to compete.

This year’s Derby field is wide open, in part because four-time Derby winner Bob Baffert has not entered a horse in this year’s race. Classic Empire leads betting odds at 4-1, with McCraken at 5-1 and Irish War Cry following at 6-1. No other horses have better than 10-1 odds.

The assumption that the inside stall is the best position, given that it’s the shortest distance around the track, isn’t actually the case. With 20 horses in the field, the inside horses are liable to get bounced and edged out as the pack jockeys for position heading into the first turn. Too far outside, and the horse has to cover too much ground in the first two turns to get on the inside track.

Some trainers prefer gate 14 (the final stall on the main gate) or 15 (the first stall on the auxiliary gate) because those two give a bit of extra room at the start. Last year’s winner Nyquist came from gate 13, while Triple Crown winner American Pharaoh began from gate 15.

Some other positioning-by-the-numbers tidbits, courtesy of America’s Best Racing:

• No horse has ever won from gate 17. Ever.

• No horse starting from gate 1 has even placed in the top three since 1988.

• The average size of the field since 2000 is 18.9 horses, with no race having fewer than 16 horses.

• The gates with the most victories all time are gates 5 and 10, with 9 Derby wins apiece.

Place your bets accordingly.

The Kentucky Derby, a 1 1/4-mile race for three-year-old horses, takes place this Saturday, May 6. Post time is at 6:34 p.m. ET, and NBC Sports’ coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET.
____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT 

Kentucky Derby News - Man o' War Centennial

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Observing Man o’ War centennial at Kentucky Derby 143

May 2, 2017 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

It’s a curious fact of American racing history that its greatest Thoroughbred legend, Man o’ War, didn’t contest the nation’s most celebrated race, the Kentucky Derby (G1). But in 2017, as we celebrate the centennial of Man o’ War’s birth, the blood of “Big Red” pulses through the veins, however distantly, of every single horse in Derby 143.

All but one descend from Man o’ War through the circuitous routes of the pedigree, via his daughters, his sons’ daughters, or even grandsons’ daughters, nestled deep inside the family tree. In this way such key influences as Raise a Native (sire of Mr. Prospector), Storm Cat, Danzig, Buckpasser, and Seattle Slew (who boasts several crosses of Man o’ War between his sire and dam) receive their portion.

Man o’ War’s male line still exists, although relying on a single chain that has yet to have a link weak enough to break. It appears to be forged solidly at present, its strength reinforced by a Hall of Famer still standing stud today – Tiznow, the sire of Irap, who would put an unexpected garland on the Man o’ War centenary if he can win the Derby.

Born on March 29, 1917, at Nursery Stud near Lexington, Kentucky, August Belmont II’s chestnut son of Fair Play and Mahubah arrived just before the United States entered World War I.

As historian Kent Hollingsworth described it in The Kentucky Thoroughbred, the colt “was recognized as something apart from the start, for he had uncommonly long legs, a fiery red coat, and a presumption the world was his.”

The war altered forever the history of the globe, and the foal’s trajectory as well. In 1918, owing in part to his wartime responsibilities, Belmont dispersed nearly all his yearlings. He entertained the idea of keeping that promising chestnut, the one his wife, Eleanor Robson Belmont, had named Man o’ War in his honor. Yet he too went under the auctioneer’s hammer at Saratoga, ultimately bringing $5,000 from Samuel Riddle.

His trainer, Louis Feustel, later commented that he didn’t fill the eye at that tender stage. Hollingsworth records Feustel’s honest assessment for posterity:

“Very tall and gangling, he was thin and so on the leg as to give the same ungainly impression one gets in seeing a week-old foal.”

Man o’ War later developed into the compelling presence that elicited marvels from observers. 

In his magisterial Sire Lines, Abram S. Hewitt recalled seeing the mighty champion in the Belmont Park paddock, ahead of the Futurity S. The passage of time couldn’t dim Hewitt’s memory, still conveying a sense of immediacy, a freshness:

“a magnificent, copper-colored chestnut colt, with ears pricked. He radiated majesty, energy, and power – a veritable Alexander – awaiting the moment for new worlds to conquer. It was 55 years ago, and we never saw such a sight again.”

And that was Man o’ War as a two-year-old, not even at peak maturity! The handy winner of nine of 10 starts in his 1919 juvenile campaign, while carrying 130 pounds on several occasions, he suffered his lone career defeat in the Sanford Memorial S. at Saratoga. The problematic start of the Sanford, Man o’ War’s traffic trouble on the inside, and his furious finish that fell a half-length short at the wire, contributed to the Spa’s reputation as a “graveyard” of champions. And the name of the horse who beat him passed into the sports lexicon – Upset. Man o’ War had no trouble dusting Upset in all their other meetings, past and future.

Man o’ War, who went off as the heavy odds-on favorite in each of his 21 career races, would have been the bettors’ overwhelming choice for the 1920 Kentucky Derby. But Riddle was never interested in shipping his prized colt out “west,” as the Eastern establishment viewed Kentucky. His oft-cited reason was the concern about a three-year-old having to tote 126 pounds, over 1 1/4 miles, in early May.

“How Man o’ War would have laughed had he known of his owner’s solicitude for him,” Hewitt commented.

In his absence at Churchill Downs, Paul Jones, whom Man o’ War had drubbed at two, scored a front-running 16-1 upset in the May 8 Kentucky Derby. Old foe Upset, part of the entry favored at 8-5, was beaten a head after a prolonged duel.