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Before handicapping each of the three Derby preps this weekend, let’s ask ourselves a hypothetical question: If Creative Cause wins the Santa Anita Derby, and/or Gemologist wins the Wood and carries an undefeated record to Louisville, will either or both of these be favored over Union Rags in the Kentucky Derby? It will be interesting ...

Before last weekend the 2012 Kentucky Derby trail was pretty easy to figure out: Union Rags was at the top of the mountain, and then there was everyone else. A win by Union Rags in the Florida Derby would have sent him to Louisville as the undisputed favorite, no matter what happened in the other final preps. It was shaping up to be a ...

Fair or not, the Florida Derby is generally considered the most important prep of the season, and has been so for about a decade. Over the last 11 years its winner has produced three Kentucky Derby winners (Monarchos, Barbaro, and Big Brown) and a pair of runner-ups (Empire Maker and Ice Box). Harlan's Holiday went off as the favorite in 2002 ...

It is no secret that the growing trend over the past few years is for connections to take a cautious approach to the Kentucky Derby, especially with top-rated contenders. A win in a lucrative 2-year-old race often dictates a lightly-raced schedule as a 3-year-old leading up to the first Saturday in May. Having three starts leading up to the Derby ...

A few years ago when I started doing this blog I used to put out a Kentucky Derby top 10 list every few weeks beginning in February. Then I realized what a fruitless task it was and I stopped. We all have enough difficulty picking a winner on the first Saturday in May, so to say a horse is ranked seventh on Feb. 22 or fifth on March ...

We all know how quickly things can change on the Derby trail, nobody better than Todd Pletcher. Only a couple short months ago he was loaded with five or six top Derby prospects, many of them with some of the best pedigrees he's had in years. But even during those promising times, Pletcher knew not to get overly excited with Derby fever; he's been ...

Trivia question: Which prep race has had the most impact on the Kentucky Derby over the past five years? If you guessed the Florida Derby, Arkansas Derby, or any of the other ''major'' preps, you would be wrong. The answer is the Tampa Bay Derby. Since 2006, the Tampa Bay Derby, which only became a grade II race last year, has produced two ...

With less than two months now remaining until the Kentucky Derby, we are starting to get a pretty solid picture of who the top contenders are. Right now it's Union Rags at the top and everyone else trailing, but horses like Alpha, El Padrino, and Hansen have to be considered serious second-tier contenders based off of their last races. The final ...

This week's Triple Crown trail takes us to New York for the grade III Gotham Stakes, which is the only Kentucky Derby prep of the weekend. The feeling here is that the outcome of this race will probably not produce major contenders come the first Saturday in May, but one never knows. At the very least, the $240,000 winner's share will guarantee ...

The second-place finish of News Pending in Sunday's Fountain of Youth surprised most people, as reflected by his 27-1 odds. But don't count trainer Dale Romans among those, and in fact, if observant handicappers have been paying attention to the Triple Crown trail over the last few years they should have been aware that Romans' under-the-radar ...