Kentucky Derby 2024 rankings: Top 50 contenders

Have we seen the Kentucky Derby 2024 winner race yet? It's hard to know. Last year's Kentucky Derby winner Mage didn't make his racing debut until Jan. 28. 

As we move closer to this year's Derby, Horse Racing Nation's Kentucky Derby 2024 contenders page is a great resource to track both the top 3-year-olds and the up-and-coming ones. These rankings are based on HRN reader votes, so they can change from time to time, and the rankings below are a snapshot of where they stand currently. If you want to vote on any of the horses, just login and go to a horse page and rate them between 1 and 10 stars.  

No rankings are perfect, but this is a great snapshot of the top contenders and some up and comers. In addition to all those competing in stakes company, the list includes five horses who are coming off allowance wins and nine runners coming off maiden wins. 

In the current top 50, four trainers had 26 of those 50 runners. 

Steve Asmussen has seven horses on the list: Carbone at no. 13, Imperial Gun (16), Booth (17), Track Phantom (21), Informed Patriot (39), Otto The Conqueror (41) and Risk It (43).

Bob Baffert has seven horses: Muth (2), Nysos (11), Prince of Monaco (22), Wynstock (23), Coach Prime (25), Pilot Commander (42) and Mirahmadi (44). 

Todd Pletcher has six horses: Fierceness (1), Locked (3), Moonlight (27), Born Noble (29), Be You (47) and Haul (49). 

Brad Cox has six horses: Nash (5), Timberlake (6), Drum Roll Please (10), Air of Defiance (20), Catching Freedom (24) and Rocketeer (40). 

Who are my favorites? 

Any Derby rankings or Kentucky Derby odds this early tend to be more about what horses have done than their potential. I'm more interested in seeing the next step from those who have shown promise but aren't at the top of the list yet. 

One of those is Honor Marie (7), the off-the-pace winner of the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club in November, trained by Whitworth Beckman.  It was an impressive run, and hopefully there's more improvement in store.  I also thought that Real Men Violin (33), trained by Kenny McPeek, ran well getting second behind Honor Marie, as did another McPeek runner, Generous Tipper (12), who was last seen running third behind Locked in the Breeders' Futurity (G1). 

Of the top of the list, I'm most looking forward to seeing another run from Locked (3), who goes next in the Sam F. Davis (G3). 

Here are HRN's current Kentucky Derby Top 50 rankings. 

Kentucky Derby 2024 contenders