 Hey, it's Chad Milman, cohost of the favorites podcast and the volume podcast network. Be sure to subscribe and rate and review all of our videos. Go below the volume on YouTube. On Wednesday, sort of after the horses have been in Louisville and running the track for a few days, the handicappers and the trainers, they all start to get a real sense of what, who's got a good shot, who's running well. They start lining up sort of what the circumstances on the track might be with the qualities and traits of the horses that are gonna be running in the race. So as Whisper Wednesday ends, what are you hearing about the horses that have been performing well as we head into the race? I've heard nothing but good things about all the contenders. I know Crown Pride, the Japanese horse had an incredible work today. He worked a half in 46, which was, I mean, looking at this horse's form, he just doesn't seem like he's fast enough. If that makes sense, like his, his times, he's just not as quick as these other horses. But when he won in Maydan, that track was extremely slow, extremely sandy and he was able to power through that. And Japan has been on absolute fire this year. So that's just something we have to consider, right? Horse looks incredible and seems to be taken to the track well. Obviously we're gonna have sloppy conditions on Derby Day, I think. So that is gonna be, I mean, as usual, right? But that's going to be a huge factor in terms of numbering these horses down to who's serious and who's not. What else, who else have you heard about sort of as the week has been going on? I mean, it seems like those Colleture horses are all doing well. I mean, I'm excited to see how charge it has developed because I remember when he debuted at Gulfstream and I saw him in the paddock, I said, this is Todd Derby horse, 100% out of Ironworks, Emmanuel. This is, this one is the Derby horse. And then of course he got beat by volcanic but he had like a horrible trip like volcanic just kind of pressed on the whole way. He never got a chance. Then he came back in, I think what did he do? Came back in one impressively by eight and a half. And then when he ran in the Florida Derby, I feel like, I just feel like this horse tried so hard and in the stretch, people were saying he was green but I think he just got a bit tired. Now it's really difficult to break your maiden and take that step in going to Florida Derby and he still showed up. So I think he's at 20 to one, a very serious horse. If I tap it, you know, he should have that, should take to that sloppy track really well. You know, you mentioned a form and we talked a little bit about, you know, is it gonna be muddy on Saturday or what is the weather gonna be? Forget about sort of the training on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at the Derby. What are you looking for when you're trying to handicap horses in the Derby, in the lead up, in the months leading up to the race? You know, just so many factors go into it, right? I mean, this particular Derby is going to be very speedy. We have a really talented strong group of front running horses. There's so many of them. It could set up really well for a horse to close. Obviously, Epicenter has been a horse that has, I mean, it's crazy because I've never actually seen Epicenter in real life, but every time I've watched race replacement him, he just stands out. Like it's like, if all the horses were words on a page, Epicenter would be like bulls. Like he just looked physically outstanding, even on, you know, my phone, like on TV. I've always thought that was a very serious horse. But then going into this race, there's going to be a lot of speed going to the front and zozo's. I know it's probably just going to try to attack him and you've got classic causeway. You have a lot of speed. So if Epicenter doesn't relax, like if he can't settle, and it's especially more difficult for horses to settle on a solid track because they're hearing the clacking, the clacking. And sometimes horses just get like, they're just freaked out by that and they don't breathe. You know, what you want these horses, horses who are track runners, it's best that they can get to the front, get a lead and just like relax and chill up there. But if they have horses constantly in contention with them upfront, it's like they run their race too early. You know, a lot of what I look for is how these races can set up and what advantages some of these horses will have over the others based on their previous form. And also trends of improvement, really, I love to look for trends of improvement. A horse like simplification, for example, the really nice horse. And I remember he, from when he ran in the Holy bowl to the founder of youth, he physically developed so much. Like that is such a good thing. I haven't seen him recently, so I don't know how he's doing in person right now, but that horse is just a little bit inconsistent. And there's numbers for me. You see he, in his numbers, he'll run higher ones. Like he ran a 91 after the Holy bowl and then 96 in the founder of youth and then 92 in the Florida derby. That's not really, I don't like to see that as much as I like to see a horse like Danden, who is like consistently running a higher number slowly. Every time he's running a little bit points higher, I think that's something to look at. Another horse who's like that is Cyberknife. I don't know if he's, you know, Arkansas has been extremely weak this year. Like horses who've been running at Oakland, they come to Keenland and they've just not been running. Like Turfway form has been stronger, particularly like Keenland than Oakland form. So it just kind of, it goes to show that Oakland has been very weak this year, but you know, nevertheless, that horse has been consistently improving. So that's very interesting to see going into this race. You mentioned a couple of numbers there that one of the horses like 92, 95, 96, explain to people what that means. Cause a lot of people who are listening to this won't really understand sort of how you look at numbers and what some of those numbers mean when you're judging a horse. Okay, so there's, I mean, numbers don't mean everything, but they're definitely a good basis. Basically, after a horse runs, they get a rating on their performance based on the conditions, the type of trip they had, you know, the, how they performed and they get a grade, like a number grade based on the performance for buyers, which are on the racing form, the higher number, the better. It's kind of, it's interesting to see a trend, like trends in buyers, very interesting. You want to see, like I said, improvement is great. Sometimes if they run similar numbers in a row, they'll like run a next best number and then sometimes they'll bounce. Like if a horse has just been running like consistently high buyers, like sometimes they'll just bounce. Like if like they will regress suddenly because they've had so many good races in a row type of deal. You've got posts on Action Network in the app, actionnetwork.com. Run down as we're sitting here Wednesday night who your predictions are for the top three spots in the Kentucky Derby. If we are betting the Derby, who are we taking? I'm gonna take, this is so hard. I wish you could do a top four. Do a top four. Okay, all right. I'm gonna go Xandon, Charge It, Epicenter and Taiba. And how would you place them? I mean, I've been so high on Epicenter this whole time, but I just feel like it's too good to be true and that he's gonna bounce. I feel like he's just a very consistent horse. You can't knock, I mean any of these horses, you can't knock their consistency. I could see Charge It taking a piece of it. I could see Xandon winning the thing honestly because he's a deep closer. There's gonna be a ton of speed. And I actually, so during the Keenland meet, I actually did post-racial interviews on a pony for TBG. And when I interviewed Flavien Pratt after winning, after Xandon won the Bluegrass, Xandon tried to mount my pony. Like, and you think after winning the Bluegrass, you know, he should be tired. Like horses after they run, they're like tired. Xandon was like, oh, hey, oh, hey, I was like, oh my. Yeah, so that's a really good sign because that shows that race didn't take anything out of him. And he beat a very salty group. He galloped out incredible. It's like, I mean, Flavien could barely pull him up. He wanted to go another lap. And I think that is an extremely good sign. Xandon is three to one right now. Epicenter is seven to two. Those are the two favorites. As far as I can see, as we stand Wednesday before the race, obviously because of the way horse betting works or betting on, you know, parametric betting works, like these odds all change dramatically. And whoever, you know, Cyberknife right now is 20 to one. By Saturday, if more people start jumping on that particular horse, it could be going off five to one, four to one. So just because you get the good odds now doesn't mean it's going to stay that way. But I'm going to pressure you here. One horse who's going to win the Kentucky Derby. You gave me four. I felt like that was a nice way to transition into asking the harder question, which is give me the one. Does it have to be like of the long shot of the favorites or just like? Just whoever you think is going to win the Kentucky Derby in 2022. Wow, this is pressure. No pressure. A lot of pressure. There's a lot of people that listen to this podcast and if you get it wrong, they're all going to remember. Errol, are they going to keep my car, keep you in my house? Listen, you may be an old soul because they won't actually do anything against physical property. They'll just like spam you in your Twitter feed. There, there. OK, let's see, like, gun to my head right now, right? Yes. OK, I'll go with Zandon, gun to my head. Zandon, gun to your head. Zandon, currently three to one, going off as the favorite. Yeah, that's the matter. Like the best pick is the best pick. Kiss the bomb is going to be an interesting horse. I know, like, on form, he's just really looks like a grass and a peat polytract kind of horse. But fun fact, I think like 70% of Kentucky Derby winners or something have turf pedigree. And if a turf horse is going to take to any dirt surface, it's the Churchill Downs dirt surface, especially sloppy, especially. I mean, on Derby Day, they make it wicked fast anyways, but in slop, it doesn't really matter. And he's one in the slop. He broke his maiden in the slop by four and a half lengths. So I like that nine postposition. He's a little bit of a, I don't know. I mean, mentally, I saw him when he won the bourbon and he like broke through the gates prematurely and he was a big handful. So you're going to have to mature a lot mentally to handle the Derby because the Derby is a lot for these horses, you know, none of these horses have ever run in front of a crowd of 200,000 people. And they feel that pressure and the slop. And it's a lot to ask, really, and only a true champion can handle everything thrown at them on that day. The trip, it's it's a very serious race. And it's I'm feeling like the sea biscuit moment. But it's just thinking about it. I'm so excited.