RacingBetter News
	Saturday 26th April 2025

Journalism: A Worthy Favourite for the 2025 Kentucky Derby?

Journalism wins the Santa Anita Derby.
Does this make him a worthy Kentucky Derby favourite? Photo

The 2025 Kentucky Derby (3rd May) is on the horizon, and, as ever, there’s a decent buzz around the betting markets in the days leading up to the race. It’s not been an easy race to pick a winner in recent years, but there is plenty of optimism about the current betting market leader, Journalism.

Trained by Michael McCarthy, Journalism has four wins from five starts. More notably, he has three wins from his graded races, including the Santa Anita Derby. His odds are somewhere around the 3/1 (+300) mark in the current betting for the Kentucky Derby. There’s a significant gap to the second favourite, Sovereignty, at 7/1.

Journalism feels like the right choice for the favourite, at least as it stands. Others, like Sovereignty and Citizen Bull, flirted with that status some months back, but it’s Journalism who has the most flawless resume.  He’s won two Grade 2s and a Grade 1 (the Santa Anita), so there is little doubt about his credentials to make it to Louisville.

There are always doubts about market leaders

That said, there are almost always questions about whether the favourite is the right choice. Sure, you have years when a Justify or American Pharoah type looks primed to win before the off, yet those are outliers. Justify (2018) was the last favourite to win the race.

Of course, the danger is that you can tie yourself in knots trying to find flaws in your Kentucky Derby betting strategy. For example, there are some pointing to the fact that Journalism has only raced against small fields (5 runners in each of his last three races), thus he may be shellshocked when he takes part in a race with 20 runners. Yet, that’s broadly true for everyone in this race, and, who knows, Journalism might thrive in a larger field. He certainly has the right jockey in Umberto Rispoli to navigate it.

Some interesting runners on the card

Looking down the card, there are interesting candidates, however. The aforementioned Sovereignty walloped the opposition at Churchill Downs back in October, winning by 5 lengths over Tiztastic (a runner in the Kentucky Derby). He backed that up with a good win in the Fountain of Youth Stakes in early March and a solid second in the Florida Derby later that month. There’s nothing wrong with that CV at all, so you can see why some will be tempted by the William Mott-trained mount at odds of 7/1.

Luxor Café comes next in most betting sites’ lists, available around 10/1. He’s a Japanese-bred horse with four wins from four, yet there are arguably too many question marks over how that will translate to a performance on American soil. Some will point to fellow Japanese horse Forever Young’s 3rd-place finish (he lost by a nose in a thrilling finish) as proof that a Japanese runner can eventually win it. Few would disagree with that, but that does not mean it will be Luxor Café. The horse has a different trainer, jockey, and background racing career to Forever Young, so his passport will mean little.

Of interest is Tappan Street, who beat Sovereignty in the Florida Derby. Trained by Brad Cox, he’s a stalker type who seems well-suited to every aspect of the Kentucky Derby. Odds of 12/1 are available, but the price seems to vary considerably from bookmaker to bookmaker. It’s going to take a bit of improvement to win it all at Churchill Downs, but you can see that the horse is taking steps in every outing. Brad Cox seems confident that he can perform, and Cox’s opinion is worth listening to.

You can, of course, make an argument for several other runners, including Bob Baffert’s pair of Citizen Bull and Rodrigues, both of whom are around the 20/1 mark. But Journalism is favourite for a reason. He’ll need a bit of luck to run his race, but if he does that, he has a good chance.