Kentucky Derby 2015: Using Race Results, Highlights to Predict Preakness Winner

There's little time to sit back and enjoy American Pharoah's Kentucky Derby triumph. After all, there is a Triple Crown drought to be broken, and the next race up is the Preakness Stakes. 

Let's take a look back at the race highlights and results to determine the winner of the second leg of the Triple Crown. 

The Race

The 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

The Preakness Prediction

C'mon—is anybody going to bet against American Pharoah at the Preakness? 

Probably not. 

American Pharoah pretty much had the perfect run at the Kentucky Derby, staying in the top three for the entirety of the race and showing a truly impressive kick down the stretch despite going wider than was necessary coming down the final turn. 

Still, as Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports wrote, it wasn't as dominant a performance as some might have expected:

"

This was the result a lot of people anticipated – American Pharoah went off as the 5-2 favorite after a week of rhapsodic descriptions of his running style. In winning the race, Pharoah lived up to his billing – but not up to the superhorse hype. 

The one-length margin of victory was the smallest in the Derby in a decade. The time (2:03.02) was slower than 12 of the last 15 winners – and slower than 11 of the last 12 Derbys run on a fast track. For a horse that had a great trip, never encountering any traffic problems, the expectation was that American Pharoah may run off with it at the top of the stretch.

Didn't happen. Espinoza had to ride his horse far harder than he had in his previous starts – starting in on him on the far turn and never stopping until the final strides.

"

There are a few reasons, perhaps, for the slow time. For starters, Dortmund set the pace—and set a pretty slow one at that—so by the time the horses opened it up down the stretch, they were likely already off the faster paces set in years past. 

And as previously mentioned, Pharoah did veer unnecessarily wide on the last turn, which made the horse work a bit harder than needed. Add in the fact that Firing Line and Dortmund weren't going to concede an inch and you can justify Pharoah's lack of a totally dominant performance. 

But yes, his contenders at the Preakness at least have hope. Pharoah had the perfect ride from start to finish. He didn't truly show his top speed until the last moment, and on the shorter track at the Preakness, that could come back to bite him. If a faster horse like Materiality had set the pace, would Pharoah have been in the mix early or run out of legs late? 

It's hard to say. What isn't hard to say is that in one of the deepest Kentucky Derby fields in recent memory, American Pharoah came out victorious.

When he needed to quickly bolt into the middle of the track at the beginning of the race to gain position, he did it. When he needed a late kick, he had it. When he needed to outperform Firing Line, he did just that.

Maybe future generations won't tell tales of American Pharoah's dominant performance at the Kentucky Derby. But more than likely, they'll be telling tales of the horse that won the first two legs of the Triple Crown and headed into the Belmont Stakes as the best hope in a while of ending horse racing's drought.