First of all, I've stalked here for years and there's truly no better place for Derby discussion than this board. Kudos to TGJB for being an active participant on the board as it is rare indeed for a host to mingle with the commoners in the message board world.

The reason for my post is the awesome Historical Derby spreadsheet that was posted yesterday. Overnight I did a little tinkering with it and here are my findings.

The chart below breaks past Derby starters into several categories. For the purposes of this study FAST= Route Top of less than 3 and CONTENDER is based on field size, but is approx 15-1 or less. Records for each category are listed as Starts-Wins-2nd's-3rd's-4th's along with a % of exacta finishes.

9-1-2-0-0 Slow Contenders Above 3.5 Dosage (33%)
26-0-0-3-1 Slow Contenders below 3.5 Dosage (0%)
83-1-4-1-4 Slow Non-Contenders below 3.5 Dosage (6%)
23-3-1-0-2 Slow Non-Contenders Above 3.5 Dosage (17%)
62-9-7-5-3 Fast Contenders Below 3.5 Dosage (27%)
14-1-1-3-1 Fast Contenders Above 3.5 Dosage (14%)
59-1-0-2-3 Fast Non-Contenders Below 3.5 Dosage (1.7%)
21-0-2-1-1 Fast Non-Contenders above 3.5 Dosage (9%)

Upgrade the Win and Exacta chances of any horse that has a Route Top of 3 or higher AND a Dosage Index of 3.5 or higher. Since 1998 the record of these types is 32-4-3-0-2.


Downgrade the the Win and Exacta chances of any horse that has a Route Top of 3 or higher AND a Dosage Index lower than 3.5. Since 1998 the record for these types is 109-1-4-4-5.


Horses with a Dosage Index lower than 3.5 must also have a Route Top of less than 3 AND go off at 15-1 or less. These low Dosage Index horses that failed to meet both of the above criteria are a miserable 168-2-4-6-8 since 1998.

Horses with a Route Top of less than 3 must also have a Dosage Index lower than 3.5 AND go off at 15-1 or less. These fast horses that failed to meet both of the above criteria are a miserable 94-2-3-6-5 since 1998.