Everything you need to know the field for the 2024 Kentucky Derby.
As post time approaches, it is important to take stock of the horses the audience will see on the racetrack and the odds each has to win. Part of what makes the Derby so popular is that there are very few regular competitors. The audience is annually introduced to a new grouping of horses and jockeys. There is comfort in the familiar, true, but there's always something special the Derby and the horse that gets to capture lightning in the bottle yearly.
Below is a full list of the 20 horses (and their morning line odds to win, as of time of publication) participating in this year's Kentucky Derby, as per the event's official website.
Fierceness: 5-2Sierra Leone: 3-1Catching Freedom: 8-1Forever Young: 10-1Just A Touch: 10-1Dornoch: 20-1Honor Marie: 20-1Just Steel: 20-1Track Phantom: 20-1Stronghold: 20-1Reilience: 20-1Mystik Dan: 20-1Catalyic: 30-1T O Password: 30-1Endlessly: 30-1Domestic Product: 30-1Epic Ride: 30-1Grand Mo The First: 50-1Society Man: 50-1West Saratoga: 50-1
The group features horses with straightforward favorites and other underdogs and great storylines, like West Saratoga, whose trainer is battling cancer.
Each year, 20 horses are permitted to run in the Kentucky Derby. It was not always this way, however. The first Kentucky Derby, held 150 years ago, had 15 horses in the field and the number fluctuated from year to year until 1974. That year's Derby featured 23 horses, which prompted criticism from assembled media and the jockeys themselves. From 1974 on, the Derby was capped at 20 horses to ensure the field was competitive without putting too many bodies on the racetrack.
It's also part of what makes the Derby unique. Other major horse races, such as the Preakness and Belmot Stakes, have a maximum of 14 horses participating every year. When the question was raised a few years ago of why the Derby stuck with 20 instead of whittling down the field to match other events of its ilk, the length and popularity of the race was cited by Churchill Downs' senior director of communications, per the Courier-Journal.
In short, the Derby's 1 1/4-mile distance permits there to be more horses on the track, and as the capstone event of the year it can be afforded a larger field.
