By HRI Foreign Staff — The spring horse racing season is getting heated, and the Kentucky Derby won’t be far behind. Horse racing is an entertaining spectator activity that offers events throughout the year. You may make the games even more thrilling by betting on who you believe will win. If your pick’s name is called, you’ll surely feel ecstatic and could win additional money.
Don’t know where to begin? Making bets on the Derby may be entertaining even if you’re not an expert gambler or racing fan. If you want to know how to bet on horse racing, here is a guide on how to wager and comprehend the leaderboard:
The Leaderboard
Anyone with 40 or more points is expected to be in the top 20. For this year, the most apparent of them has to be Forte. He won in 2022 and returned to the Fountain of Youth.
Finding a technique to reduce the field to only the finest three-year-olds is a process since there are 20,000 racehorses born and listed with The Jockey Club each year, but only 20 spots open for the Kentucky Derby.
Churchill Downs launched the Road to the Kentucky Derby in 2013, which employs a points system for recognized stakes worldwide to determine which horses are invited to Kentucky on the first Saturday in May.
As races approach nearer to the Run for the Roses, the points worth of each race increases. The horses in the best condition are given the most chances. For the two-year-old juveniles, each horse receives points for placing in the top four of a Churchill Downs-selected Grade I, II, or III stakes event.
There are 21 events during the “prep season,” most of which reward points to the top five finishers on a system of 10-4-3-2-1. For the Breeders Cup Juvenile, this triples to 30-12-9-6-3; for the last seven stakes races on the schedule, it doubles to 20-8-6-4-2.
After that, there are two legs to the “championship season,” the initial seven races being 50-20-15-10-5 and the final eight being 100-40-30-20-10.
Kentucky Derby Favorites
Every race has a favorite horse. The majority of people believe that this horse will win. When it comes to betting, you could bet on the favorite as the closest thing to a sure win. The betting board will show the favorite. Two favorites can be marked as “joint favorites” and denoted with a “JF” on the board.
The Type of Bets
Most people associate horse racing betting with straight-win bets. If your prediction of who will win is correct, you will win money. However, there are other different forms of bets available. For instance, you can wager on which horse will finish second or third; these wagers are called the place and show bets.
In a trifecta, you select the first three finishers. A trifecta box is what you get if you choose your finishers correctly. In comparison, a trifecta key enables you to select the three horses while leaving the placement of the other two horses up to chance. You can only predict the winner.
Betting on the first four horses to finish is a superfecta. There’s also a superfecta box and a superfecta key. However, the payouts for “exotic bets” are divided among the winners, including the part paid to the house.
The 2023 Derby
Betting on horse races, especially the Kentucky Derby, might earn you a lot of money, but it can also cost you a lot. Always be aware that you are taking a risk if you gamble simply for fun, so make sure you know what you are betting on.
