Kentucky Derby Future Wager Pool 1 set for this weekend

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The first of five pools in the 2022 Kentucky Derby Future Wager opens Thursday at noon Eastern, along with the Derby Sires Future Wager. Both pools close at 6 p.m. Sunday following four days of betting.

The mutuel field, the 24th or “all others” option, is the evenmoney favorite on the Churchill Downs morning line, with Jack Christopher (10-1) and Pappacap (12-1) pegged at the lowest odds among the 22 separately listed interests. Churchill is offering a “filly only” option (No. 23) again, although no filly has run in the Derby since the current qualifying-points system was initiated in 2013.

Conspicuously absent from the Pool 1 roster are four 3-yearolds who logically would have been separately listed but have been excluded because they currently are trained by Bob Baffert, who is banned from running horses in the Derby for the next two years. Those horses are Corniche, Messier, Pinehurst, and Rockefeller. They are part of the field for purposes of Pool 1 wagering.

The schedule for the four subsequent Derby pools, all with three-day wagering windows, is as follows: Pool 2, Jan. 21-23; Pool 3, Feb. 11-13; Pool 4, March 11-13; and Pool 5, March 31-April 2.

A Kentucky Oaks futures pool will coincide with Pool 4.

Since Churchill began offering parimutuel futures in 1999, the field has always been the favorite in the first pool.

The eventual 2021 Derby winner, Medina Spirit, was part of the mutuel field favored at 6-5 in Pool 1; he was 12-1 on Derby Day. Pool 1 handle last year totaled $249,331.

The Derby Sires wager has been offered concurrent to Pool 1 since November 2015. Morningline favorites for the 2022 Sires wager are the field (6-1), Quality Road (8-1), Empire Maker (12-1), and Munnings (12-1).

Win and exacta wagering are available with all pools. In the case of field horses finishing first and second, the highestplaced horse will count as the bottom half of the exacta.

Odds are effective only when the pools close Sunday. The Kentucky Jockey Club, which is expected to get several Pool 1 runners, will be held late Saturday at Churchill, and it typically behooves bettors to weigh the results of any preps run while a pool is still open before wagers are placed.

Real-time odds can be accessed through television monitors at simulcast facilities and at kentuckyderby.com.

All futures lineups are selected by a Churchill committee led by longtime racing secretary Ben Huffman.

The 148th Derby will be run May 7, 2022.