Having started more horses in the Kentucky Derby than any other trainer, and attempted to get even more to the race who didn’t make it, Todd Pletcher knows the pitfalls of the Triple Crown trail as well, if not better, than most. A year ago, things appeared to going perfectly for Forte, right up until 72 hours before the race when a foot bruise developed. It would lead to three days of drama and ultimately a scratch of the Derby favorite the morning of the race. “It was a trainer’s worst nightmare,” Pletcher, a two-time Derby winner, recalled recently. This year, the perils of the Derby trail have developed early for Pletcher. In a span of a few days, Pletcher had to cancel plans to run Grade 1 winner Locked in this Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes due to a temperature. Then, last Saturday, Pletcher watched as Fierceness, the juvenile male champion of 2023, faded to third in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes at Gulfstream Park. The good news is both horses seem fine. The better news is there are still 12 weeks until Kentucky Derby 150 at Churchill Downs on May 4, ample time to regroup. Locked and Fierceness remain two of the top contenders for the Derby. Locked, the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity winner who was third to Fierceness in the BC Juvenile, is the top-ranked horse in Daily Racing Form’s inaugural Derby Watch, a list of top 20 contenders compiled by DRF’s David Aragona and Brad Free. Locked is the 8-1 early choice on Aragona’s morning line. Fierceness is the co-third choice along with Dornoch, the Grade 2 Remsen winner – and full brother to 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage – who has yet to start this year. Sierra Leone, beaten a nose by Dornoch in the Remsen, is Aragona’s second choice at 10-1. :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2024: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more In the last two years, the Derby winner was a late arrival to the scene. In 2022, Rich Strike, who had gone under the radar racing in stakes over Turfway Park’s synthetic surface, got in from the also-eligible list the day before the Derby and pulled an 80-1 stunner. Last year, Mage didn’t debut until late January and upset the Derby at 15-1 after running fourth in the Fountain of Youth and second in the Florida Derby – both times finishing behind Forte. There are a handful of late-bloomers, like Mage, on the inaugural Derby Watch list. Hall of Fame, a second-out maiden winner Jan. 20 at Fair Grounds, is the co-fifth choice on Derby Watch. The son of Gun Runner is being pointed to his stakes debut on Feb. 17 in the Risen Star, where he will face his Steve Asmussen-trained stablemate Track Phantom, a two-time stakes winner. Speak Easy, one of 54 Triple Crown nominees trained by Pletcher, won a seven-furlong maiden race on debut by 1 3/4 lengths on Jan. 27 at Gulfstream, earning a 100 Beyer Speed Figure. His next start is undecided, though the Fountain of Youth on March 2 could be in play. He has made the Derby Watch list, Aragona listing him as a 30-1 shot at this point. The field for the Kentucky Derby is limited to 20 starters, though 24 may enter, with four being designated also-eligibles. If more than 20 horses enter –which has been the case in 22 of the last 25 years – the field is determined based on a points system Churchill Downs first put in place 2013 where designated races award points based on where horses finish. The top 18-point earners in North America earn a spot in the Derby field. Churchill Downs holds one spot for the horse who earns the most points in selected races in Europe and one spot to the top point-earner for select races in Japan. If the latter spots are not filled by those horses, then the next highest point earners in the United States can get in. Last year, three Japanese-based horses were entered in the Kentucky Derby including Derma Sotogake, who finished sixth. This year, 47 Japan-based horses were nominated to the Triple Crown, led by Forever Young, out of the Grade 2-winning mare Forever Darling. He is 3 for 3 and targeting the Saudi Derby on Feb. 24 at King Abdulaziz Racetrack. Churchill has designated 36 North American stakes as qualifying points races, with the highest points being awarded in races held in late March and early April. There have been 17 different winners of the 18 qualifying points races run thus far. Only Track Phantom is a dual winner, having won the Gun Runner in December and the Lecomte in January. His 30 points rank second behind Fierceness, who has 36 points, 30 for winning last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and six for the Holy Bull. In the Holy Bull, Fierceness was upset by Hades, a Florida-bred son of Awesome Slew who was winning his third consecutive race to begin his career, his first in a route race. The Beyer Speed Figure for the Holy Bull was raised to a 90 after initially being assigned an 84. Hades is likely to make his next start in the Grade 1 Florida Derby on March 30. Trainer Kenny McPeek, like Asmussen still seeking his first Kentucky Derby win, sent out Mystik Dan last Saturday to a fancy-looking romp in the Southwest, a race run over a sloppy Oaklawn track. For a third straight year, horses trained by Bob Baffert are banned from participating in the Kentucky Derby, owing partly to the disqualification of Medina Spirit, who had a positive for a regulated medication in his post-race test after he crossed the finish line first in the 2021 Derby. Unlike the previous two years, when his owners moved horses to other trainers in time to make them eligible to compete in the Derby, Baffert’s owners kept their horses with him, meaning they are ineligible for the Derby. Those horses – Baffert’s owners nominated 18 to the Triple Crown – may compete in the Preakness and/or Belmont Stakes. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. When a Baffert-trained horse finishes in the top five of a designated Kentucky Derby points races, those points go unawarded. A Baffert-trained horse has won all three of the three points-scoring races run in Southern California – not including the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, which was held at Santa Anita. When factoring in other placings, Baffert-trained horses have absorbed 60 of the 84 points available in those races. Nysos was the dominant winner of last Saturday’s Robert Lewis at Santa Anita, which would have awarded 20 points to the winner. Trainer Brad Cox has 18 nominated to the Triple Crown, including Catching Freedom, the Smarty Jones winner; and Timberlake, last fall’s Grade 1 Champagne winner; both on the inaugural Derby Watch list. There is only one Derby points-scoring race this weekend, the Sam F. Davis at Tampa Bay Downs. Though he won’t run Locked, Pletcher, a seven-time winner of this race, will send out Agate Road and Tireless in a race where the likely favorite will be Change of Command, a winner of two straight for trainer Shug McGaughey. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.