2016 Kentucky Derby Winner: Assessing Nyquist's Triple Crown Chances

Nyquist isn't one to say he told you so—mostly because horses can't speak. But all week, trainer Doug O'Neill said we were looking at an athlete that was "so mentally tough and so physically tough."

Saturday, Nyquist backed up his trainer's words.

The morning line favorite pulled away down the stretch, holding off a hard-charging Exaggerator to win the 2016 Kentucky Derby. Nyquist finished with a lead of 1 ½ lengths. The two front-runners were clearly the best horses in the field, as third-place Gun Runner was 4 ½ lengths back.

“He’s such a special horse,” O’Neill said, per Joe Drape of the New York Times. “We see it in his eyes on a daily business. He’s the type of athlete that put his time in the gym every day and goes to bed early. When we go to the track each day, he just swishes his tail and asks, ‘What do you want from me now?’”

	Horse	Post	Jockey	Trainer	Owner	Win Payout	Place Payout	Show Payout
Win	Nyquist	13	Mario Gutierrez	Doug O'Neill	Reddam Racing LLC	$6.60	$4.80	$3.60
Place	Exaggerator	11	Kent J. Desormeaux	J. Keith Desormeaux	Big Chief Racing, LLC	-	$5.40	$4.20
Show	Gun Runner	5	Florent Geroux	Steven M. Asmussen	Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC	-	-	$6.00

Place	Horse	Post	Lengths Behind
1	Nyquist	13	-
2	Exaggerator	11	1 ¼
3	Gun Runner	5	4 ½
4	Mohaymen	14	4 ½
5	Suddenbreakingnews	2	4 ½
6	Destin	9	6 ¾
7	Brody's Cause	19	9 ¼
8	Mo Tom	4	10
9	Lani	8	10 ½
10	Mor Spirit	17	14 ¼
11	My Man Sam	6	14 ¼
12	Tom's Ready	12	16 ¾
13	Creator	3	18
14	Outwork	15	18 ¼
15	Danzing Candy	20	19 ¾
16	Trojan Nation	1	27 ½
17	Oscar Nominated	7	33 ¼
18	Majesto	18	37 ½
19	Whitmore	10	38
20	Shagaf	16	DNF

Nyquist joins California Chrome and American Pharoah, making three straight favorites to win the Derby. Both went on to capture the Preakness two weeks later. Pharoah, of course, later became the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.

Because this is how we've always chosen to consume horse racing, the discussion has already moved past Nuquist's win. Sure, it was a fun time and everything. Yeah, everyone looked dope in their hats and such. But the narrative has already shifted from "Nyquist wins" to "Can he do it two more times?"

"Congratulations to Nyquist, he's still undefeated," Mohaymen trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said, per Beth Harris of the Associated Press. "He's a star. I don't know about the Triple Crown, but we'll have a great year." 

The general answer here is pretty obvious. How likely is it that Nyquist wins the Triple Crown? Not super likely. There are a multitude of reasons nearly four decades passed without a horse winning all three legs.

The most obvious: injuries. Big Brown in 2008 couldn't make it to the finish line at the Belmont. I'll Have Another in 2012 didn't even make it to the starting gate. These horses have trained their bodies to race on a once-a-month schedule—at the most. The Triple Crown is so daunting because it packs all three events into the span of five short weeks.

Nyquist had run seven races before Saturday. None were closer than three weeks apart. Typically, the colt has had a break of at least two months. Modern medicine keeps the horses safer than ever, but it also allows doctors to better find things that can keep them off the track. All it takes is one limp in Nyquist's gait for him to be pulled from competition.

Competition levels are also higher now than they were in 1978. The difference between the haves and the have-nots in the horse racing world is smaller than ever. The truly great horses still stand out in the crowd, but the margin for error is small. The days of Secretariat lapping the field are over. All it takes is one slightly off start or someone cutting Nyquist off in the beginning of the race to derail his run.

The field for the Preakness will undoubtedly be smaller. Every year, owners and trainers pull their horses from the second leg, in hopes of resting them up for a Belmont triumph. This field was marginally deep, with half the field carrying odds of 20-1 or better, per Odds Shark. If American Pharoah faced a crop of horses this strong last year, we may not have been looking at a Triple Crown.

There are even more smaller factors. Post positions, the mental preparedness of a horse and even changes in training regimen can all affect the race outcomes. 

So if you're given the odds of taking Nyquist or the field, the latter always wins. Always. 

That said, Nyquist hasn't let anyone down yet. He's undefeated in his first seven races and has defeated every one of his biggest competitors on multiple occasions. Exaggerator has now finished second to Nyquist in the Kentucky Derby and San Vicente Stakes. Mohaymen has come away with fourth-place finishes each time he's tried to bring down Nyquist. Gun Runner's only lost to Nyquist once, but he faded big time down the stretch.

There will be one or two horses that were held out of the Derby that present a challenge. Still, he's more accomplished than Chrome or Pharoah were at the time of their Derby wins. He's the eighth undefeated Derby winner in history and first since Big Brown in 2008.

Unfortunately, only one of those horses, Secretariat, went on to win the Triple Crown. So the odds once again are not in Nyquist's favor. If we go with precedent of undefeated horses, he'd have about a 14.3 percent chance of getting the job done. Twelve Kentucky Derby winners have gone on to complete the Triple Crown, a rate of 8.5 percent.

So let's split the difference and give Nyquist an 11.4 percent of making it happen. Because math.