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Kentucky Derby Betting: Royal Mo is going to need a horse or two to bow out of the Kentucky Derby field in order to ultimately go to Churchill Downs, but if he does ultimately get to race in the Run for the Roses, he'll have a shot to pull off quite the upset if his history is any indication.
The Kentucky Derby will go to post on Saturday, May 6, 2017 at 6:34 p.m. ET at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Catch the Kentucky Derby live on NBC.
Royal Mo
Career Record: 2-2-1 ( 6 Races )
Career Earnings: $267,200
Kentucky Derby Points: 30
Kentucky Derby Odds at BookMaker.eu: +4000
Trainer John Shirreffs never really made up his mind what in the heck was going to happen with Royal Mo this year. He needed three races to break his maiden last year, and though he started the year at Santa Anita in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes, he was transferred to Oaklawn Park for the Rebel Stakes a month later. But Shirreffs brought Royal Mo back to Santa Anita for the Santa Anita Derby, and in the process, a third place finish wasn't quite enough to earn him an automatic spot into the Kentucky Derby.
That's why Royal Mo is set at 40 to 1 to win this race at this point. He's a good horse for sure, if for no other reason than the fact that he has fantastic breeding with Uncle Mo and Royal Irish Lass as his parents. If he runs in the Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports, he'll have significantly lower odds than this.
Why Royal Mo Will Win the Kentucky Derby
Royal Mo has had some bad days at the office for sure. But he also really got unlucky in a lot of races as well. It feels like trouble finds this colt. He was forced to run an incredibly fast race at the Santa Anita Derby even though he wanted to set the pace, and that kept him from ultimately winning. He was checked at the Rebel Stakes as well, and that's part of the reason why Shirreffs elected to give him a new jockey with Gary Stevens instead of the only jockey this colt had known previously, Victor Espinoza. We think Royal Mo looked better with Stevens onboard than with Espinoza, and that jockey change is awfully encouraging to us.
Why Royal Mo Won't Win the Kentucky Derby
The bottom line with Royal Mo is that he's won just two of his six races in his career. Sure, the Robert B. Lewis was an impressive victory against Blue Grass winner, Irap and some others, but that's about all to lean on if you've got this horse in your exotics for the Derby. He's going to be forced to run on the pace; the one time that he didn't, he finished ninth in the Rebel Stakes. The likelihood of being able to run at the head of the pack and stay there over the course of the full mile and a half against a hard charging field of 20 in the Kentucky Derby is slim at best.
The Final Verdict
Surely you have better bets on the board than Royal Mo to win the Kentucky Derby. A lotto pick thanks to good breeding and a big, fat $300,000 sales price two years ago? Sure. We can buy that. But the fact of the matter is that this horse isn't one of the 10 best three-year olds at this point, and running him in the Kentucky Derby would probably be a mistake even if enough horses bowed out to give him an opportunity to run for the bed of roses.
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2017 Kentucky Derby Contenders
