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Every year at this time all the pundits argue about whether their horse got a good post position or not. I thought it might be fun to take a look at this year’s twenty horse field along with the history of their respective post positions since 1900. I will break the anaysis into four parts starting with  PP#1 through PP#5. As you can see from the table below there is not ONE post position that wins an inordinate amount of times but by doing some simple arithmetic we realize that 49 times out of the last 109 runnings the winner came from post position 1 thru 5. That is 45% of the time!!!

Now lets look at the post positions 6 thru 10.

Post position #9 has only won 4 times in the last 109 editions but once again if you look at the numbers for all five posts you see that another 39 winners or 39% of all winners comes from this group. Going one step further by totalling the two tables we find that 88 of the 109 winners or 81% came from posts #1 thru #10. From a handicappers point of view I find it very intriguing that only one horse Friesan Fire has single digit morning line odds.

Now let’s breakdown post positions #11 thru #15.

There’s the morning line favorite stuck in the 13 hole with a history of 3/109=3% past winners. Doing the same math as we did previously we find that if past history holds up there is a 94% chance that the winner is in one of these three tables. Of course not all of the 109 races sampled had full fields but I believe you can still use these numbers to include or toss a horse in your exotics. In reality #15 Dunkirk should be in our final table but more about that after we compile stats for PP#16 thru #20.

The reason I mentioned that Dunkirk should perhaps be in the previous table is that he will be joining these last five in what is called the auxillary gate. A second starting gate which is used in racing when more than 14 entries are taken in a given race. This causes there to be an abnormal space between the #14 and the #15 post positions. Long to be considered a big disadvantage by owners, jockeys and trainers recent history has seen the connections gravitate towards taking these outside posts. My statistics show that since 1974 nine Kentucky Derby winners have come from the auxiallary gate including four in the last ten years and considering there was NO auxillary gate in 2006 and 2007 this seems to no longer be an obstacle. My records also show that a total of 120 horses have been loaded into the auxillary gate sine 1974 nineteen have finished in the money or 16%. Now if you love a horse who drew an outside post don’t let me or any of these numbers scare you off wagering on him. I have watched and bet on over fifty Run for the Roses and as a rule the fastest horse that avoids trouble is usually the winner. The latter is more easily said than done when a field of twenty young three year old colts and gelding hook up for the most exciting two minutes in sports.

A Bettor Approach, Horseracing, Triple Crown The Wiz takes a look at the history of post position in the Kentucky Derby