Kentucky Derby 2015: How Top Contenders Performed at Churchill Downs

The Kentucky Derby rarely disappoints, and this year was no exception. 

American Pharoah turned in an incredible performance as he, jockey Victor Espinoza and trainer Bob Baffert walked away with a victory in the 141st running of the Derby.  

This year's field was loaded with talent, and while most of the contenders lived up to their hype, a few did not. In this article, we'll look at some prerace "contenders" and analyze their performances in the Derby.

To keep from overwhelming everyone and droning on, we'll limit the scope of the word "contender" and analyze the performances of the top four race-day selections, according to Odds Shark—those being American Pharoah, Dortmund, Carpe Diem and Firing Line.

Before getting into our analysis though, be sure to check out the final order of finish, as well as the race replay, so you can see how everything shook out in this year's Run for the Roses.

Final Order of Finish

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

Race Replay

American Pharoah

American Pharoah put on an impressive show in the Kentucky Derby. The Pioneerof the Nile colt showed everything you could want out of a possible Triple Crown threat, including good gate speed, the ability to rate just off of the pace down the backstretch and solid kick with tremendous finishing power.

Garry Jones/Associated Press

Pharoah was steady through much of his back-stretch run, and when he was finally asked, the Baffert trainee responded very well. AP kicked into the four path as they worked through the final turn and wound up straightening out into the five path, clear of both Dortmund and Firing Line.

After gaining the lead and a clear lane to run through, AP flashed his speed down the stretch, running the final quarter in 26.17 seconds. That final quarter was good enough to grab hold of a one-length lead, which he never relinquished, en route to Espinoza's third Derby win and his second in as many years.

If all of that weren't impressive enough, Pharoah closed into extremely modest fractions of 23.24 seconds, and 47.34 seconds, respectively. The slow fractions proved to be a non-issue though.

AP was the best going into the race, so all he needed to do was show it Saturday.

Dortmund

Dortmund is a great horse, but in no way was he capable of beating Pharoah in the Derby.

As noted by Mike Battaglia of NBCSN (via America's Best Racing), Dortmund isn't even viewed as the best horse in Baffert's barn, by Baffert himself:

In reality, Dortmund just couldn't win. It wasn't for a lack of effort, though, as the Big Brown colt ran a heck of a race in his own right.

Dortmund led the group through a mile in 1:36.45, and though he finished three lengths back of American Pharoah, Dortmund ran his own race. In any other year, that might very easily have won the race.

A third-place finish against this crop of three-year-olds is a remarkably respectable performance.

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem was not a solid option in the Derby. In fact, I told anyone who would listen to steer clear of the Giant's Causeway colt in a story last week.

Carpe Diem was saddled with a poor post position for his riding style.

The Todd Pletcher trainee needs to be forwardly placed in order to win any race, and while he did get to the front, he spent himself a little too early. Being forwardly placed and on the rail is not the place to be in the Kentucky Derby.

Carpe Diem was walled in from the get-go, and he had horses running alongside him in both the two and three paths for most of the race.

By the time he would have been able to make his move and swing outside for a run at the lead, it was well out of reach, as he was riding a full 6.5 lengths back of the leaders, Dortmund and Firing Line.

With uninspiring fractions set by Dortmund and Firing Line on the front end, Carpe Diem was unable to sit back, rate and close. In this field, Carpe Diem had no chance.

Firing Line

Firing Line is a horse that some looked at as a semi-under-the-radar pick in this year's Derby. The Line of David colt fired well last time out in the Sunland Derby, and he fired again Saturday, this time in the Kentucky Derby.

After a strong break from the gate, the Simon Callaghan-trained colt jumped right out toward the front and held his own against one of the sport's great young colts, Dortmund. A Hall of Fame jockey, Gary Stevens, did a great job of keeping Dortmund right by his side but also of preventing Firing Line to really press the pace and run wild.

Garry Jones/Associated Press

With strategic miniruns at the lead, Stevens and Firing Line forced Dortmund to expend plenty of energy to maintain and regain his lead.

This allowed Firing Line to grab a split-second lead before American Pharoah took over and walked away to a one-length win.

Firing Line's performance was an impressive one and just another in a run of impressive showings dating back to his second-place finish in the Los Alamitos Futurity back in December 2014. More important than his second-place showing, however, was the fact that he was finally able to get the proverbial monkey off of his back and beat Dortmund, who had beaten Firing line in back-to-back races—the Los Alamitos Futurity and the Robert B. Lewis Stakes.

Look for him to have a say in the final outcome of the Preakness should he and his ownership group take to the Pimlico dirt track.

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