Twenty-six Kentucky Derbies since the millennium turned. Twenty-six different ways for a thoroughbred to break your heart, empty your wallet, or hand you the kind of payday you tell your grandchildren about. The data since 2000 doesn’t lie and what it’s whispering about Saturday’s 152nd Run for the Roses ought to make every Renegade backer in America check the math one more time before they slap a sawbuck on the morning-line favorite.
The Kentucky Derby favorite has won this race seven times in twenty-six years. Seven. Bookmakers know the number. Casual bettors don’t, which is why the books print money every first Saturday in May. The fix isn’t complicated. Study the winners. Learn the prices. Build a ticket that survives chaos instead of one that needs perfection. Below you’ll find every Derby winner since 2000, the closing odds, the payouts, the lessons hiding in the data, and the most trusted offshore sportsbooks handling the exotics that turn a small stake into a story.
The 2026 Field And Why The Number One Hole Should Make You Sweat
The post draw landed Saturday night. It landed mean. Renegade — Todd Pletcher’s blue-blooded colt, owned by Mike Repole, ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr. — pulled the rail. The No. 1 stall. Repole has thrown horses at this race for years and walked out empty every time. The dreaded inside slot did not improve his Saturday morning mood.
2026 Kentucky Derby Field — Odds & Implied Probabilities
| PP | Horse | Trainer | Jockey | Fractional | Moneyline | Implied % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Renegade | Todd Pletcher | Irad Ortiz Jr. | 4-1 | +400 | 20.00% |
| 2 | Albus | Riley Mott | Manny Franco | 30-1 | +3000 | 3.23% |
| 3 | Intrepido | Jeff Mullins | Hector Berrios | 50-1 | +5000 | 1.96% |
| 4 | Litmus Test | Bob Baffert | TBD | 30-1 | +3000 | 3.23% |
| 5 | Right to Party | Kenny McPeek | Chris Elliott | 30-1 | +3000 | 3.23% |
| 6 | Commandment | Brad Cox | Luis Saez | 6-1 | +600 | 14.29% |
| 7 | Danon Bourbon | Manabu Ikezoe | Atsuya Nishimura | 20-1 | +2000 | 4.76% |
| 8 | So Happy | Mark Glatt | Mike Smith | 15-1 | +1500 | 6.25% |
| 9 | The Puma | Gustavo Delgado | Javier Castellano | 10-1 | +1000 | 9.09% |
| 10 | Wonder Dean | Daisuke Takayanagi | Ryusei Sakai | 30-1 | +3000 | 3.23% |
| 11 | Incredibolt | Riley Mott | Jaime Torres | 20-1 | +2000 | 4.76% |
| 12 | Chief Wallabee | Bill Mott | Junior Alvarado | 8-1 | +800 | 11.11% |
| 13 | Silent Tactic | Mark Casse | Cristian Torres | 20-1 | +2000 | 4.76% |
| 14 | Potente | Bob Baffert | Juan Hernandez | 20-1 | +2000 | 4.76% |
| 15 | Emerging Market | Chad Brown | Flavien Prat | 15-1 | +1500 | 6.25% |
| 16 | Pavlovian | Doug O’Neill | Edwin Maldonado | 30-1 | +3000 | 3.23% |
| 17 | Six Speed | Bhupat Seemar | TBD | 50-1 | +5000 | 1.96% |
| 18 | Further Ado | Brad Cox | John Velazquez | 6-1 | +600 | 14.29% |
| 19 | Golden Tempo | Cherie Devaux | Jose Ortiz | 30-1 | +3000 | 3.23% |
| 20 | Fulleffort | Brad Cox | Tyler Gaffalione | 20-1 | +2000 | 4.76% |
Every Kentucky Derby Winner Since 2000: The Full Record
This is the table the chalk crowd hates. Twenty-six runnings. Twenty-six closing prices. The average winning fractional odds since 2000 land north of 16-1. Read that twice.
Copy of Kentucky Derby Winners 2000–2025
| Year | Winner | Closing Odds | $2 Win Payout | Trainer | Jockey |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Fusaichi Pegasus | 2-1 | $6.60 | Neil Drysdale | Kent Desormeaux |
| 2001 | Monarchos | 10-1 | $23.00 | John Ward Jr. | Jorge Chavez |
| 2002 | War Emblem | 20-1 | $43.00 | Bob Baffert | Victor Espinoza |
| 2003 | Funny Cide | 12-1 | $27.60 | Barclay Tagg | José Santos |
| 2004 | Smarty Jones | 4-1 | $10.20 | John Servis | Stewart Elliott |
| 2005 | Giacomo | 50-1 | $102.60 | John Shirreffs | Mike Smith |
| 2006 | Barbaro | 6-1 | $14.20 | Michael Matz | Edgar Prado |
| 2007 | Street Sense | 9-2 | $11.80 | Carl Nafzger | Calvin Borel |
| 2008 | Big Brown | 5-2 | $6.80 | Rick Dutrow | Kent Desormeaux |
| 2009 | Mine That Bird | 50-1 | $103.20 | Bennie Woolley Jr. | Calvin Borel |
| 2010 | Super Saver | 8-1 | $18.00 | Todd Pletcher | Calvin Borel |
| 2011 | Animal Kingdom | 20-1 | $43.80 | Graham Motion | John Velazquez |
| 2012 | I’ll Have Another | 15-1 | $32.60 | Doug O’Neill | Mario Gutierrez |
| 2013 | Orb | 5-1 | $12.80 | Shug McGaughey | Joel Rosario |
| 2014 | California Chrome | 5-2 | $7.00 | Art Sherman | Victor Espinoza |
| 2015 | American Pharoah | 5-2 | $7.80 | Bob Baffert | Victor Espinoza |
| 2016 | Nyquist | 2-1 | $6.60 | Doug O’Neill | Mario Gutierrez |
| 2017 | Always Dreaming | 9-2 | $11.40 | Todd Pletcher | John Velazquez |
| 2018 | Justify | 5-2 | $7.80 | Bob Baffert | Mike Smith |
| 2019 | Country House | 65-1 | $132.40 | Bill Mott | Flavien Prat |
| 2020 | Authentic | 8-1 | $18.80 | Bob Baffert | John Velazquez |
| 2021 | Mandaloun | 26-1 | $26.20* | Brad Cox | Florent Geroux |
| 2022 | Rich Strike | 80-1 | $163.60 | Eric Reed | Sonny Leon |
| 2023 | Mage | 15-1 | $32.42 | Gustavo Delgado | Javier Castellano |
| 2024 | Mystik Dan | 18-1 | $39.22 | Kenny McPeek | Brian Hernandez Jr. |
| 2025 | Sovereignty | 7-1 | $17.96 | Bill Mott | Junior Alvarado |
Medina Spirit crossed the wire first at 12-1 and paid $26.20. Disqualified post-race for a failed drug test; Mandaloun elevated to first.
2010–2019: Triple Crowns, A Disqualified Champion, And The Decade That Lost Its Mind
The 2010s were a tale of two Derbies. American Pharaoh and Justify both went off as 5-2 favorites, both delivered, and both swept the Triple Crown. Bob Baffert’s silver hair got more famous than half the horses. Then 2019 happened. Maximum Security crossed first, got DQ’d for interference on the second turn, and Country House became the longest-priced Derby winner in Churchill Downs history at 65-1. The grandstand booed for a solid hour. Bill Mott walked off with the roses anyway.
2020–2025: The Chaos Era
Authentic ran wire-to-wire in front of an empty grandstand during the pandemic. Medina Spirit crossed first the next year and lost the trophy in a lab. Then Rich Strike — the colt who only got into the gate when somebody else scratched at 9 a.m. on Friday — paid $163.60 on a $2 ticket, the second-largest Derby payout ever. Mage at 15-1. Mystik Dan in a three-horse photo at 18-1. Sovereignty closed through the slop in 2025 at 7-1, paying $17.96 with Bill Mott collecting his second Derby. Five straight years. Five winners 7-1 or worse. Read that twice, too.
The Favorite Is A Sucker’s Bet — And The Math Has Receipts
Here’s the brutal stat. Out of twenty-six Derbies since 2000, the post-time favorite has won exactly seven of them. That’s a 27% strike rate at an average winning price of about 7-2. Convert that to a long-run sports-bettor’s ROI, and you get something close to negative twenty cents on the dollar. You’d do better feeding twenties into a slot machine in Tunica.
Compare it to anything else. Top NFL favorites cover the spread closer to 50%. Heavy NBA chalk wins outright north of 75%. The Kentucky Derby? You’re paying premium retail for a ticket that gets punched once every four years.
Why does it happen? Twenty horses. Twenty-one minutes between post and gate-load. Three-year-olds who have never seen a field this big, a crowd this loud, or a track this dirty. Pedigree research breaks down to twenty runners. Speed figures get distorted by the trip. The handicapping math that works in a seven-horse stakes race at Aqueduct collapses on the first Saturday in May. Chaos becomes the dominant variable. And chaos hates favorites.
So what does the recreational bettor do? They walk up to the window, see Renegade at 4-1, and think, “Yeah, that’s the one.” The bookmaker smiles. He’s seen this movie. He knows the average Derby chalk gives back twenty-three cents on every dollar wagered.
Stop it. Quit feeding the machine. The 152nd Derby is not the day to back a chalk straight to win. Chalk has its place — underneath, in exotics, anchoring the back end of a ticket. Treat Renegade like a colleague you trust to show up but never to carry the project. He goes in your trifecta. He does not get your win money.
Three Upsets That Rewrote The Modern Playbook
Rich Strike, 2022 — 80-1 And The Email That Got Him In The Gate
Rich Strike was not supposed to be in the 2022 Kentucky Derby. He got in at 8:59 a.m. the morning after entries closed when Ethereal Road scratched. Eric Reed’s claim-priced colt, ridden by a rookie named Sonny Leon, sat dead last for the opening half-mile. The pace up front was suicidal. Summer Is Tomorrow, and Crown Pride cooked the field. Rich Strike threaded the rail through traffic that should have buried him and crossed the wire first at 80-1. He paid $163.60 on a $2 win ticket. The lesson? When the speed up front looks deranged, your closer at long odds becomes the smartest bet on the card. Look at the 2026 board. The Puma at 10-1. Emerging Market at 15-1. Both close hard.
Mine That Bird, 2009 — 50-1 And A Bullet Through The Hedge
Mine That Bird was a New Mexico-bred gelding hauled to Louisville in a one-horse trailer that looked like a delivery van. Bettors laughed. Calvin Borel did not. Borel rode the inside on every horse he ever sat on, and on the first Saturday in May, he did it again — saved every step of ground, waited for the seam to crack, and shot Mine That Bird through a daylight gap on the rail at the quarter pole. Six lengths clear at the wire. The lesson? The rail is not a death sentence if the horse is patient and the rider knows the angles. Renegade just drew the rail. Irad Ortiz Jr. is one of three or four jockeys on the planet capable of riding the trip Borel rode. Adjust accordingly.
Giacomo, 2005 — 50-1 And A Speed Duel That Cooked Itself
Giacomo never showed any business beating better horses going long. He drew the seventh post in a twenty-horse field stuffed with speed, and he ran fourth in the Santa Anita Derby.
The chalk that May was Bellamy Road, a colt who had won the Wood Memorial by seventeen lengths and was being whispered about as the next Secretariat. Bellamy Road got into a fratricidal pace dance with Spanish Chestnut and Going Wild, and by the top of the stretch, the front of the race was spent. Giacomo dropped in from the clouds at 50-1. The lesson? Pace makes the race. Find the closer. Find the speed duel. Then go shopping for value.
Five Lessons The Last Twenty-Five Winners Taught Us In Blood
Lesson 1: The Average Winning Price Is Nowhere Near The Chalk
Twenty-six runnings, average winning fractional odds about 16-1. The median sits closer to 12-1. How this plays in 2026: every horse on the board between Chief Wallabee at 8-1 and Right to Party at 30-1 is sitting in the historical winning range. Renegade at 4-1 is the outlier, not the lock.
Lesson 2: Closers Eat Hot Pace — Pay Attention To Running Style
Eight of the last fifteen Derby winners ran in the back half of the field through the opening three-quarters. Searing fractions melt early speed. How this plays in 2026: the field has at least five committed pace types. That’s a setup with meltdown written all over it. Closers like The Puma, Emerging Market, and Chief Wallabee pick up the carcasses.
Lesson 3: The Post Position Tells You More Than The Hat Tent Does
The rail is a coin flip — it works for Mine That Bird, kills for almost everyone else. Posts 5 through 14 produce most of the winners since 2000. How this plays in 2026: Commandment in the 6, Chief Wallabee in the 12, Potente in the 14 sit in the sweet spot. Renegade in the 1 has to overcome the slot before he overcomes the field.
Lesson 4: Repeat-Visit Trainers Earn Their Premium
Lukas, Pletcher, Baffert, Mott, Brown, Cox, McPeek, O’Neill — those names show up in the winner’s circle and the trifecta column with stubborn regularity. They know the schedule. They know the prep races. They know how to peak a colt on the first Saturday in May. How this plays in 2026: Cox alone has three runners. Mott just won last year and brings Chief Wallabee. Baffert is back with two. Pletcher saddles Renegade. The favorites for a reason.
Lesson 5: Exotics Are Where The 25-Year Edge Hides
Mystik Dan’s superfecta paid $1,682 on a $1 ticket. Rich Strike’s trifecta paid $4,101 on a $2. Sovereignty’s exacta paid $48.32 on a $2. Win prices flash on the tote board. Exotic prices change lives. How this plays in 2026: straight win betting on a longshot is a one-shot gamble. Trifectas and superfectas built around the same longshot turn that gamble into a framed swing for the fences.
Where To Place Your 2026 Derby Tickets
Choosing the right sportsbook matters more on Derby day than on any other Saturday of the calendar. Exotics coverage varies. Sign-up bonuses spike. The gap between fixed-odds win pricing on a sportsbook and the pari-mutuel pool can swing your ROI by double digits. Bookmakers Review has graded every operator in the market. Three rise above the field for the 152nd Derby:
- BetOnline — the racebook degenerates have quietly preferred for two decades. Full pari-mutuel pool access on every track that matters, fixed-odds Derby win and place pricing posted alongside the live tote, and a 25% rebate structure on horse-racing wagers that pays you back whether your ticket hits or burns. Top book for the first-time Kentucky Derby bettor.
- Bovada — clean horse-racing interface, fixed-odds Derby win pricing alongside the parimutuel pool, and a sign-up bonus that recreational bettors can actually clear in one Saturday. Best book for the casual crossover bettor.
- MyBookie — aggressive Derby promos, a strong reload structure for repeat horseplayers, and one of the better mobile experiences for real-time in-running pricing on the prep races. Sharpest play for the multi-card weekend bettor.
Bottom Line
You don’t need to be a horseplayer to walk out of Saturday a winner. You just need to stop doing what everybody else is doing.
Everybody else bets the favorite. They look at Renegade, see the lowest number on the board, and figure that’s the safe pick. The last twenty-five years say it isn’t. The favorite loses this race far more often than it wins, and when it does win, it pays peanuts.
Here’s the play. Pick one longshot you like – maybe the gray one, maybe the name that makes you laugh, maybe a closer somebody at the bar told you about. Bet a few bucks on that horse to win. Then build one trifecta ticket with your longshot on top and Renegade and Commandment underneath. That’s it. Two tickets. Twenty or thirty bucks. You’re now playing the same race the smart money plays.
If your horse runs out of the money, you bought a couple of hours of great television. If your horse hits, you’re the legend at brunch on Sunday.
That’s the whole game. Bet small. Bet smart. Cash big.
Good luck Saturday.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who has won the most Kentucky Derbies since 2000? Bob Baffert leads the modern era with four wins (War Emblem in 2002, American Pharaoh in 2015, Justify in 2018, and Authentic in 2020). Calvin Borel rode three winners between 2007 and 2010 — Street Sense, Mine That Bird, and Super Saver — earning the nickname Bo-rail for his trademark inside trip.
What were the longest odds for a Kentucky Derby winner since 2000? Country House paid $132.40 on a $2 ticket at 65-1 in 2019 after the Maximum Security disqualification — the longest-priced winner in race history at the time. Rich Strike then went off at 80-1 in 2022 and paid $163.60. That’s the second-largest single-ticket Derby win payout on record.
How often does the favorite win the Kentucky Derby? The post-time favorite has won 7 of the 26 Kentucky Derbies run since 2000 — a strike rate of roughly 27%. The drought between Big Brown in 2008 and American Pharoah in 2015 lasted six years, and chalk has hit only twice in the last full decade.
What’s the right way to bet the 2026 Kentucky Derby online? Avoid putting your full stack on the favorite to win. Build an exotic ticket using one or two longshots on top, the chalk underneath, and an all-call for fourth. Open accounts at multiple sportsbooks to capture sign-up bonuses and to compare fixed-odds win prices against the pari-mutuel pool.
When is the 2026 Kentucky Derby, and where can I watch it? The 152nd Run for the Roses goes off Saturday, May 2, 2026, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Post time is scheduled for 6:57 p.m. ET. NBC and Peacock carry the broadcast.
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*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.
