We Picked the 2026 Kentucky Derby Horses So You Don’t Have To

We help organizations evaluate athletes for a living.

Coaches trust TeamGenius to run smarter tryouts because they need more than spreadsheets and gut feelings — they need a real system to identify who has what it takes. Objective scoring. Consistent criteria. Data that holds up under pressure.

So when the 2026 Kentucky Derby rolled around, naturally we did what any evaluation-obsessed sports platform would do.

We put every pick on a whiteboard and let the office go to work.

Twenty thoroughbreds. Seven colleagues. Zero consensus.

Here’s the full breakdown, with live odds straight from Churchill Downs, before the Run for the Roses.

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The Official TeamGenius Office Picks Board

The whiteboard went up earlier this week and by Thursday everybody picked their winner. Here’s where everyone landed:

Odds sourced live from KentuckyDerby.com as of May 1, 2026.

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The Full 2026 Kentucky Derby Field & Live Odds

Here’s the complete 20-horse field for Derby 152 — post positions, jockeys, trainers, and live odds from Churchill Downs:

Post	Horse	Jockey	Trainer	Odds
1	Renegade	Irad Ortiz Jr.	Todd Pletcher	5/1
2	Albus	Manuel Franco	Riley Mott	50/1
3	Intrepido	Hector Berrios	Jeff Mullins	55/1
4	Litmus Test	Martin Garcia	Bob Baffert	34/1
5	Right To Party	Christopher Elliott	Kenneth McPeek	26/1
6	Commandment	Luis Saez	Brad Cox	7/1
7	Danon Bourbon	Atsuya Nishimura	Manabu Ikezoe	14/1
8	So Happy	Mike Smith	Mark Glatt	6/1
9	The Puma	Javier Castellano	Gustavo Delgado	8/1
10	Wonder Dean	Ryusei Sakai	Daisuke Takayanagi	20/1
11	Incredibolt	Jaime Torres	Riley Mott	27/1
12	Chief Wallabee	Junior Alvarado	William I. Mott	9/1
14	Potente	Juan Hernandez	Bob Baffert	23/1
15	Emerging Market	Flavien Prat	Chad Brown	11/1
16	Pavlovian	Edwin Maldonado	Doug O’Neill	52/1
17	Six Speed	Brian Hernandez Jr.	Bhupat Seemar	40/1
18	Further Ado	John Velazquez	Brad Cox	7/1
19	Golden Tempo	Jose Ortiz	Cherie Devaux	36/1
21	Great White	Alex Achard	John Ennis	29/1
22	Ocelli	Joseph Ramos	D. Whitworth Beckman	50/1
23	Robusta	Emisael Jaramillo	Doug O’Neill	50/1
24	Corona De Oro	Brian Hernandez Jr.	Dallas Stewart	50/1

Bold = TeamGenius office picks. Source: KentuckyDerby.com

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Breaking Down Every Pick — TeamGenius Scouting Reports

We wouldn’t be us if we just listed names and walked away. Here’s a full evaluation on every pick.

🐴 Malinski — Chief Wallabee

Malinski studied the tape, and it shows.

Chief Wallabee enters tonight trained by Bill Mott and ridden by Junior Alvarado — the exact same trainer-jockey combination that won the 2025 Kentucky Derby with Sovereignty and followed it up with a Belmont Stakes victory. Mott is a two-time Derby winner. Alvarado came back from injury last year to win the whole thing and he’s back to defend.

Chief Wallabee finished second in both the Fountain of Youth Stakes and the Florida Derby this spring — twice beaten only by Commandment. In another sport, that’s a bridesmaid narrative. At Churchill Downs in a 20-horse field, that’s a horse who’s sharp, experienced, and right there at the wire every time.

🐴 Hunter — The Puma

The Puma is one of the most intriguing stories in the entire field. Trained by Gustavo Delgado and ridden by Javier Castellano — the same duo that took home the 2023 Derby with Mage — The Puma didn’t even begin racing until January 2026. Four races in, he’s a legitimate contender.

He won the Tampa Bay Derby in March, finishing ahead of Further Ado. His late-race acceleration has been flagged by handicappers all spring as something genuinely different. If The Puma wins tonight, he’d become only the second Tampa Bay Derby winner to claim the Kentucky Derby, joining Street Sense in 2007.

🐴 Skelly — So Happy

So Happy has quietly become a legitimate favorite. Ridden by Mike Smith — one of the most decorated Derby jockeys in history with more Derby mounts than almost anyone alive — So Happy draws Post 8, a historically strong starting position, and enters at 6/1.

If you know Skelly this pick is right on par with his personaility.

🐴 Adam — Emerging Market

This is the office’s savviest non-obvious swing. Emerging Market draws Post 15 and is ridden by Flavien Prat, a previous Derby winner, and trained by Chad Brown, one of the most respected names in American thoroughbred racing.

Chad Brown operations don’t show up at Churchill Downs to finish out of the money. If the pace sets up correctly and Prat can find racing room in the stretch, Emerging Market is capable of running down anybody in this field.

🎲 The Longshot Trio — Aaron, Cody & Zach Go Deep

Some offices play it safe. Not this one.

Aaron, Cody, and Zach went to the back of the board and found three horses that the casual bettor scrolled right past. Here’s the case for each:

Aaron — Incredibolt: Trained by Riley Mott — son of Bill Mott, who has won the last two legitimate Derby victories — Incredibolt brings genuine second-generation pedigree to a race where trainer bloodlines matter enormously.

Cody — Intrepido: The boldest pick on the board — and maybe the most interesting. Intrepido reportedly completed a 5-furlong workout at Churchill Downs in 57 seconds in April, believed to be the fastest such workout by a Derby contender since 2012. That kind of time doesn’t happen by accident. If this hits, Cody doesn’t buy coffee for the rest of 2026. He gets a plaque.

Zach — Litmus Test: Bob Baffert has more Kentucky Derby wins than any trainer in history. Full stop. When Baffert enters a long shot horse, experienced bettors at least pause before moving on. Litmus Test draws Post 4 — a workable position — and comes with one of the most decorated training resumes in the sport.

**These picks may have been chosen based on their names.

The Favorites in Brief: Who Else to Watch

Renegade — Todd Pletcher’s morning-line favorite. Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard. Winner of the Arkansas Derby. The history of Arkansas Derby winners at Churchill Downs is limited, but Renegade has the speed figures to overcome that.

Further Ado — Brad Cox’s second entry, ridden by the legendary John Velazquez. Won the Blue Grass Stakes. Velazquez has three Derby wins across 26 prior mounts. He knows this track.

Commandment — Won four straight races including the Florida Derby, where he beat both The Puma and Chief Wallabee. He’s the half-brother of Renegade. Two horses from the same bloodline in the top five on the board — a remarkable story no matter how tonight ends.

What Horse Racing and Player Evaluations Have in Common

We actually broke this down in full earlier this week — but the short version: picking a Derby winner uses the same logic as running a great tryout.

Experience over raw potential. Jockey decision-making under pressure. Prep race trajectory, not just results. And bloodline as a proxy for how an athlete holds up when the distance gets long and the moment gets big.

The best coaches don’t rely on gut feelings — they build a repeatable framework and trust the process. The Derby is just the most dramatic two-minute example of that playing out in real time.

The Scorecard

📺 Watch: NBC and Peacock — coverage begins 2:30 PM ET

🏁 Post Time: 6:57 PM ET

📍 Location: Churchill Downs, Louisville, Kentucky

💰 Purse: $5 million — $3.1M to the winner

The office will be watching tonight. Check back Monday for the full results post — who called it, who owes coffee, and whether Cody’s 60/1 Intrepido becomes the greatest pick in TeamGenius office history.

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Learn more at teamgenius.com.

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