Does Running In the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Really Hurt Your Chances in the Kentucky Derby?

It had been rumored but now we know it’s true – U.S.S. Valor, one of the most promising juveniles in recent seasons, will not be running in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

His owner-breeder is the reason why. Barry Irwin, president of Team Valor International, pointed to the Juvenile’s poor record in the Derby – only Street Sense and Nyquist have won both races in 42 years – as one reason not to run, Daily Racing Form’s David Grening reported.

“I don’t like the whole thing, but I don’t want to tell Shug what to do,” Irwin told DRF, referring to trainer Shug McGaughey. But after the Champagne romp – U.S.S. Valor won by 6 1/2 lengths on Oct. 3 – McGaughey offered no view on the Breeders’ Cup, saying he was content to leave the decision to Irwin, according to DRF. It was Irwin who confirmed what he’d already decided. “I think he’s done enough this year and I want to have [trainer] Shug [McGaughey] let him down a bit and build him back up because our main goal is to win the Kentucky Derby,” he told DRF on Oct. 4.

Irwin’s numbers are technically right. There’s only one problem – that reductive math misses the larger picture. Over 42 years of results, running in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile has not hurt a colt’s chances in the Kentucky Derby. If anything, Juvenile starters have done a little better than their share of the Derby field.

A few things to keep in mind. And as obvious as this is to say, it sometimes gets lost in statistical experiments: these races are both exceptionally difficult to win. And only one horse can win each race annually. Since 1985, a Derby starter has had roughly a 1-in-18 chance of winning, and even the best colt in a 20-horse field loses far more often than he wins.

How the numbers were built

I went through the official chart of every Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, all 42 runnings from 1984 through 2025, and listed every starter. I then checked each one against the chart of the following spring’s Kentucky Derby, from 1985 through 2026. The charts from 1991 on come from Equibase; the earlier Juvenile charts are scanned Daily Racing Form charts on the Breeders’ Cup’s stats site, and the earlier Derby charts come from Churchill Downs.

Only horses who actually started in the Derby count. Horses who were scratched, like Uncle Mo in 2011 and Forte in 2023, are left out. Derby finishes are official placings, so the disqualifications of 2019 and 2021 are reflected.

Juvenile horses hold their own in the Derby

One hundred eleven Juvenile starters went on to run in the next Derby. They won six of the 42 Derbies, almost exactly what their numbers would predict.

The Juvenile isn’t ending Derby campaigns, either. Of the 488 horses who ran in the 42 Juveniles, 111 made the next Derby, between two and three a year. The other three-quarters didn’t, but that is the ordinary attrition of this game rather than evidence the race cost them anything.

Wins are a dead heat between the two groups. But Juvenile starters hit the board about a third more often, and on average they finished about a place ahead of the horses who skipped the race.

Juvenile starters made up 14.7% of all Derby starters. At that share, you would expect them to win about six of 42 Derbies. They won six:

• Spend a Buck — 3rd in the 1984 Juvenile, won the 1985 Derby
• Alysheba — 3rd in the 1986 Juvenile, won the 1987 Derby
• Sea Hero — 7th in the 1992 Juvenile, won the 1993 Derby
• Street Sense — won the 2006 Juvenile, won the 2007 Derby
• Mine That Bird — 12th of 12 in the 2008 Juvenile, won the 2009 Derby
• Nyquist — won the 2015 Juvenile, won the 2016 Derby

They were more likely than the rest of the field to hit the board: 24 top-three finishes from 111 starts. Nine finished second: Bet Twice, Easy Goer, Best Pal, Tejano Run, Pioneerof the Nile, Exaggerator, Lookin At Lee, Good Magic and Hot Rod Charlie. Nine finished third: Chief’s Crown, Pleasant Tap, Dance Floor, Blumin Affair, Timber Country, Cat Thief, Afleet Alex, Dullahan and Essential Quality.

Only three Derbies in this span had no Juvenile starter at all: 1997, 2013 and 2022.

Juvenile winners: 2-for-23

A Juvenile winner has started in 23 of the 42 Derbies since 1985. Two won: Street Sense in 2007 and Nyquist in 2016. That is an 8.7% strike rate, well above the 5.6% for the Derby field as a whole, and six of the 23 finished in the top three.

The trainers who have tried it don’t see a jinx. “You’re taking two races that are extremely difficult to win on their own, right?” Todd Pletcher told America’s Best Racing in a November 2023 piece on the Juvenile-to-Derby question. “So, now to ask the same horse to win both of them is a challenge for sure. I don’t know that there’s any sort of jinx on it or anything like that.”

Doug O’Neill, who trained Nyquist, pointed to how much the crop changes between November and May. “You have such a huge, bigger pool of mature, talented classmates,” he told America’s Best Racing in the same piece. Chad Brown, speaking to America’s Best Racing for the same article, made a similar point, saying that in the 2-year-old races “the fields you’re running against it is really not representative of the whole crop because a lot of them haven’t run yet or they just haven’t developed yet.”

The other 19 Juvenile winners never made the Derby. Pletcher trained two of them: Uncle Mo (2010), who missed the race with a liver ailment, and Forte (2022), scratched on the morning of the Derby on a regulatory veterinarian’s recommendation because of a foot bruise. “Two very different reasons why they couldn’t run in the Derby, but again, two horses that had they run in the Derby and were at their best, could have been winners,” Pletcher told America’s Best Racing.

The American Pharoah question

American Pharoah is the horse the skip-the-Juvenile side will point to. He was the 2-1 favorite for the 2014 Juvenile, but he was withdrawn the Tuesday before the race with what trainer Bob Baffert said at the time was a bruised foot. Texas Red won without him. The next spring, American Pharoah won the Derby and then the Triple Crown.

But he didn’t skip the Juvenile by choice, and his case can be read either way. You can argue the unplanned break left him fresher for the spring. You can just as easily argue that a colt that good would have won the Derby with or without a trip to the Juvenile. Personally, I think had he been healthy in the autumn he’d have been a third winner to strengthen the argument to run all the more.

Conclusion

In the end, it’s a very disappointing decision. Horse racing is a sport, and the sport suffers as a result of this.

It would be another matter if this truly came from the horseman. Irwin’s statement announcing the decision said he and McGaughey had reached it together. But asked directly, McGaughey offered no view on the Breeders’ Cup at all, saying he was content to leave it to Irwin. He is the man with his hands on U.S.S. Valor every day, and he didn’t make the case.

When Bill Mott and Cherie DeVaux explained why they wouldn’t run their Kentucky Derby winners back in two weeks, I understood it — those were trainers talking about horses they knew.

What we got here instead was an owner, leading with a statistic. And the statistic doesn’t hold up.