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Withers, Toboggan, Ruthless Pegasus World Cup works Eclipse Awards Year in Review Santa Anita opening day |
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What races should a horse prep in to win the Kentucky Derby? Historically you would say the Florida Derby (24 winners), the Blue Grass (23), the Champagne (23), the Hopeful (20), the Wood Memorial (20) or the Santa Anita Derby (17). However, this doesn't take into consideration changing race lengths, times, and other variables that may have changed. Instead, lets look at the Derby winners since 1980 and see where they prepped to win the roses. For instance, although the Champagne has yielded 23 Derby winners, only two came since 1980. Below are the prep races with Derby winners and their placing in the race. The statistics next to the race name are for all time, but only horses for 1980-2017 are listed so you can see how it performed in more recent years. If a race isn't listed, it is because it has not yielded a Derby winner since 1980.
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So what conclusions can we draw? Obviously the best recent prep race is the Florida Derby, but the Santa Anita Derby has been good a couple of times recently as well as historically. The Blue Grass used to be very good, but hasn't been for 20 years, and the Wood Memorial hasn't been good for 15 years. The Arkansas Derby is a race that has been coming into it's own recently too. The Tampa Bay Derby use to be considered a weak sister, but in the last 10 years has improved and may continue to gain influence.
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