Derby Week: Post Draw

They've drawn for Saturday's Kentucky Derby post positions & JG wants input.

Here it is.

I found this article, dated Monday, from John Mucciolo @ NBCSports, that went over the potential Derby field.

Why am I referencing it?

Because Mooch (c'mon, EVERYONE calls John Mucciolo "Mooch," right?) broke the field into "Top Contenders," "Borderline Contenders," and "Longshot Contenders."

In short, almost all his Top Contenders drew good post positions.

Research shows it's been 25 years since a horse in the 1 or 2 hole won the race.  Last year I'll Have Another won from 19; in '08 Big Brown won from 20 (Big Brown could have won from Brownsburg, IN).  Since Winning Colors won from the 1 post in '88, it's gone this way: 10-8-9-5-10-6-8-16-15-5-3-16-15-5-5-13-10-8-7-20-8-4-16-19.

Notice -- no 1s or 2s, one 3, one 4, and FOUR 5's! FOUR 8's! and THREE 16's!  The latter is a surprise as people might think it's too wide.

Of course, you can't account for the quality of the horse (hey, every year the Fear the Kitten may have drawn the inside posts), but I don't think we need Nate Silver to tell us 5-10 are the hot spots.

5 is Normandy Invasion, who Mooch has in his Borderline category.
6 is Mylute -- Borderline.
7 is Giant Finish -- Longshot.
8 is Goldencents -- Top.
9 is Overanalyze -- Top.
10 is Palace Malice -- Borderline.

Here are his other 4 "Tops": Verrazano (prob fav) 14; Revolutionary in 3; Orb in 16 (borderline bad news); Itsmyluckyday in 12; Java's War is 19 (bad news).  I wasn't on Java's War anyway.

Normandy Invasion, which I liked (yes, JG), gets help by this, as does Mylute (ick) and Palace Malice (who I think may deserve a flutter as a longshot -- $5 win could get your money back Saturday for the race).

More analysis later.  I'm sure all experts will be talking about how it the race will run -- the pace, the closers, etc -- over the next two days.  For JG, read this.  Or just bet "Overanalyze" (pun intended) and get it over with. :)

More tomorrow, after PPs, etc.