How to Bet on the Kentucky Derby

Betting on the Kentucky Derby is easy. Recent editions of the Kentucky Derby have attracted more than $225 million in all-sources wagering on the race itself, while total betting across the full Derby Day programme has reached approximately $340 million or more.

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There are many popular Kentucky Derby betting markets beyond the standard ‘win’, ‘place’, and ‘show’ horse racing wagers:

• Exacta – Pick the first and second horse home in any race, in the correct order.
• Trifecta – Predict the first three home in the right order.
• Superfecta – Select the first four to finish the race in the right order.
• Quinella – This bet boxes an Exacta, meaning you still win as long as the two picks finish in the first two, regardless of their order. You can also box a Trifecta and Superfecta.

You can bet on the Kentucky Derby at the racecourse and online, including on betting sites outside the US, with many online horse racing bookmakers offering Kentucky Derby betting markets, such is the widespread appeal of the Run for the Roses.

Kentucky Derby Future Wager Betting

The Kentucky Derby Future Wager allows punters to bet early on the potential Derby horse they think will earn a place in the race and go on to win the Kentucky Derby. Future Wager bets typically offer larger payouts than betting the same horse on the day of the race because they are placed before the horse has been confirmed to run.

How the Kentucky Derby Future Wager Works

The Kentucky Derby Future Wager is a pool bet that can offer large payouts for small stakes. More than $1.5 million of Future Wager bets are handled through various pools each year. In 2003, a record $188 for a minimum $2 bet was paid out on those backing Derby winner Funny Cide in the first pool – he paid $27.60 on race day. This is how Future Wager works:

• The Kentucky Derby Future Wager can offer up to 40 betting interests, usually including as many as 39 individually named horses and a final “all others” option covering eligible runners not listed separately.
• There are multiple Future Wager pools, recently five or six, that open at different times in the build-up to the Kentucky Derby. Each one can have different named horses and different Kentucky Derby betting odds, depending on what has happened since the last pool closed.
• The minimum bet to back a potential Derby horse in a Future Wager pool is $2, and only win or exacta bets are allowed.
• Additional Future Wager pools are also available on who the sire of the Kentucky Derby winner will be and on who will win the Kentucky Oaks.

Kentucky Derby Future Wager betting is available on North American betting sites like TwinSpires in the US. Online betting sites outside the US offer ante-post betting on the Kentucky Derby odds, meaning you can place a win or each-way bet before the final field has been declared. This betting market works in a similar way to the Future Wager pools, but the payouts are smaller – even though the betting odds can still be better value than they would be on race day.

Top Kentucky Derby Betting Tips

The Kentucky Derby is a uniquely prestigious race in that results do not tend to show strong bias, and shocks have not been common. The best Kentucky Derby betting strategy is to find the best horse in the race and then add them with others in one of the exotic bets listed above. These betting tips can help:

• The draw – Some post positions have produced more Kentucky Derby winners than others, but the figures change after every running and do not show a decisive long-term bias. The horse’s running style, ability to avoid traffic, and the pace of the race are usually more important than the starting position alone.
• Favourites – Since 1908, Kentucky Derby favourites have around a 34–35% win rate. It pays to follow favourites in many recent decades.
• Top jockey – Active and recent jockeys with strong records include those with three wins, such as John Velazquez, among others historically like Gary Stevens, Kent Desormeaux, Calvin Borel, and Victor Espinoza.
• Top trainer – Bob Baffert is the active trainer who has saddled the most Kentucky Derby winners, with six.
• Internationals – Churchill Downs’s dirt surface is not used on race tracks in Europe and is barely seen in Australia and Japan. Horses are bred differently to race well on dirt in the US, and as a result, no horse trained outside the US, or with primary European or Japanese preparation in recent eras, has ever won the Kentucky Derby. International participation in the Kentucky Derby has become more common with the Road to the Kentucky Derby series, but a foreign-trained winner remains elusive.

The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sport

The Kentucky Derby is the first leg of the US Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing, run on the first Saturday in May every year at Churchill Downs racecourse in Louisville, Kentucky. It is US horse racing’s premier Grade 1 race for three-year-old thoroughbreds, often called ‘The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sport’ or ‘The Run for the Roses’ because the winner is draped with a blanket of roses.

With a total purse of $5 million and approximately $3.1 million awarded to the winner, the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby attracts many of the finest three-year-old racehorses in the United States, along with selected international challengers who qualify through the recognised Road to the Kentucky Derby pathways.

The Kentucky Derby, the longest-running US sporting event, is the highlight of the two-week Kentucky Derby Festival at Churchill Downs, attracting crowds in excess of 150,000 people and substantial betting handles.

What Is the Road to the Kentucky Derby?

Since the 139th Kentucky Derby in 2013, runners have qualified to run by accumulating points in the Road to the Kentucky Derby series. In each of the series’s races, a tiered points system awards points to the first five finishers.

At the end of the series, the 20 horses with the most points earn their spot in the starting gate at Churchill Downs. The Road to the Kentucky Derby begins in the autumn and continues until April, with qualification routes including the main American series, the Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby, and the European-Middle East Road.

The Kentucky Derby Course Information

The Kentucky Derby is run over 1 1/4 miles on the dirt track at Churchill Downs in the US state of Kentucky. The racecourse is a one-mile oval, specifically built to found the Kentucky Derby and support the Kentucky Oaks, races designed to showcase the breeding of thoroughbreds in Kentucky.

Colonel Meriwether Clark had been inspired by the Epsom Derby and Epsom Oaks in England, so he created US equivalents on a new course, made possible by land leased to him by his uncles, John and Henry Churchill. That is where the name Churchill Downs was born.

The Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks, run on the Friday before Derby Saturday, have taken place every year since their inauguration in 1875, making them the longest continuously running US sporting events. Churchill Downs has become a horse racing landmark, highlighted on the Kentucky skyline by the iconic Twin Spires that sit atop the grandstands.