Kentucky Derby Post Positions and Odds

A full gate of twenty three-year-old colts will make the Run for the Roses on Saturday, 2 May.  There are also two Alternate Entries waiting in the wings, in case of scratches.  Here is the list of post positions, the colt's name, the jockey, and the morning-line betting odds (which were set by Mike Battaglia of Churchill Downs):

1     Ocho Ocho Ocho       Elvis Trujillo         50 to 1
2     Carpe Diem               John Velasquez       8 to 1
3     Materiality                 Javier Castellano    12 to 1
4     Tencendur                 Manny Franco        30 to 1
5     Danzig Moon            Julien Laperoux      30 to 1
6     Mubtaahij                 Christophe Soumillon    20 to 1
7     El Kabier                   Calvin Borel           30 to 1
8     Dortmund                  Martin Garcia           3 to 1
9     Bolo                           Rafael Bejerano      30 to 1
10   Firing Line                 Gary Stevens          30 to 1
11   Stanford                     Florent Geroux        30 to 1
12   International Star       Miguel Mena          20 to 1
13   Itsaknockout              Luis Saez                 30 to 1
14   Keen Ice                    Kent Desormeux      50 to 1
15   Frosted                      Joel Rosario             15 to 1
16   War Story                  Joe Talamo               50 to 1
17   Mr. Z                         Ramon Vasquez       50 to 1
18   American Pharoah     Victor Espinoza         5 to 2
19   Upstart                       Jose Ortiz                 15 to 1
20   Far Right                   Mike Smith               30 to 1

AE1  Frammento             Corey Nakatani
AE2  Tale of Verve         Brian Hernandez Jr

Top Five Kentucky Derby Point Winners

Hunh?  Point winners?  For quite a while now, horses wishing to run in the Kentucky Derby must accrue points in approved races.  This has cut out the racing of horses by owners and trainers who had more cash than brains, and just wanted to be able to claim they ran a horse in the Kentucky Derby.  The cachet of owning a Derby horse was so over-powering that a lot of horses were entered in the race that should should not have been on the track.  Anyway, these are the five colts with the highest point accumulations for 2015:

International Star, on the inside, in the red blinkers, has 171 points

Dortmund, the big chestnut on the inside, withe the red, white and blue silks, has 170 points

Carpe Diem has 164 points

American Pharoah, who has won in the mud and on a fast track, has 160 points

Frosted has 113 points - photo by Vanessa Ng, 2014