To win big on Derby, look beyond win bet
LOUISVILLE – For people who bet horses regularly, slogging through the charts and past performances to find every moneymaking angle in races big and small, cracking the Kentucky Derby has been a Holy Grail of gambling.
Part of that, of course, is because it’s the most important race of the year. But even more tantalizing for serious handicappers is that it offers the biggest potential rewards given the unwieldy 20-horse fields, the massive amounts of money put into the pool by novice gamblers and the potential for huge payouts if you latch on to the right long shot.
When Churchill Downs added trifectas in 1994 and superfectas in 1996 to the wagering menu, it brought the notion of massive, mind-blowing scores into play. In 2005, you could have brought home $864,253 on a $1 bet by nailing the first four finishers starting with 50-1 shot Giacomo.
But after years and years of the Derby often playing out like a random results generator, a strange thing has happened lately: The favorites are now dominating.
When Always Dreaming finished first last year, paying $11.40 on a $2 bet, he became the fifth favorite in a row to win the Derby, a surprising streak of predictability in a race in which favorites went 0-fer from 1980 until 2000.
While that won’t necessarily mean anything on Saturday, the trend has to at least enter the minds of experienced horseplayers, who typically prefer to bet against favorites and find better value.
For ESPN’s Chris Fallica, who is probably better known for the sports gambling knowledge he dispenses on College GameDay but is also a serious horseplayer, that has admittedly taken some of the fun out of trying to figure out where the value really is on Derby Day.
“For 20 years you didn’t have a single winning favorite, so that’s always been the thing to do to handicap the Derby and try to beat the favorite,” Fallica said. “And the way I attack the race, it hasn’t worked out that well (lately). It’s forced me to adjust the way I handicap the race.
“In the past you’re looking at the 15-1 shot to win and people are making huge scores (putting the long shot) on top of the favorite. Now it’s the other way around.”
The recent run of favorites isn’t necessarily a fluke because it lines up with the establishment of a points system tied to particular prep races in order to qualify for the field. In essence, that has weeded out the cheap speed horses who had no shot to win, making it a truer run race with fewer fluky elements.
That could absolutely apply again this year with the likely favorite Justify, who has shown plenty of early speed. Maybe 10 years ago, handicappers would have counted on him getting caught up in a suicide mission with a sprinter and probably bet against him, looking for a closer to get a better trip and pay a big price.
But now, if you really believe Justify is the best horse in the race, the strategy for many serious players might be to build their exotic wagers around him and hope some long shots hit the board.
That worked beautifully last year when a $1 trifecta with the favorite winning paid more than $4,000 and a $1 superfecta hit for $75,974.50.
It wasn’t as exciting in 2016 when the race played out pretty much to the odds and the Nyquist-ExaggeratorGun Runner trifecta paid a paltry $173.40 on a $2 bet.
The lesson in that, at least the last handful of years, is maybe not to overthink it and instead be grateful that you got 5-2 odds on eventual Triple Crown winner American Pharoah if you like him on Derby Day in 2015 — a price nobody betting him would ever come close to getting again.
As Ed DeRosa, the marketing director for handicapping site Brisnet points out, the simple fact that so much money ends up in the wagering pool for the Derby — much of it from novices or people gambling on horses for sentimental reasons — there’s still value everywhere.
“In a race like the Derby, the pros either have a really strong opinion (on a horse) and know they’ll get their price and just bet to win or, if they’re a superfecta player, if that’s their strength, they view the Derby as a must-play because not only do they feel like they can out-handicap people they can out-bet them with their precision and wagering acumen,” DeRosa said. “It’s highly volatile and a lot of variance and you only get one shot a year, but you have to take the shot. There’s too much money pooled into bad bets that makes it worth it.”
Still, there’s always something beyond just making money that draws people to handicapping horses. It’s looking at the race like a big jigsaw puzzle and how it’s going to play out with the pace scenario, who’s going to lose ground going wide, who’s improving off their last race and who’s regressing, then putting it all together and having a conviction about who’s going to win.
When it hits, you’ll never feel smarter. And when it’s a horse that pays a bit of a price in the Kentucky Derby like I’ll Have Another ($32.60 to win) or Animal Kingdom ($43.80), that’s the kind of chase horseplayers have a hard time resisting.
Fallica remembers feeling that back in 1998 when he absolutely nailed Real Quiet over Victory Gallop and Indian Charlie in a trifecta that paid $1,221. He’s been chasing it ever since.
“Everyone likes to pick the Derby winner,” Fallica said. “But what fun is it to say, ‘I had the winner, but it was the favorite and it was 5-2?’ ”