Using Running Styles to ID Kentucky Derby Contenders & Pretenders

By Derek Simon

Handicapping author William L. Quirin once called early speed the “universal track bias” and, despite the influx of grass racing and synthetic surfaces, statistics show that Quirin’s observation still holds true today.

Even in the Kentucky Derby, a race that many believe is about as kind to frontrunners as Taylor Swift is to ex-boyfriends, this universal bias has been present. There have been 32 wire-to-wire winners in the Run for the Roses since 1896 — more than three times the number that random chance (based on field size) would predict.

True, in the past half-century that success rate has taken a hit. Since 1967, only… (more)

 

 

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