Kentucky Derby 2013: The Road to Louisville - Vol. II

Yes, I fully intend to use some kind of song with "dirty" in the title only changed to "Derby" for this whole series.

With the win by Violence in last Saturday's Grade 1 CashCall Futurity at Betfair Hollywood Park, the 2012 juvenile season is pretty much closed for business. Now comes the time when connections begin plotting out the path they hope will take their colts to the starting gate at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May.

In terms of points on the official Churchill Downs Road to the Derby, things aren't gong to change much as long as were in the point of schedule with races worth just 10, 4, 2, and 1 points on the scale. Shanghai Bobby has jumped out to a nice 20 point, but he'll likely need to at least double that to ensure a trip to Louisville. Current races on the horizon are the Holy Bull, Lecomte, Robert B Lewis, etc., and all of those races are in the "Prep" category on the low end of the points scale.

In the coming days (and weeks), I'm going to add the Vegas and European future book odds to the discussion, just to give us some perspective as to how the winter book is shaping up.

I've updated the Road to the Derby spreadsheet and uploaded to the Google Drive document. (Note: the spreadsheet will include some non-points races in the summary, but not the standings.) The issue with the fractions and internal splits should now be solved.

2013 Road to the Kentucky Derby

Below is the current point standings through the CashCall Futurity.

Upcoming Prep Races:

1/5/13: Sham Stakes
1/19/13: Lecomte Stakes
1/21/13: Smarty Jones Stakes
1/26/13: Holy Bull Stakes