Kentucky Derby 2015 Winner: American Pharoah Time, Highlights and Purse Info

For the second year in a row, Victor Espinoza rode the winning horse to a Kentucky Derby win. This time, he was atop the front-runner, American Pharoah, who pulled away from Firing Line and Dortmund down the stretch and lived up to his reputation as a truly special horse.

For trainer Bob Baffert, it was his fourth triumph at the Kentucky Derby. Here's his horse crossing the finish line, via the Kentucky Derby's Twitter account: 

In all, it was a pretty great evening for Baffert. From SportsCenter on Twitter:

The unofficial results and unofficial winning time for American Pharoah:

It wasn't easy, of course. Dortmund was able to survive the pack and get out to an early lead, setting a relatively slow pace for the group with Materiality—the horse most folks thought would set the pace—trapped on the rail early and buried deep in the pack almost from the opening gun. That left Firing Line and American Pharoah on Dortmund's heels for much of the race, and Pharoah went wide around the final turn before showing off an impressive kick down the stretch. 

"He's just an amazing horse," Espinoza said after the event on NBC's broadcast. "Today, finally, I just let him run."

And boy, did American Pharoah respond. Here's how the full race played out:

Here's how the winners paid out:

Horse	Win	Place	Show
American Pharoah	$7.80	$5.80	$4.20
Firing Line	-----	$8.40	$5.40
Dortmund	-----	-----	$4.20

And here are the full results:

Place	No.	Horse	Jockey	Trainer	Lengths
1	18	American Pharoah	Victor Espinoza	Bob Baffert	-----
2	10	Firing Line	Gary Stevens	Simon Callaghan	1
3	8	Dortmund	Martin Garcia	Bob Baffert	3
4	15	Frosted	Joel Rosario	Kiaran McLaughlin	3 1/4
5	5	Danzig Moon	Julien Leparoux	Mark Casse	6 1/2
6	3	Materiality	Javier Castellano	Todd Pletcher	7 3/4
7	14	Keen Ice	Kent Desormeaux	Dale Romans	8 3/4
8	6	Mubtaahij	Christophe Soumillon	Mike de Kock	9 1/2
9	13	Itsaknockout	Luis Saez	Todd Pletcher	10 1/4
10	2	Carpe Diem	John Velazquez	Todd Pletcher	11
11	21	Frammento	Corey Nakatani	Nick Zito	12
12	9	Bolo	Rafael Bejarano	Carla Gaines	12 3/4
13	17	Mr. Z	Ramon Vazquez	D. Wayne Lukas	15 1/2
14	1	Ocho Ocho Ocho	Elvis Trujillo	Jim Cassidy	15 1/2
15	20	Far Right	Mike Smith	Ron Moquett	15 3/4
16	16	War Story	Joe Talamo	Tom Amoss	19 1/4
17	4	Tencendur	Manny Franco	George Weaver	35
18	19	Upstart	Jose Ortiz	Rick Violette Jr.	60 1/2
	7	El Kabeir	Calvin Borel	John Terranova	SCR
	11	Stanford	Florent Geroux	Todd Pletcher	SCR
	12	International Star	Miguel Mena	Michael Maker	SCR

Finally, Robert Raiola noted the portion of the purse the owners of the top five horses would be taking home:

Of course, it wasn't enough for American Pharoah to just win; he also had to create a bit of history in the process, too:

"

American Pharoah: 1st horse to ever win from post position 17 5th win in 6 lifetime starts (won each of last 5)

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 2, 2015"

It's hard not to be impressed by this horse. Granted, the slow early pace really favored him, but down the stretch he showed a kick that none of the other horses in the field seemed capable of coming close to matching. Espinoza deserves credit for a good ride, yes, but Pharoah just seemed to have a different gear at the end. 

The Preakness could be a greater challenge, of course, as the shorter course favors pure sprinters and the pace will almost assuredly be much faster. It only takes one tiny hiccup to derail a Triple Crown favorite. But after that showing at the Derby, it's hard to be really excited about American Pharoah's chances of ending the Triple Crown drought.

We may have all witnessed the first leg of something very, very special.