It isn't quite a curse on par with winning the Wood Memorial—sorry, Verrazano—but recent history points toward race-favorite Orb coming up short at Saturday's 139th Kentucky Derby.
Only three of the past 12 favorites have been victorious at the yearly renewal of the Greatest Two Minutes in Sports. None of those favorites have come since Big Brown stole the show in 2008.
And while past performance doesn't always indicate future results, it seems more likely than not that Orb will fall short of winning at Churchill Downs. This is considered one of the more wide-open Derby fields in recent memory, with a bunch of very good horses but none exactly on their way to being the next Secretariat. The only undefeated horse in this event is Verrazano, who didn't race during his two-year-old year.
While that may lead to some calling this an underwhelming class of horses, the open-field mentality makes it all the more captivating for the casual fan. Runaway favorites don't make hearts swoon until the Preakness, where everyone hops aboard the Whoever Wins the Kentucky Derby bandwagon.
So with that in mind, let's take a look around the field and break down some of the underrated horses that could shock the world.
To have faith in Will Take Charge, you're going to have to suspend your disbelief about Derby history. The outside posts have long been the most dreaded at Churchill Downs, with only I'll Have Another and Big Brown's recent victories keeping it away from being a complete vortex of horse racing hell.
Nevertheless, there is only one post that has never won a Kentucky Derby—No. 17. And as luck would have it, well, you know where I'm headed with this.
Will Take Charge will have to take charge (sorry) from a place no other horse has done in history. It's an untenable cross to bear, especially coming off the heels of I'll Have Another knocking No. 19 off the snide.
It will make horse racing experts nervous and bettors terrified, but Will Take Charge is definitely a contender on Saturday.
A winner in two of his first three races this year, Will Take Charge's 3-year-old year is off to a rousing start. He came away with a scintillating win with Jon Kenton Court jockeying him at the Rebel Stakes in March, defeating a field that included Oxbow.
The 77-year-old Lukas is one of the most storied trainers in American horse racing history. He's won every Triple Crown race four or more times, including a stretch in the late 1990s where he was inarguably the greatest trainer in the world.
And even though Lukas hasn't come away with a Derby since 1999, the tide has been turning of late. He got his first career victory at the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Sprint last year and Will Take Charge has the type of momentum you look for in this dark-horse candidate.
Whether or not you believe the groundswell of hype around Lines of Battle comes down almost wholly how much stock you put into one race.
Among back-of-the-back contenders, Lines of Battle's Group 1 UAE Derby victory in March was by far the most impressive resume-booster. The three-year-old colt flexed his muscles against a strong field, dominating on a track that's longer than a typical pre-Derby tuneup.
That victory only bolsters an impressive resume for Lines of Battle, who has finished worse than second only two career races. He's also the pet project this year for trainer Aidan O'Brien, the Irishman whose quest for stateside glory has been well-chronicled. Lines of Battle will be O'Brien's fifth horse at Churchill Downs, as he tries to become the first European trainer to capture the roses.
Still, there are quite a few potential problems that could crop up for Lines of Battle. His pre-Derby prep was minimal—the UAE Derby was the only race he's run in 2013—and the horse didn't even arrive from Ireland until Wednesday, per BloodHorse.com. History has not been kind to imported horses at Churchill Downs, so there's a little bit of understandable hesitancy from die-hards to get too excited.
Along with the late-week import, Lines of Battle got a frustrating post draw at No. 11. Only three times has a Derby winner come from No. 11, with the most recent being Winning Colors back in 1988.
Even with those factors pointing against him, it's hard to have a better pedigree and training staff around a horse than Lines of Battle. The considerations in this range are relatively minimal—the sportsbook hedging means fewer mid-long-shots than normal—but Lines of Battle is by far the best.
For sportsbooks, horses with 50-1 odds are historic gold mines. Much in the way the lottery ticket business thrives on people desperate to get rich overnight, the gambling industry rakes in cash on high-odd bets that almost never come through.
Casual bettors see the opportunity to turn $100 into $5,000 and can't contain themselves. Sportsbooks see another $100 to throw in their Scrooge McDuck money pit.
However, the Kentucky Derby has become a place renowned for burning the books with high-odd victories in recent years. Giacomo (2005) and Mine That Bird (2009) have both come from astronomical odds to capture the roses in recent years, proof that the horse-racing version of the scratcher ticket does have a winner after all.
Starting at the inside post, Black Onyx is in arguably the best position to win if history is any indication. Though it hasn't happened in over a quarter-century (Ferdinand in 1986), the victor has come from the inside post 12 times in Derby history—tied for the most all-time.
And despite that being a mere mitigating circumstance, Black Onyx's past performances aren't to be ignored. The three-year-old colt has won each of his past two races heading into Saturday's event and three of five overall. He's finished outside the top two only once in his entire career.
What's more, Black Onyx has a trainer with a Triple Crown pedigree in his corner. Kelly Breen helped guide Rule on Ice to a victory in the Belmont Stakes two years ago, and he seems to has a ton of faith in Black Onyx to get the job done.
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