Kentucky Derby Field 2023: Pinpointing Contenders from All Horses and Jockeys

The Kentucky Derby brings out the best of the best in horse racing.

Race favorite Forte has the best of everything around him to become the 149th winner in the event's history.

Forte has the most prolific winning run of the 19 horses entered into the field for Saturday's race and he has one of the best jockeys and trainers on his side.

The favored does not always win at Churchill Downs, but Forte has the best pedigree of all the participants, which makes him one of the preferred choices to win.

Second favorite Tapit Trice comes from the same trainer, Todd Pletcher, and he could carve out his own path to victory from the inside part of the track, where a lot of long shots will begin the race.

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Kentucky Derby Odds and Post Positions

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Top Contenders

Forte

Forte has the best winning pedigree among the Kentucky Derby field.

He comes into Saturday with a four straight victories in a run that started in October.

Pletcher and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. are trying to win their second straight Triple Crown race together after they took Mo Donegal to the Belmont Stakes winner's circle last year.

Pletcher is going after his third Kentucky Derby win as a trainer, while Ortiz is in search of his first Triple Crown triumph at Churchill Downs.

Ortiz is a two-time Belmont Stakes winner and he won the Eclipse Award for the most outstanding jockey in four of the last five years.

The horse himself and his team simply know how to win and that could be a deciding factor in picking Forte to win.

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Tapit Trice

Tapit Trice won his last two races to surge as a top Kentucky Derby contender. He won the Tampa Bay Derby and Blue Grass Stakes in March and April for his first two major races.

The horse coming out of Post No. 5 won some lower-graded races at the start of his career, but he has not finished first in top-tier races for as long as Forte has.

Tapit Trice could compete with Forte for the win during the final quarter-mile, which would be the dream scenario for Pletcher.

The horse has plenty of experience aboard it with Luis Saez, who rode some of the best thoroughbreds to compete at the Triple Crown level in the last five years.

Saez was on board with Maximum Security during the 2019 Kentucky Derby. The horse was disqualified for an on-track infraction in which he was ruled to have made a contact foul.

Saez piloted Essential Quality to first place in the 2021 Belmont Stakes. The jockey-horse combination also took third in the 2021 Kentucky Derby.

The jockey's recent experience at the front of the Derby field should help Tapit Trice navigate all of the long shots starting to his left and then the other first-place contenders next to him during the second half of the event.

The talent surrounding Forte and Tapit Trice make it a real possibility that the two current favorites could contend with each other for a trip to the winner's circle and a spot in Kentucky Derby history.