Kentucky Derby 2024 draw: Post positions, jockeys, odds

Louisville, Ky.

Eclipse Award winner Fierceness, who ran off to a 13 1/2-length win last month in the Grade 1 Florida Derby, drew post 17 and was made the 5-2 morning-line favorite for next Saturday’s running of Kentucky Derby 2024.

The champion juvenile male of last year got a post that never has produced a Derby winner. Trainer Todd Pletcher, however, saw the benefits of having other early-speed horses to the inside of Fierceness and jockey John Velázquez.

DeRosa: Fair odds for Kentucky Derby 2024.

“We we’re kind of hoping for an outside draw,” Pletcher said after the draw in the new $200 million paddock coliseum at Churchill Downs. “We don’t have to stand in the gate too long there. We’ll get enough time to hopefully get set up and ready. A clean start is important to him. He’s got enough tactical speed. I think he can advance to the first turn and get in a good position. It looks like all the speed is inside of him, so it gives Johnny an opportunity to kind of survey what’s going on.”

Even though he will be no. 17 no matter what, Fierceness could avoid that post if there were a scratch inside of him.

“I’m going to ask to stay in that post. I love being there,” said owner Mike Repole, who called himself a long shot to become a business tycoon. “Listen, I was one for a million in my life. I mean 0-for-43 (actually 0-for-44) are way better odds than one for a million.”

Sierra Leone, the deep closer who won the Blue Grass Stakes (G1), drew post 2 and was the second choice at 3-1.

Nineteen colts and the gelding Society Man were entered into the main draw of 20 3-year-olds who qualified through a series of prep races that began in September. Epic Ride and Mugatu are the only two also-eligible entrants, and each is 50-1 on the morning line. Seize the Grey, who could have been no. 22, was diverted to the Pat Day Mile (G2) in the Derby undercard.

The field for the Kentucky Derby, scheduled for next Saturday at 6:57 p.m. EDT, is shown here with trainers, jockeys and morning-line odds written by longtime Churchill Downs handicapper Mike Battaglia: