Kentucky Derby Results 2015: Winners and Losers from the Run for the Roses
The 141st Kentucky Derby delivered.
American Pharoah lived up to the hype and overcame Firing Line and Dortmund to win the Derby.
The horses who had the best post positions and subsequently broke one-two-three also finished one-two-three: American Pharoah, Firing Line and Dortmund.
Bob Baffert, trainer of both American Pharoah and Dortmund, won his fourth career Kentucky Derby.
American Pharoah could not have drawn up a better trip. The fractions were slow and favored a wire-to-wire win for Dortmund, but his stablemate relaxed a few lengths off the pace, allowing jockey Victor Espinoza to push the buttons and guide American Pharoah to victory.
The race wasn’t easy, but the Run for the Roses rarely is.
American Pharoah won, but so many others did too. Read on for the winners and losers from this year’s epic renewal of the Kentucky Derby.
Loser: The Post Draw
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The Kentucky Derby points system is a meritocracy. The best horses win the best races, earn the most points and thus earn their way into the Derby.
They’ve run miles and miles, anything could go wrong. 25,000 foals were born in 2012 that had the potential—on paper—to get to this point, but only 18 got to the gate. This past week, three horses—Stanford, El Kabeir and International Star (on Derby Day!)—scratched.
So after all that trepidation, the trainers, owners and jockeys then had to deal with the randomness of a double-blind draw.
If you’re going to track points based on performance, then the connections of the horses with highest points should get to pick their post position. The most points gets to pick first and on and on down the line.
The Super Bowl, with the exception of New York, is played in a warm-weather climate to take weather out of the equation. The idea is to let the play on the field determine who wins the game, not some extraneous variable.
The Derby is unique with its 20 horses. This should be the only race where connections have a choice of post position because it’s so hard to get here in the first place. Then they're asked to contend with the ludicrous field size to increase betting interests, drive up handle and allow Churchill Downs Inc. to laugh all the way to the proverbial—and literal—bank.
So talented horses then get hosed by this random draw?
Keen Ice, a horse with barely 30 points, drew the favorable Post 14 without winning a single race. Carpe Diem, the impressive winner of the Blue Grass Stakes, drew the stinkin’ Post 2. What good is winning when you get hosed by the randomness of the draw? How fair is that?
They’ve earned it and deserve a shot at the truest possible race. Otherwise, what good is a points system that turns meritocracy into a lottery?
Winner: Materiality
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Materiality, the previously unbeaten winner of the Grade 1 Florida Derby, didn’t win the Kentucky Derby, but he didn’t lose either.
His effort, given his experience—or inexperience—was admirable. It was reminiscent of Curlin, a lightly raced horse in 2007 who closed like a rocket to finish third.
“He ran very well," trainer Todd Pletcher said after the race, via Darren Rogers of Churchill Downs. "He missed the break as he stumbled a little bit, pulled his shoe off and thought he closed pretty well despite that.”
Materiality had every excuse to finish well back in the field yet he finished a strong sixth after getting pinched back at the start.
“He stood there when the gates open, not long, but the door closes in the Kentucky Derby,” Jerry Bailey said on the NBC broadcast. “A bad break can cost you a lot, therefore he was never involved in the pace and had nowhere to go after that.”
His best shot at competing was getting the lead. He never got the lead, but he took all that dirt for the longest race of his life, which speaks volumes for this horse’s makeup.
Expect big things from this son of Afleet Alex going forward.
Loser: Upstart
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Upstart never ran a bad race...until today.
In his previous starts, his Beyer Speed Figures were 108, 93, 105, 92 and 102. The horse never ran poorly, but he met his match in the Derby finishing last of them all.
"He seems fine," trainer Rick Violette told Churchill Downs. "There is certainly obviously nothing wrong with him. We scoped him and other than a lot of dirt in his trachea, he seems fine. He was hardly blowing. I don’t have any answers yet."
Now, finishing last in the Derby is more a product of how the race played out early. If you can’t run for a decent check, you gallop the horse home because there’s no difference between hustling for 13th or finishing 18th in a jog.
This is where the random post draw kills a horse who had a shot at contending. Upstart had a fair amount of Kentucky Derby points but by the randomness of the draw had to break from Lexington. Only horses like American Pharoah and Big Brown can overcome that kind of draw.
Based on his earlier efforts, Upstart deserved a post position better suited to his running style. He was always going to take one shot at the leaders, but a rather tepid pace kept him from making a strong pass to the front.
This horse is far more talented than what he showed in Kentucky and could be a threat in whatever race he chooses next, probably the Belmont Stakes where his trainer, Violette, calls home.
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Winner: Gary Stevens and Firing Line
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Firing Line got the dream trip while locking horns with his old rival Dortmund through much of this race.
The two horses tangled twice before. First in the Los Alamitos Futurity and then the Robert B. Lewis. Dortmund won by a head both times.
In the Derby, Firing Line won the battle between he and Dortmund, but ultimately lost the war to American Pharoah, who finally passed him in the final 16th of a mile.
Gary Stevens, 27 years removed from his first Derby win in 1988 aboard the filly Winning Colors, piloted Firing Line beautifully. With the scratch of the No. 11 Stanford—a possible pace threat—Firing Line got a dream shot at the lead. Dortmund and all his muscle was the classiest speed and easily took the lead, allowing Firing Line to slot into place in a perfect striking position.
For those who think jockeys don’t matter, Stevens proved them wrong because he put his horse, a horse of questionable stamina, within a length of winning the Derby.
Gary Stevens and Firing Line could be real dangerous in the Preakness should they wheel right back, but we’ll wait until that announcement comes in the following week.
Loser: The Pletcher Industrial Complex
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Todd Pletcher, for all his abilities, is just 1-for-43 in the Kentucky Derby after his three horses finished sixth, ninth and 10th.
Much of that was based on post position, which his two best horses were compromised by. Still, Materiality overcame an unfortunate break to finish sixth. That spells danger for his competitors down the road.
But overall, it’s kind of a win for Pletcher to get this many starters to the gate, though he struggles getting horses to the winner’s circle.
“He’s a victim of his own success,” said NBC horse racing analyst Randy Moss during the television broadcast. “He manages his horses so perfectly that he gets average horses to the Kentucky Derby.”
In many ways, it’s good for his business to get this many horses to the Derby. That’s really all owners can ask for.
But it doesn’t matter how many darts a man holds in his hand—if he doesn’t hit the bullseye more than once in 43 throws, it feels like a loss.
And technically, this was.
Winner: The Luckiest Mexican
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Victor Espinoza did it again. He became just the second jockey in the last 30 years to win back-to-back Kentucky Derbies. He won a year ago with California Chrome and he won it again this year.
Each time Espinoza has won the Derby, he has gone on to contend for the elusive Triple Crown. His first Triple Crown effort in 2002 with War Emblem—trained by Bob Baffert—ended when War Emblem stumbled out of the gate in the Belmont Stakes.
A year ago, California Chrome was beaten by a fresher horse. These things happen.
Aboard American Pharoah, it appears Espinoza is ready to test history again.
He told Donna Brothers during the NBC broadcast:
"I feel like the luckiest Mexican on Earth! He’s been a special horse since the day I rode him. He has such talent. He flows on the track. It’s just an unbelievable horse. Turning for home I thought I got it. I was riding him hard in the last eighth of the mile. The other horse [Firing Line] was right next to me and I couldn’t blow him away. I got it done.
"
Yes he did, and now it’s on to Pimlico.
Losers: Ken and Sarah Ramsey
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The Derby dream waits at least another year for owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey. Their International Star scratched the morning of the race with a foot issue, marking the second late scratch from the Derby’s original 20-horse field.
Ken Ramsey said in a statement:
"The state vet got there this morning to check him out and did not like the way he jogged down the shedrow. Our blacksmith took the left-front shoe off and there was definitely some heat on the inside quarter of the left-front foot. Something’s brewing in there, probably an abscess. There’s nothing major wrong with the horse whatsoever. We think we’ll probably have him ready to come back for the Preakness but time will tell.
"
The Derby was his ideal race because it’s the one race that is susceptible to a complete meltdown on the front end. What does that mean? The speed can be so hot that a horse like International Star can sweep up the leaders at the end.
At most, the Preakness will have 14 horses, so there’s less chaos, thus allowing a truer run than you find in the Derby.
Winner: Frosted
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There were questions around Frosted, who came out as the winner of the Wood Memorial. The track at Aqueduct didn’t project well to how horses performed this weekend at Churchill Downs.
Yet down the lane charged the Kiaran McLaughlin-trained Frosted getting up for the superfecta.
“He had a good trip,” his jockey Joel Rosario, the 2013 winner of the Derby, told Churchhill Downs. “He didn’t have any trouble. He tried really hard and finished strong.”
His trainer had high praise for his colt too.
“He ran very well,” McLaughlin told Churchill Downs. “He had a good trip. We finished fourth. He may have been a little far back. It’s hard to say, but we didn’t have a rough trip. He was just a little wide on the turn.”
That’s the nature of the Derby. With so many horses, sometimes talent isn’t enough. If Frosted takes a break and freshens up for the Belmont Stakes, he could be a serious threat to win.
Loser: Dortmund
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Dortmund a loser? It feels fairly slimy to call a horse who finished third and was previously unbeaten a loser, but Dortmund, a horse many had winning this race, had the entire race fall into his undefeated hooves but couldn't win the roses.
“No excuses whatsoever for Dortmund,” Randy Moss, NBC horse racing analyst, said during the NBC broadcast.
There’s speed, then there’s Dortmund speed. He broke like a rocket and had the race fall into his lap. He saved ground and set moderate fractions. The quarter went in 23.42 seconds with the half-mile going in 47.34. As far as Derbies go, that’s like walking the elderly across the street.
Dortmund dealt with no traffic and didn’t have to travel any wider than he wanted. He was simply beaten by a better horse.
Dortmund was exposed in this race. It feels more like a loss since he had everything go his way.
Winner: American Pharoah
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American Pharoah. American Phar-whoa!
What more can be said? He was truly brilliant, breaking from the outside and angling in beautifully.
The question coming in dealt with whether this horse could take a punch. He had won every before with such ease that nobody knew how he would face adversity. Well, he got a taste of it when Firing Line failed to give way until American Pharoah out-talented him to win by a length.
“He had all the potential in the world,” NBC analyst Randy Moss said during the broadcast. “He had never been in a fight. Could he take a punch and come back swinging? Well, he certainly proved that today.”
If he comes out of the race well, American Pharoah heads to the Preakness to keep the dream alive for the Triple Crown. There, he’ll face a field of 14 with two non-Derby runners already committed.
The pace in the Derby was honest, not suicidal, so it’s fair to think that American Pharoah didn’t overextend himself in victory. In fact, he looked chipper while cooling out after the race.
Every time trainer Bob Baffert has won the Derby, he has won the Preakness. Three times and counting. Will he make it 4-for-4 and finally snap the 37-year Triple Crown drought? This horse has the makeup and the Derby win under his girth to make it happen.
All quotes came from the NBC broadcast or by releases sent by Churchill Downs.
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