As Churchill’s sunny, outdoor post-position draw for the $5-million, 2026 Kentucky Derby got underway on April 25, there was a sociable background hum in the seating area as trainers, owners and the press met and greeted each other. But in the early going as leading unofficial backstretch favorite Renegade’s paper was pulled, and the horse received the dreaded Churchill stall on the rail, there was a sudden, noticeable silence. You could almost watch the thought race through the crowd: Thank God that wasn’t me.

And yet: minutes later, as Churchill’s new odds captain Nick Tammaro put through his very first Kentucky Derby morning line on the field, there was young Renegade as the top dog, at 4-1. Two questions: First, does stall No. 1 in the Churchill “new” 20-horse gate somehow not carry the “curse” of producing no Derby winners, even though it’s 0-6 since its debut in 2020? And, perhaps more importantly, second: What is it about Renegade (and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.) that makes Mr. Tammaro think that the dismal record of the post position — in the new gate or in the old 14-horse one — doesn’t matter?

In answer to the second question, as trainer Pletcher and part-owner Mike Repole (of Vitamin Water and Body Armor fame) have both given us to understand, the Churchill rail is what it is, and they will try to make the best of it. In the larger sense, Renegade’s late-running power surge to win the Arkansas Derby by four lengths proved a couple of things, not least that the horse possesses the precise tool kit for the Derby distance and its demands. Like Further Ado in the Blue Grass, Renegade put a very great deal of room between himself and the peloton in the very last furlongs of the graded stakes that got him the invitation to the big race.

Stall No. 1 in the Churchill gate in the face of a 20-horse field thundering down into the first turn does still mean that Irad Ortiz will have to take back — or that he must, more daringly and dangerously, try to squirt out in front, then slide back off the pace as they work up the backstretch. Any way you cut it, the stall adds a daunting, traffic-rich tactical series of sidesteps to Renegade’s burgeoning do-list in the race — in addition to whatever tactical problems Pletcher, Ortiz and Repole were thinking they faced just having to work their man to the front in the last two furlongs on Saturday. Breaking from the rail in a Derby gives the equine athlete quite some choreography of gear-shifting in addition to the gear-shifting required of nominally “better” post positions.

The question for Renegade — and the reason that the three-time Derby winning trainer Pletcher is less than sanguine about being slotted into the rail — is simply that the extra layer of demand brought by the rail in a Derby can become the straw that broke the camel’s back in this one traffic-choked race.

Which brings us back to the first question inspired by Odds-czar Tammaro’s position that Renegade has the moxie to overcome all foes and all track disadvantages: The Churchill rail hole is “dreaded” not just because it’s 0-for-6 since the new gate was introduced. Of the last fifteen Derbies, nine (or 60%) have been won by runners starting from stall Nos. 15-20. That implies that the ordinarily holy tactical notion of “saving ground” is far less important in a Kentucky Derby than the simply doing what you have to do to get a clean trip. In reference to Renegade, it means that anything he and Ortiz devise to get around the traffic will be better for them than staying inside.

It will remain an irony of Saturday’s race — and of Derby history — that all outside post positions are not alike, and some can even be worse than the rail. Derby champ Ferdinand did in fact win the big race from the rail in 1986, forty years ago, the last contender to do so. Post 14, by contrast, last produced a winner sixty-five years ago, in 1961, when Carry Back (who also won the Preakness) went off as the 5-2 favorite and breezily carried the day with a commanding two-plus length stretch run.

Pletcher, Ortiz and Repole will be hoping their boy can snap the rail hole’s four-decade drought with a dancing, traffic-free run on Saturday.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

This much is well-known: Astounding even the players backing the favorite and, to a slightly lesser extent, his connections, Further Ado, with the added threat of Irad Ortiz in the irons (a jock the horse will not have in the Derby), blazed out in the last furlongs of Keeneland’s April 4 Blue Grass to a Secretariat-like margin of eleven lengths on the peloton. The run clocked an eye-watering 106 Beyer speed figure, the highest this year among the Class of 2026.

His conditioner Brad Cox, who has another top Derby favorite in Commandment in his stable, has been reserved and within bounds, elated, about Further Ado’s development. Bluntly put, although top favorites Renegade and Commandment, respectively, won the Arkansas and Florida derbies (Grade 1 preps nominally valued higher than the Blue Grass in producing Derby placers), neither Commandment nor Renegade posted speed numbers like those of Further Ado.

That was then — but this is Derby week. Before we get into what Further Ado has to do to put away his looming May 2 competitors Renegade, Chief Wallabee, and Commandment, here, a refresher on the the field, its post positions, and the morning line.

(Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Morning Line)

1) Renegade, Irad Ortiz Jr., Todd Pletcher, 4-1

2) Albus, Jaime Torres, Riley Mott, 30-1

3) Intrepido, Hector Berrios, Jeff Mullins, 50-1

4) Litmus Test, Martin Garcia, Bob Baffert, 30-1

5) Right To Party, Christopher Elliott, Kenny McPeek, 30-1

6) Commandment, Luis Saez, Brad Cox, 6-1

7) Danon Bourbon, Atsuya Nishimura, Manabu Ikezoe, 20-1

8) So Happy, Mike Smith, Mark Glatt, 15-1

9) The Puma, Javier Castellano, Gustavo Delgado, 10-1

10) Wonder Dean, Ryusei Sakai, Daisuke Takayanagi, 30-1

11) Incredibolt, Jaime Torres, Riley Mott, 20-1

12) Chief Wallabee, Junior Alvarado, William Mott, 8-1

13) Silent Tactic, Cristian Torres, Mark Casse, 20-1

14) Potente, Juan Hernandez, Bob Baffert, 20-1

15) Emerging Market, Flavien Prat, Chad Brown, 15-1

16) Pavlovian, Edwin Maldonado, Doug O'Neill, 30-1

17) Six Speed, Brian Hernandez Jr., Bhupat Seemar, 50-1

18) Further Ado, John Velasquez, Brad Cox, 6-1

19) Golden Tempo, Jose Ortiz, Cherie DeVaux, 30-1

20) Fulleffort, Tyler Gaffalione, Brad Cox, 20-1

As usual when it comes to money on the Kentucky Derby barrelhead, the handicapping value of Further Ado’s Blue Grass run as factored into his Derby chances remains fraught. Further Ado was second on the Derby points leaderboard only to Commandment. Obviously, this week’s handicapping is no longer about the points, but the points accrued by each horse do still lend us a kind of mathematical reduction of past performances, if we accept the broad premise that certain races and fields on the road to the Derby mean more than others.

That caveat noted, mounting a stretch run that opens up that gargantuan sort of lead in the last three furlongs argues for more than just the power of this one young athlete. It’s an argument for the health of the sport. Specifically, this always needs to be remembered: the Kentucky Derby is a tough go for three-year-old equine athletes, each of whom is maturing at vastly different rates. Their characters and racing preferences are notoriously patchy; their ability to focus on any one task under pressure is as wobbly as any two-legged teenager’s would be; and not least, their vulnerability to being spooked — laboring under Churchill’s infamously clamorous crowd, band and infield — is infinite.

The point is that Further Ado showed a tremendous ability and a single-minded focus on getting to the wire well out in front in the Blue Grass. This ability to focus is critical in a Kentucky Derby, which is why we often see late additions of blinders on some of the colts. The Derby is longer than any race they have run in their lives, the learning curve is steep and the pitfalls — both tactical and veterinary — are legion. The Derby fields are by orders of magnitude larger and more ferociously competitive than any that any contender has been in. In the heat of all that, those that do succeed must stave off more demons than they ever knew existed. Quiet, steady, clean-running achievers such as 2025’s champion, William Mott’s Sovereignty, are few and far between.

These are the reasons that, among the four strongest colts coming into the Derby, an ultra-dominant 11-length show such as that put on by Further Ado stands out. He wasn’t just holding on neck-and-neck in the last furlong or having to overtake other contenders. He was the master of an entirely different race, one taking place far away from the one in which his erstwhile competition was running.

Pre-post-position draw, all of the above is why Further Ado rose to second-favorite in TwinSpires’ “fair” odds, at 5-1, hard on the heels in the pre-draw estimation of Renegade, at 9-2 (or 4.5/1). Five-tenths of a point separated them. They’re in that same 1-2 arrangement now, but with Renegade coming down a half-point to 4-1 and Further Ado rising a full point to 6-1 in the morning line.

As ever, the money at the track often has other ideas than the morning line does, so the corollary to the annual 20-horse Derby melee is that it’s up for grabs whether Further Ado’s most recent run will sway the odds thinking as the handicapping gets honed down to a white-hot dagger point with post time looming. As if to prove this point — about Further Ado and about the Blue Grass generally — Churchill’s own Derby Future Wagers book closed before the Blue Grass was run, which had the oddly hilarious effect of parking Further Ado at 17-1, a dang good price given his copious talent, and that could well bring some fun pocket change to some of the passionate Futures players. By contrast, Arkansas Derby winner Renegade closed as the Future Wager pool’s Derby favorite at 4-1, spot on where he is now. In short, the money will have much more talking to do about Further Ado.

Odds wrinkles aside, what of the horse? Who is that very game Further Ado under Velasquez on Saturday? Let’s begin by noting the obvious: He’s a half-brother to 2024’s Breeders’ Cup Classic victor Sierra Leone. Their sire is the white-hot Kentucky Bluegrass go-to sire, Gun Runner. Last September in the bellwether Keeneland fall yearling sale, Gun Runner yearlings broke the historical record, kept since the sale began in 1944, by bringing the top price in each of the sale’s four sessions. Further Ado is right in line with that pedigree, solid runner, can take the distance, able to focus, strong desire to do everything he can to get there first. It’s difficult to say that any race run by any three-year old is “proof” of anything, but in Further Ado’s case the Blue Grass win was a sterling indication of his DNA.

Bottom line, we don’t know what kind of trip he’s going to get on Saturday, but breaking from the far outside in the Churchill gate won’t hurt him. He’ll have all he can do to deal with the traffic and get by his co-favorites, but if any one of them has a shot at beating the others, Further Ado is carrying the tool kit to do it.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com