Elegant Horse Pictures and Western Art Blog

It’s EXTREMELY difficult to pick a winner in a Kentucky Derby if you are limited to one selection.  It’s almost impossible this year.  I’m going to pick four horses and then I’m going to try to pick an exacta.  First, here are my throwouts:

Anak Nakal, Big Truck, Z Humor, Cowboy Cal, and Recapturetheglory

I believe that Pyro’s race over the synthetic surface at Keeneland can be excused.  The Arkansas Derby winner has proved to be a very important prep race in the last few years and it appears that horses coming from Oaklawn take to the Churchill Downs course very well.  Therefore, I’m including both Gayego, who has proven his versatility, and Z Fortune, who may be the better of Steve Asmussens two entries (he trains Pyro too).  Finally I’m also going to place the Santa Anita Derby winner Colonel John who has a running style that fits this race quite well.  This is a race filled with early speed.  I’m putting those four horses on the top part of my exacta and I’m putting these horses on the bottom half:

Cool Coal Man, Tale of Ekati, Court Vision, Eight Belles, Z Fortune, Visionaire, Pyro, Colonel John, Smooth Air, Bob Black Jack, Monba, Adriano, Denis of Cork, Gayego, and Big Brown

So my exacta ticket will look like this 6, 9, 10, 19 with 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20

One final warning, the filly, Eight Belles, has some great speed figures and her trainer Larry Jones won the Oaks on Friday with Proud Spell.  Jones is a terrific trainer and it would be quite a feat to pull off the Oak/Derby double.  It’s not out of the question.

And don’t forget to check out our robust selection of horse racing art prints