HorseRace Insider - Time to Change Kentucky Derby Eligibility Rules

Win, lose or post position draw, this should be the final year that Kentucky Derby eligibility is determined by earnings, graded or otherwise.

The system has outlived its utility and no longer makes sense. Twenty Derby starters is the modern rule, not the exception. And it matters not whether that this year’s draw involving the filly Eight Belles went smoothly. Using any criteria, she earned her way in.

Admission based on earnings is fraught with inequities to the existing prep process too numerous to mention, and in the future it’s bound to get worse because any track could artificially inflate the importance of its prep race by throwing money at it. That might be good for business but it’s bad for the Derby.

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