Kentucky Derby odds 2024: Best bets, picks to win, exacta, trifecta, superfecta exotics

2024 Kentucky Derby Odds

Odds via TwinSpires as of May 3 at 1 a.m. ET. Lines will continue to shift in horse racing, and all bets are action based on the closing odds, not the lines when the bet was placed.

2024 Kentucky Derby Best Bets, Picks

Best Kentucky Derby Picks to Win: #17 Fierceness, #8 Just A Touch

By Sean Zerillo, Action Network

The #17, Fierceness, wins the Derby if he runs his best race.

He ran a 95 Beyer speed figure as a 2-year-old in his first race, which is faster than 75% of this field has ever run. Then he ran a 105 speed figure in the juvenile last year, the fastest speed score in this race aside from Mystic Dan. So he's already faster than everybody else.

He came back as a 3-year-old and in his first start back from a layoff, he wasn't finely tuned. He didn't have enough left in the stretch run to get the distance. That happens sometimes with horses in their first start after a layoff; they're just not as stretched out as they should be to meet the distance. In his second start back, he ran a 110 speed figure, the highest Derby prep speed figure in the past decade-plus. It was the most impressive effort I've seen on tape in quite some time in a Derby prep race.

So he has the two fastest speed scores in the field. He's the only horse to break 100 on a dry dirt track. And his owner, his trainer, all the clockers think he's going to take a step forward.

So how does he lose? He'd have to regress, and the only horses in the field would need to progress — running career-best figures while Fierceness runs worse than his recent performances. Starting gate trouble could happen, or just a ridiculous pace where his rider doesn't correctly track, say, two horses that fly out in front of the rest of the field and doesn't time the ride well, and closers end up passing him.

I think Fierceness wins 50-60% of the time, and I think he's going to go off at even-money or 4-5, which is in line with that prediction. But if he's 5-2, you absolutely bet that, as that's a +250 bet at what I'm projecting at +100 or -150. Even if he's 3-2, that's still about a 10% edge based on my projections. So anything better than 3-2 or better on Fierceness is bettable.

The horse that I like most if something happens to Fierceness, if he doesn't run his race or gets caught at the starting gate or there's a ridiculous pace, is the #8, Just A Touch. He runs extremely well every time. He's going to be forward in a pace that I don't think is going to be as fast as it has been in the past couple years where long shots have come from the back and taken down the field.

Just A Touch showed in his last race, where he was defeated by Sierra Leone, that he can stay on the pace and maintain that run even as the other pace-setters are falling off. That's what was most impressive to me. He finished second between Sierra Leone and Epic Ride, who are both in this field and going to be coming from the back of the pack. They closed down on the pace that day, but Just A Touch didn't fall back. He stayed in his position, and that's a really encouraging signs when you're visually handicapping horse races — horses that are either maintaining their pace as the closers come in and they're the only one that stayed up, or in a slow-paced race when a horse is the only one closing and moving up.

So Fierceness is the likeliest win contender to me, and Just A Touch is my second best bet to win.

Best Kentucky Derby Long Shot Bet to Win: #15 Domestic Product, #19 Resilience

By Sean Zerillo, Action Network

Domestic Product is just what I talked about — a great example of moving up in a slow-paced race at the Tampa Bay Derby. He was the only horse that advanced position and came from the back of the path, going from eighth to first. He doesn't have the speed figures, with, I believe, an 82 high career speed figure. But he has an elite trainer in Chad Brown and an elite jockey in Irad Ortiz Jr. I don't know if I've ever seen a horse under that duo lined at 30-1 like Domestic Product. I think he's underrated on the speed scores and has been a very buzzy horse in terms of training this week. I think he has a career-best effort in him.

I could say very similar things for the #19, Resilience, who is coming off a career-best race where he was wearing blinkers, meaning his trainer wanted him more focused on the race in front of him and not the other horses, so sometimes they put on blinkers to keep him on what's forward. Expect him to be running a similar race to how he did at the Wood Memorial. The one knock you can make against that, though, is that prep race has not produced many Derby winners in recent years. It's been one of the least predictive races for Derby results.

Best Kentucky Derby Exacta: 2,8 | 2,8,15

By Chase Howell, Action Network

Let’s try to hit it big. Fierceness is the clear favorite to win the Kentucky Derby, and for good reason. At his best, he is by far the fastest horse in the race. But he has laid some stinkers, too. If he doesn’t win, there’s a good chance he doesn’t land in the money. In five starts, he’s won three times and finished third and seventh in the other two. Just over a month ago, he ran by far his fastest race.

Let’s fade the favorite and build an exacta around Fierceness falling out. The popular pick among our experts is the #8 horse, Just A Touch. I think we have to have him in our exacta. I love his pedigree, and he continues to improve race after race.

Next, if the pace is high, I expect the closers to get in the money. Give me the #2, Sierra Leone and the #15, Domestic Product. I don’t expect Sierra Leone to be priced as high at the close, and an exacta without Fierceness should still pay out solidly. I would look at the 2 and 8 up top with 2,8,15 behind it. That’s a $5 ticket and could have a nice payout coming back. If you boxed all three, it would cost $6 for $1 exactas.

If you want to build an exacta around Fierceness instead, I'd take a look at Zerillo's play of the #17 on top of #15 Domestic Product and #19 Resilience, the latter at 30 to 1 and 21 to 1 on the morning line, respectively. That's a bet of 17 | 15,19.

You could play the 17 | 8 cold, but with the long shots in our Fierceness exacta, we just expect to get more value back if that bet ends up hitting.

Best Kentucky Derby Trifecta: 8 | 4,15,17 | 4,15,17

By Mike Conti, Action Network

#8 Just A Touch is my best bet to win the Derby, and I'll be singling him up top in our trifecta for Saturday.

After Just A Touch, my favorite horses are #15 Domestic Product (30-1), who won the Tampa Bay Derby last time out, #17 Fierceness (5-2), who is the deserving favorite after demolishing the field in the Florida Derby, and #4 Catching Freedom (8-1), who has continued to get better with each of his five career starts, culminating with a win at the Louisiana Derby last time out.

All three horses have a chance to finish second or third in this year's Derby, so we'll play all three in the second and third spots of our trifecta on Saturday, for a trifecta bet of 8 | 4,15,17 | 4,15,17.

The other way to play this combination of horses that I like is to single the 4 in all three spots of the trifecta, for a bet of 4 | 8,15,17 | 8,15,17, a bet of 8,15,17 | 4 | 8,15,17, and a bet of 8,15,17 | 8,15,17 | 4. You can only hit one of those tickets, but the idea is it becomes cheaper because you're singling the number 4 in all three positions of the trifecta.

Best Kentucky Derby Superfecta: 17 | 8,15,19 | 8,15,19 | 8,15,19

By Sean Zerillo, Action Network

When it comes to playing a long shot like a superfecta, where we need to predict the finishing order of the top four horses, I'm going to build my bet around the favorite that I expect to win 50-60% of the time, Fierceness. And I'm going to complement the favorite with the three other horses I've been talking about all week, the three horses that I'd want to use in an exacta, a trifecta and in our superfecta — the #8, Just A Touch, the #15, Domestic Product, and the #19, Resilience.

That makes our Kentucky Derby superfecta a relatively straightforward bet of 17 | 8,15,19 | 8,15,19 | 8,15,19.