Who's on top of the early 2021 Kentucky Derby leaderboard?
Six races into the 2021 Kentucky Derby prep season, Essential Quality, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and Breeders’ Futurity (G1), remains atop the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” leaderboard for 2020-21 with 30 points.
But Keepmeinmind, winner of the Kentucky Jockey Club (G2) at Churchill Downs on Saturday, added 10 to his total and moved into second position with 18 overall.
Champagne (G1) winner Jackie’s Warrior is next on the list, followed by American Pharoah winner Get Her Number and Iroquois winner Sittin On Go.
The ninth annual series of select races will determine the preference list for the 20-horse Kentucky Derby on May 1 by awarding a sliding scale of points to the Top 4 finishers in each race. The 2021 Kentucky Derby will mark the first year the classic race will be run without the permitted use of Furosemide (often referred to by the brand name, Lasix). In a change this year, points will be awarded only to horses who compete on race day without Lasix in Road to the Kentucky Derby races.
The total number of races in the primary Road to the Kentucky Derby series features 36 marquee races scheduled. The 20-race Prep Season, which features foundation-building races over a minimum of one mile between mid-September and mid-February, are worth 10-4-2-1 to the top four placings, respectively, except for the Nov. 6 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, which was worth twice as much (20-8-4-2).
Other Prep Season races include the Remsen, Springboard Mile and Los Alamitos Futurity in December; the Jerome, Sham, Lecomte, Smarty Jones, Holy Bull, Robert B. Lewis in January; and the Withers Sam F. Davis, John Battaglia Memorial, El Camino Real Derby and Southwest in February.
Those are followed by the 16-race Championship Series, with springboard events that offer more points, often bringing the 3-year-old picture into sharper focus. Click here for the entire lineup of Road to the Kentucky Derby points races.
In addition to the primary “Road to the Kentucky Derby” series, there are two separate series that each carve out one spot for a potential horse from Europe and Japan.
Rank |
Horse |
Points |
Trainer | Non-Restricted stakes earnings |
1 | Essential Quality | 30 | Brad Cox | $1,280,000 |
2 | Keepmeinmind | 18 | Robertino Diodoro | $379,040 |
3 | Jackie’s Warrior | 12 | Steve Asmussen | $457,500 |
4 | Get Her Number | 10 | Peter Miller | $186,000 |
5 | Sittin On Go | 10 | Dale Romans | $139,800 |
6 | Hot Rod Charlie | 8 | Doug O’Neill | $340,000 |
7 | Midnight Bourbon | 6 | Steve Asmussen | $68,000 |
8 | Rombauer | 4 | Michael McCarthy | $120,500 |
9 | Reinvestment Risk | 4 | Chad Brown | $120,000 |
10 | Super Stock | 4 | Steve Asmussen | $59,000 |
11 | Smiley Sobotka | 4 | Dale Romans | $38,400 |
12 | Spielberg | 2 | Bob Baffert | $86,000 |
13 | Arabian Prince | 2 | Dallas Stewart | $24,063 |
14 | Therideofalifetime | 1 | Ignacio Correas IV | $39,500 |
15 | Upstriker | 1 | Ron Moquett | $20,000 |
16 | Waspirant | 1 | John Shirreffs | $18,000 |
17 | Civil War | 1 | Tom Albertrani | $15,000 |
18 | Swill | 1 | Brad Cox | $9,600 |