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Kentucky Derby Betting: Ah, the bubble boy. Lookin At Lee wouldn't be in the Kentucky Derby field if all of the Top 20 point earners decided to run in the Run for the Roses, but if one more pony bows out, Lookin At Lee will take the 20th and final spot for the race and have a legitimate shot of being a contender as a result.
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.
Lookin At Lee
Career Record: 2-2-2 ( 9 Races )
Career Earnings: $452,795
Kentucky Derby Points: 32
Kentucky Derby Odds at BookMaker.eu: +1500
If we had to guess, Lookin At Lee is going to end up in the Kentucky Derby field when push comes to shove. Would we care to be playing 15 to 1 on him at this point? Of course not. But once we know that Lookin At Lee has his place in the field sewn up? You betcha. This is a darn good colt who has run all over the place in his career and has encountered a lot of the biggest and best three-year olds with varying degrees of success. Generally, that doesn't translate into great things, but trainer Steve Asmussen wouldn't be bringing a colt into the field at the Run for the Roses if he didn't really believe he had a shot to win.
Why Lookin At Lee Will Win the Kentucky Derby
Lookin At Lee is a deep closer by nature, and in a field that doesn't have a heck of a lot of those, he could end up being the difference maker down the stretch if the rest of the field works itself out too hard. No matter who the rider is for this pony, the goal Asmussen is going to give the jockey is to run as easy of a first mile as possible before turning on the jets and hoping to navigate some traffic. A tough task? Sure. But an impossible one? We've seen it happen many a times at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday of May.
Why Lookin At Lee Won't Win the Kentucky Derby
The biggest issue with Lookin At Lee is the fact that he hasn't done a lot of winning in his career. He's run in six graded stakes races and hasn't won any of the six, and though he did hit the board in four of the six, there's a big difference between cashing show tickets and ultimately winning the darn race.
The other problem that naturally comes with Lookin At Lee's style is the fact that he'll have to stay out of trouble out of the blocks and ultimately figure out how to navigate around all of the other horses in the field. It's not something that's easily going to be done for sure.
The Final Verdict
We'll ask you to recall a couple of older ponies here who ran in the Kentucky Derby in yesteryear. Remember Mr. Z? He ran in the Derby two years ago and was continuously entered into big races by D. Wayne Lukas. That colt finished with 24 races under his belt when he was said and done, and he retired at the start of his five-year old year.
Now think back five years earlier to Lookin At Lucky. He was a Bob Baffert trained horse and a good one at that. He was a poor sixth best at the Kentucky Derby, but he went on to win the Preakness Stakes and the Haskell Invitational before being retired at the end of the year after finishing fourth in the Breeders' Cup Classic. That's Lookin At Lee's sire, and that lends itself to some darn good breeding. If that breeding is enough to make you want to play those 15 to 1 odds, that's a really good justification for doing so.
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2017 Kentucky Derby Contenders
