Kentucky Derby 2015: Horses, Favorites and Picks for This Year's Field

The 141st running of the Kentucky Derby is upon us, with the post-position drawing Wednesday to decide the order of a competitive field of 20 likely to line up in a race deserving of the moniker "The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports."

While a trio of runners are getting most of the attention in the early wagering, according to Odds Shark, this field is one of the deepest we have seen in years, with just a handful of runners looking overmatched.

Let's look at the favorites, the contenders and the pretenders:

Favorites

Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, 62, has a powerful one-two punch for this year's Kentucky Derby. The white-haired Baffert is seeking his fourth win in the Run for the Roses and first since War Emblem wired the field in 2002.

American Pharoah has remained the early wagering favorite for the Kentucky Derby, currently at odds of 9-4 at Odds Shark. The colt has won four races in a row and has not been tested in his two starts this year.

He won the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes by 6¼ lengths and came back to Hot Springs to win the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby by eight lengths. The colt finished fourth in the Road to the Derby points standings with 160.

Garry Jones/Associated Press

Clockers were impressed with his lone workout over the Churchill Downs main track. The colt went five furlongs in 58.4 seconds, a bullet drill, the fastest of 32 to work at the distance Sunday morning.

Baffert will saddle the second choice in the wagering as well in the undefeated Dortmund, who is perfect in six career starts. The strapping colt won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby in his last start and is currently at betting odds of 9-2 at Odds Shark.

Dortmund is the son of 2008 Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown, who came to Louisville undefeated and was sent off as the betting favorite.

Carpe Diem is the third choice in the wagering at 7-1. The colt is trained by Todd Pletcher, who has won the Eclipse Award as outstanding trainer seven times but has managed to win the Kentucky Derby just once with 40 starters. Super Saver got the job done for him in 2010.

Carpe Diem has won four of his five career starts, the lone loss a runner-up finish in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile. His final prep was a sharp score in the Grade 1 Toyota Blue Grass at Keeneland.

Of the three favorites, American Pharoah appears to be sitting on a big race and would become the third consecutive betting favorite to win, following Orb in 2013 and California Chrome last year.

Contenders

After the top three, there are plenty of other legitimate runners who have a shot of winning the race—or at least landing in the money.

Among those is the Pletcher-trained Materiality, winner of the Grade 1 Florida Derby in his last start, his third win in as many attempts. He beat the more seasoned Upstart, who had won the Grade 2 Holy Bull and crossed the wire first in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth only to get disqualified for interference in the stretch.

Rob Carr/Getty Images

If Materiality were to win the Kentucky Derby, he would be the first to do so without running as a juvenile since Apollo in 1882. The colt is currently 12-1 in early Kentucky Derby odds.

Mubtaahij will be making his U.S. debut and is taking plenty of betting action, currently at odds of 12-1, per Odds Shark.

The colt stamped his ticket for Louisville by winning the Grade 2 UAE Derby in Dubai, his fourth in seven career starts. He is trained by one of the world's top trainers in Michael de Kock.

Grade 1 Wood Memorial winner Frosted is worth a look and is at odds of 16-1. The colt is trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, who nearly pulled off the biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history when he sent out Closing Argument to run second in 2005 at 71-1.

Grade 3 Sunland Derby winner Firing Line and Grade 2 Louisiana Derby victor International Star are getting overlooked in the early wagering, currently both at odds of 18-1.

Pretenders

In most recent years, this category would be filled with six or eight horses who appear to have little chance of winning the race.

However, this year there are not many horses in the Derby field who are complete toss-outs. Mr. Z has been able to win just once in 12 tries but has landed in the money in eight stakes races. His Derby betting odds are 40-1.

Ocho Ocho Ocho (40-1), War Story (40-1) and Danzig Moon (40-1) have not run fast enough to date to be factors on the first Saturday of May.

Early Picks

It's tough to come up with a winner before the post-position draw, but if I had to pick now, the most likely winner is the favorite, American Pharoah, who has been dominant in his last two preps and has the right trainer calling the shots.

Looking for value, Materiality is a lightly raced, talented colt who ran big in his Florida Derby win and will offer more value of 12-1. However, he does have the curse of Apollo squarely on his back along with Pletcher's poor record on the first Saturday of May.

Kentucky Derby betting odds provided by Odds Shark and current as of Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET.

Follow Michael Dempsey on Twitter @turfnsport.