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Ron Flatter notes that popular favorites for the Run for the Roses are carrying very short odds

And now for something completely different. Half the year — even more in 2020 — this story has been about Kentucky Derby futures. This week — and this week only — it is about the Kentucky Oaks. For 54½ hours, starting at noon ET Friday and ending at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, American bettors have their only legal chance to get early action on the 3-year-old fillies that will race April 30. This is the week — actually more like the half-week — when Churchill Downs makes book on its only scheduled Oaks futures. It will run almost concurrently with its fourth pari-mutuel pool for the Kentuc...

Guide to Saturday's two 2021 Kentucky Derby preps Guide to Saturday's two 2021 Kentucky Derby preps Photo: Liz Lamont / Eclipse Sportswire Moments after Greatest Honour drew off Jan. 30 to win the Holy Bull Stakes (G3), trainer Shug McGaughey remarked that “the pressure begins now.” That pressure continues Saturday at Gulfstream Park, where Greatest Honour leads a field of 10 into the $300,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2). Post time for the 1 1/16-mile event is scheduled for 6:10 p.m. EST. "He ran awfully well, he’s trained well since then, so this is just another...

  With his 2-for-2 record and his Sham Stakes victory and his debut Beyer Speed Figure of 101 and his six-time Derby-winning trainer, Bob Baffert, Life Is Good closed Sunday as the 7-1 individual favorite in Pool 3 of the monthly Churchill Downs pari-mutuel offering. It carries the name “Kentucky Derby Future Wager” as if it is the one and only — and as if those other markets in outposts like the Nevada desert are rogue impostors.   Silly money drove the KDFW market just as it did with Las Vegas bookmakers, who are happy to take it. Life Is Good is best-priced in Nevada at 8-1. Whethe...

If races are supposed to grow more important as the Kentucky Derby gets closer, why is Saturday such a glaring exception? Simple, really. Neither the Withers in New York nor the Sam F. Davis in Florida has ever produced a Derby winner.