 This is Covering the Spread, part of the FanDuel Podcast Network. The 2023 Kentucky Derby is coming up on Saturday. The post draw has been conducted. We are ready for the running of this year's race. Here to break things down for us here today is Christina Blacker of FanDuelTV. We're going to pick her brain in her horse racing process and her read on this year's field. Welcome on into Covering the Spread. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and Numberfire.com. My name is Jim Sadas. I am a senior rider and analyst for Numberfire. Joined here as mentioned by Christina Blacker. You can find her on Twitter at ChristinaFDTV. She is a horse racing analyst and reporter for FanDuelTV. And Christina, you are live on site. How are you doing today? I am doing really well. Thanks for having me on the show. Definitely appreciate joining you and just being able to talk about the sport that I love. I've been living and breathing horse racing since I was a little kid. My dad was a jockey. I grew up around horses. I've always loved this sport and it's never more exciting than this week and these couple days leading up to the Kentucky Derby. There's no place else I'd rather be than right here at Churchill Downs. Well, I'm jealous because you are there as you mentioned on site. You're sitting outside. It looks gorgeous out there. So I'm jealous right now and we're going to talk about this year's field. We'll break down your overall process to get your read on if people want to dive into this. You know, do their own research and stuff like that and more. In just one second, but first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to Covering the Spread to get these podcasts as they go live each and every weekday. We broke down the Wells Fargo Championship for PGA. Earlier today with Brandon Candula, we have some UCL thoughts coming up later on. EPL as always, NBA and they'll be all in the same place. So search for Covering the Spread wherever you get your podcasts and you can check us out over on the Fandall YouTube page. Speaking of Saturday, the biggest horse race of the year is here and there's no better time to get in on the action than on Fandall Racing because right now all customers can get a no sweat derby bet up to $20. That means you get up to $20 back if your win bet doesn't win. The Fandall Racing app is super easy to use, safe and secure and when you win, you get paid fast. So don't miss out. The Derby is coming up this Saturday. Just visit racing.fandall.com for your chance to get a no sweat derby bet up to $20 on Fandall Racing. That's racing.fandall.com, age and location, restriction supply, offer valid on first derby win wager, refund issued in non-global racing site credit that expires on June 12th, 2023. Restriction supply is in terms of racing.fandall.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Now before I dig into this year's Derby, Christina, I want to talk about your process and how you arrive at a bet. So what steps do you take personally before you are placing a bet on a race when you're researching these things? So there's a lot of different data and there are a lot of different websites available if you're going to start handicapping horses. And I will say, it's kind of like a muscle, like you have to work it to get better at it. And I think initially, handicapping can be a little bit intimidating, but once you start learning and once you pick up a few angles that you really like and can follow or even just some trainers that you really have success with, some jockeys that are high percentage, you know, that's a great way to first get into the game and to sort of decide what your own process is going to be. For me now, I look at a lot of different things. Of course, I use the racing form. I use race lens quite a bit, which is a product that Equibase puts out. You can pre-populate certain angles that you like and then save them and the product itself will backtest those angles for percentages for you. And then it will also search ahead. So I have all these angles that I really like in terms of horse racing and race lens will tell me, hey, by the way, there's a horse in race seven at Tampa today that fits your profile. Take a look. And so I love that product because I've put the time into it and then it now is doing the work for me in some ways. I watch a lot of replays. I think that that is the most valuable thing you can do with horse racing. And that's another thing that takes some time. You have to watch them. You have to learn from them. There's a great website called TripNote Pros. TripNote Pros breaks down, replays for you in like a little blurb and a paragraph. So if you're new to racing and you want to learn, A, they're kind of like cliff notes, I would say. That'll give you the info if you don't have the time. But if you're trying to learn, you can watch replays and then read what these experts say and take that information and see if you've kind of pulled the same thing from watching the replays. And then I'd say the third product that I rely the most heavily on is the photograph, which is a speed figure. They've basically boiled the entire performance and the contributing factors involved, whether it would be the wind that you can clearly see we have right now, whether it is a horse that has lost a lot of ground, like a wide trip, they account for that sort of thing. And it all boils down to one number. And the key with the photograph is the lower the number, the better the performance. But it's on a graph and you want to see how this works. You want to see if they're trending towards a lower number, meaning a faster race. And so I will copy that information into my racing form all the time. I use all of those things and I pull them all together before I make my decision. But there are, as I said, more straightforward ways if you don't have the time to invest. And this week in particular is a little bit more different because we're focusing on these 20 horses for the Derby. And so we know everything about these horses. I've been here watching them train every single morning. It's impossible for me to watch every horse train on a random Saturday if I'm working a 10-race card and there's 100 horses. But for these 20, I'm going to take that next step. I'm going to watch them train. And I want to know who I think physically looks like they're ready to run their best race. And mentally who is focused because the Kentucky Derby is an experience like no other for a horse. You cannot prepare for that level of crowd, excitement, energy, noise. You need a horse that is kind of a professional themselves. Like one of those athletes that walks in like they own the joint. You need a horse that has that to win the Derby. Now for you, how much does the Derby differ then? Given that it sounds like you're a very data driven person. How much does the data influence your Derby specific bets? And how much is an eye test when you're on the ground? You can see these horses up close. So I will say this. I'm going to start with the data. That's where I'm going to start and try to find my horse or my group of horses that I think can win. But then my eye test can talk me off a horse. Because I'm looking on paper and they're not machines and they're not necessarily going to do exactly what you think they're going to do on paper. So I will then use the physical as that second confirmation of, okay, yeah, that horse coat looks good. That horse's energy looks good. That horse looks really well defined, has a lot of muscle tone right now. Whereas you see some horses and really their coat tells you a lot about them. Their coat looks a little dull if they're not kind of shining out there in the sun. It's an external reflection of their internal health. So I will let a physical appearance talk me off a horse in that way. Can you let physical appearance talk you into a horse you are borderline on or is it more so process of elimination for you? Yes, sometimes you can and I'll do this. Just make a blind swing on physical appearance. Because there are times when I'll be at the racetrack and maybe I didn't see something on paper and there's so many things going on with the health of the horse that I don't know. I'm not their trainer. I'm not watching them every single day. But if there's a horse that strikes you and you're thinking, wow, that horse looks really good. That horse is really carrying themselves with a lot of class. Then for a price, if it's a 10 to 1, you know, big price then I'm definitely willing to take a swing on a physical like that. So you mentioned the resources you use are race lens, trip note pros and thorough graphs. So people at the time, dig into those and decide who you want to bet for this year. But people may not at the time as you alluded to. You talked about this. So if people want to do some research on this year's field and try to dig into some specific races, are there any you would highlight as being, especially telling when trying to research for these 20 horses on Saturday? Well, first of all, on our app, on Fandall TV Plus, we have a ton of segments that are basically us telling you this information. So I've interviewed these trainers. Those interviews are up there. We've analyzed their final works as a team and that analysis is up there on Fandall TV Plus. All of the replays from the biggest derby prep races are right there. We totally use our over the top platform as one of those resources. But then on top of that, thorough graph has an analysis sheet. Just start there if it sounds too overwhelming. Trip note pros, as I said, is like a cliff note. Start there. And then race lens has a webinar that I'm hosting tomorrow night. So we're going to go through the derby and do all of that for you. And again, you can just listen and kind of follow along. And we've boiled it down for this race to make it a little bit more simple. I will cut that up. We'll send it just to the Fandall TV Plus people and be like, this is your ad. This is your ad for your app. This is all you need. Just Christina talking about this. People will be sold on that. I'm sold personally, so I hope people listening are as well. Okay. So we can do a lot of that via Fandall TV Plus or the other apps you mentioned, thorough graph, trip note pros, and race lens. Now, yesterday afternoon, we had the post draw for the Kentucky Derby and obviously that's going to shift the mods around a bit. What were the big takeaways for you with regards to the draw? Were there any horses who were advantaged or disadvantaged by the draw they got on Monday? I think so. So let's start with the favorite Forte. Forte drew, and I have it appear in my little clip notes, post position 15. That's a good spot for him. There are 20 horses that run in the Kentucky Derby. We don't normally run a field that big for most races. Most races that you're going to see day to day would be 8, 10, 12 horses. And they actually built a special gate a couple years ago just to accommodate the size of the field and to give everybody a fair chance to begin. So depending on your style, there are certain places where you would want to be drawn. Forte is a horse that kind of makes his own luck. I don't think there would have been necessarily a bad spot for him, but being in post position 15 does give him the opportunity to really just see what some of the other horses want to do tactically and then kind of find his own place. The phrase that you're going to hear a lot from trainers is break and go forward. You come out of the gate and you want to go forward because when you have 20 horses like that, they are going to come together and some horses are going to get shuffled back and you're going to end up further back than you want to be. The Kentucky Derby is a difficult race to come too far off the pace from just because there's going to be traffic. And if you don't have a very agile and athletic horse that can kind of stuff and start and accelerate and slow down and be very responsive to their rider, you'll end up with trouble. So Forte I think ended up in a good spot. There's a couple horses that I think the post position isn't going to be helpful to their style. One of them is a horse by the name of Verifying. He drew post position 2. He is fast enough to make the lead, but I know his trainer doesn't want him to. So now they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he gets shuffled back, I think they take him out of his game, but they don't necessarily want to send him right up there, but I think they have to send. I think you're better off being closer to the pace than getting kicked out the back and having nowhere to run. The other horse that I think drew poorly was in my eyes one of the best win contenders and that's the horse by the name of Tapit Trice. He's post position 5. And the thing about Tapit Trice is he has this monster stride and every stride gets bigger. Every stride he covers more ground and he's like a freight train. I mean, he'll run down the middle of the racetrack and he would run through anything you put in front of him. But because he's so big and you think of that momentum, if you stop a horse like him, it takes a long time to get that big stride going again. And so he's not one that I think can afford to get shut off or slowed down and I would have loved to see him outside in like a 14, 15, 16 post. Whereas I think post 5, I think he's definitely one of the best in the field but I really think it's going to hurt Tapit Trice. Everybody else I think is kind of in an okay spot. Yeah, so verifying 15 to 1 Tapit Trice 5 to 1 right now after the post draw sounds like those might not have been the best places but it sounds like you're not counting them out despite that. Despite some potential obstacles there. True, yeah. And really it's up to their jockeys. You know their riders know them. They've ridden them in their prep races. It's going to be down to them. Tyler Gaffleon is on verifying. He rides routinely here at Churchill Downs. He's young. He's really smart. He's very tactical. I would trust him implicitly with that post position. Louis Syus is the rider of Tapit Trice. He's been aboard him in his last several starts and I think it's a good thing he's been able to because Louis is very strong and he's a horse that he's like a bike. If you don't keep pedaling, he's not going to keep running. So they're a great team and they know each other well. But I do think that Louis has to get him in the clear. Right. At some point you have to swing him out because his weapon is that stride and if you take it away from him in traffic he's never going to get there. Okay, so let's keep an eye on those two. Verifying in Tapit Trice that you, Christina was highlighting there. Now let's talk about Forte. You talked about them earlier on. Three to one. The odds on Forte. Something like a favorable post draw there. Tapit Trice is second in odds. Five to one. So, Christina Forte, what in your opinion makes Forte the favorite here and is there value in betting them at three to one? So, I mean, I think that three to one isn't a bad price. Like, you know, any other day if you're getting three to one or if you're getting plus 300 in your betting sports you're pretty happy about that, right? And you think like this is the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. I'm okay with it. I don't think he's a standout against this field. I do think he's the best horse in the field. I don't see him as an unbeatable favorite. And because there's so much value in the Kentucky Derby I would absolutely be including him on my tickets. Exactas, trifectas, superfectas, that sort of thing. But for a wind wager in the Derby I'd be wanting a little bit more of a price. The reason why he's the favorite though is because he's been good from two to three. So, keep in mind the Kentucky Derby is for three-year-olds only. You can only run in it in your three-year-old season. Last year at two years old he was the champion two-year-old of this class. He beat them all in the Breeders Cup Juvenile which is the champion race for two-year-olds. He's carried that form into three and he's made that transition. And sometimes as with any athletes will have this two-year-old that's maybe physically a little bit more developed than the rest. And when everybody else catches up at three they're not necessarily the best anymore but he's made that transition and he's grown and he's just as good at three if not better than he was at two and he's undefeated so far this year. He's also had a few races where the trip hasn't worked out ideally for him. He's had some trouble and he's just an athlete. He's a gamer. He doesn't get stopped and he doesn't really let traffic upset him to the point that he's not going to re-rally just when you think he's sort of, oh god there's no way he can get himself out of that. He does. I called him the Patrick Mahomes of horse racing. When you think it's over it's not over. Forte finds a way to win and that's why I love him and that's why I think he's a deserving favorite and if he is your horse I can't talk you off of him. But I do think that numbers wise he's not like a huge standout over this group. And it sounds like if that's your view there is viability to bet some other horses in this race. So beyond Forte we got a lot of options. Where do you see the best value in the field to win Saturday's Kentucky Derby? So the horse that I think I'm going to end up selecting is Angel of Empire. He's the host position number 14. His rider is Flavien Pratt who is a French rider but he's been here in the States for a long time. He was a leading rider in California for ages. The thing I like about Angel of Empire and I talked about those Therograph figures he has a perfect page. His Therograph looks like he's going to run his career best race this weekend. And if he does that he's faster than everybody else. He's already shown that he's right there on par with the Fortes and the other Tappet Trices of the world because I lose my air pod. But I do think that he is one that's sitting on a career best. He's also he has what Tappet Trice has and that he has that big stride but he's more agile. So I think he's a horse that needs that similar type of trip but I think he's more athletic and can get himself out of trouble if that arises for him and I just think the way that he's been campaigned he's kind of had some easier spots along the way but I'm not upset about that because he's coming into this race feeling good, feeling fresh and really ready to fire. Angel of Empire 8-1 as you mentioned in the 14th post for Saturday's race. Have you gotten a chance to check out Angel of Empire at Churchill to kind of give the eye test portion as well? Yeah, I've seen him. He looks great. And he's a very physically imposing horse. He's really big but he is well built in that it's sometimes you'll see big horses and they're kind of gangly and they're a little bit uncoordinated and they don't quite have their feet underneath them. He's like a specimen when you look at him. He's the total package and he's very intimidating to other horses because he's just physically bigger than a lot of them. All right, well Angel of Empire 8-1 is where Christina is looking for the wind bets but as you mentioned you do like Forte and some other bets as well Angel of Empire for the wind bet but we got a lot of options. A lot of ways to bet Derby so what are the bets you're looking to place beyond just the wind bet on Angel of Empire? So I have a colleague Caleb Keller that always plays the Superfecta in the Kentucky Derby because it pays like I mean I think the cheapest one he found was something like 27,000. I mean it's insane and you can bet it pretty cheaply if you want to. Like you can play these 20 cent Superfectas, 50 cent Superfectas and you can box a bunch of horses and kind of give yourself a lot of different chances because there is a certain amount of luck in the Kentucky Derby with 20 horses. Unfortunately it's one of those races where because of the full field the best horse doesn't always win. You need to have a horse that's capable and to get a good trip. So you can afford to be a little bit wacky with some of your bets and just throw in some prices because it can happen. I mean last year Rich Strike won and he was 80-1. It was the biggest upset in Derby history because he got a great trip and he had a real hot pace to run at. All the front runners went too fast too early and they were backing up, backing up, slowing down and he waited in last and then flew up the rail and saved all the ground and won basically on trip versus ability. So I would play some of those trifectas. I would play some of those Superfectas. I love the pick four which is kind of like a parlay. You're trying to pick the winners of the three races leading up to the Kentucky Derby and then you kind of finish the sequence with the Derby and if you love a horse like Forte maybe you finish it on a single and try to find something else or you might find a short price along the way to the Derby and then you can afford to use eight or nine horses in the Kentucky Derby in your wager and be sitting on a really big payout. Either way I think you need to give yourself some options. I think you need to keep an open mind about some of those prices. Dermasota Gake is another horse I would include. He's the 17th horse. He's here from Japan and the Japanese have put a lot of money and a lot of American breeding into their racehorses 20 years and we're really seeing their investment in their program come to fruition. They've won some of the biggest races in Dubai this year. They've won some of the biggest races in Saudi Arabia. They won their first Breeders Cup races last year. They've tried to win the Kentucky Derby before but this is hands down the most talented horse they've ever brought to Kentucky. So I think if Japan's going to do it this is the horse to get them there. He's a little goofy. I've been watching him train. He's just like freakishly talented but not super focused. But again like he has the ability to get there and to do it. So he's a horse to throw in on some of those bets too and just have a little fun with it I would say. Dermasota Gake is 10 to 1 in the 17th post there for this weekend. Is goofy good? Do you view that? Is that loose or is that a nerve you a bit for a large crowd? He's like a punk kind of. He doesn't want his rider to be in charge. He wants to do his own thing but he's so talented and he's so fast that it's like you have to give him the opportunity to just pull it together for this one moment because he has the ability to win. We've got a Patrick Mahomes horse. We've got a punk horse. I love Christina. We've got like a Travis Kelsey with Tapit Trice running through everybody. I love it. This is perfect. We have it all. I love it. I need the full breakdown of all 20 NFL counts to make it easy for me to understand. I think we're good. You know, one tenth of the way there. That is Christina Blacker. Make sure you check her out on Twitter at Christina FTTV and check her out over on FanDuelTV. As well mentioned the FTTV Plus app to check out all the research that they've been doing, all the work they've been doing over at FanDuelTV to get you ready for the derby. Christina, enjoy the rest of the week at Churchill Bounds. Hopefully the weather stays as good as it looks right now and have fun and good luck to you on Saturday. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you. Once again, check out Christina on Twitter at Christina FTTV to find all that work in the FanDuelTV app so you can find all those resources. Other resources Christina mentioned were Therograph TripNote Pros and RaceLens. If you want to do your own research, dig into the numbers and decide which sources you want to bet for it this week. That's all we got here for today on Covering the Spread. With the double show for today, no show tomorrow on Covering the Spread. We are back with you once again on Thursday talking to Dr. Ed Fang getting his read on the UEFA Champions League semifinals. That should be a whole lot of fun to talk to Ed once again. But good luck to all of you with your derby bets. Have fun on Saturday. We'll talk to you all once again on Thursday. This has been Covering the Spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.