2011 Kentucky Derby Post Positions: How Does This Affect the Field?

The Post Positions have been drawn and one of the favorites is out of the race, so how does this change the dynamics of the race? For one, Archarcharch is going to have to work his butt off right from the start.

"A3" as many have been calling him, drew the inside post. While it's not the kiss of death, it is the kiss of "you have to work twice as hard to win this Derby." He'll have to hustle so he doesn't get squeezed on the rail and if he's lucky, he won't have a Looking At Lucky type of trip. The good thing for A3 is that he doesn't have to have the lead so if he gets taken back a little bit, it won't hurt him too much.

Twice The Appeal's camp may have got a blessing in surprise when first they picked up Calvin Borel and then they drew the third hole. This horse is still a long shot and he just comes off a graded stakes win in the Sunland Derby, but Calvin Bo-rail, as he's called, is the master at using the rail to his advantage.

The only huge disadvantages (according to history) that may appear are for the horses coming out of the 17 hole, Soldat, and Nehro out of the 19 hole. Neither hole has a winner. However, if the track comes up sloppy, Soldat should have an advantage on breaking that curse, as he seems to love the slop.

While post positions are usually a huge deal in a 20 horse field like the Derby (now a 19 horse field), this race is truly wide open with the only one that may really suffer being Archarcharch in that first hole. But the horses to watch are also those in the auxiliary gate added just for the Derby, because those horses need to get close to the rail before the first turn so they do not have to run an added distance.

The three horse, Twice the Appeal, also needs to be watched around the end of the race with the master of the rail on him. Borel won with 50-1 shot Mine That Bird in 2009 and if he gets the right ride, we may see the same performance.

Overall, post positions should not affect this field too much, as there are no big standouts that will be harmed by where they are. Post positions for this Derby should just be numbers that don’t really matter when all is said and done on Saturday night. And for the first time in history, a horse in the 17 or 19 hole may just win and blow another historical record out of the water.