The winner of the Nov. 3 FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile presented by TAA at Santa Anita Park most likely will become the favorite, or at least one of the favorites, for next year’s Kentucky Derby. But through the years, such winners have performed more like longshots to win the run for the roses.

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Of the prior 39 renewals of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, only two winners returned to experience Derby glory six months later at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May. Jim Tafel’s Street Sense, trained by Carl Nafzger, became the first to accomplish the Juvenile-Derby double in 2006-’07, followed nine years later by Nyquist in 2015-’16 for owner Reddam Racing and trainer Doug O’Neill.

The numbers are not much more encouraging for Breeders’ Cup Juvenile participants overall, with only four others winning the Derby — Spend a Buck (1985), Alysheba (1987), Sea Hero (1993), and Mine That Bird (2009). The collective record of Juvenile participants in the Derby is six wins, eight seconds, and 10 thirds from 104 starters.

Considering the $2 million Juvenile is the richest dirt race for 2-year-old males in North America and with the quality to match — the limited success rate is a surprise. However, examining these races and their participants indicates their struggles are not without cause.

The Derby is considered the toughest race for 3-year-olds in North America to win, not only in terms of attracting the best of that age group in North America — and lately with some horses from across the world — but also in terms of depth. Most stakes races in North America are limited to 14 starters, but as many as 20 horses can compete in the Derby.

“You’re taking two races that are extremely difficult to win on their own, right?” said Hall of Famer trainer Todd Pletcher, a multiple winner of both races, though not with the same horse. “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.”

Pletcher, a dual Derby winner and three-time Juvenile winner, runs Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners and Walmac Farm’s Locked and Repole Stable’s Fierceness and Noted in Friday’s race.

Recent examples of Juvenile winners who ran well in the Kentucky Derby, only to come up just short, include Essential Quality, who wound up a close third upon the Medina Spirit disqualification in the 2021 Derby (a case still under appeal in court), and Good Magic, second in the 2018 Derby behind an eventual Triple Crown winner in Justify.

Essential Quality would later take the Belmont Stakes, the only horse to win both the Juvenile and the Belmont Stakes — though 10 non-winning Juvenile horses have experienced success in the final leg of the Triple Crown.

Timberlake winning Champagne. (Jason Moran/Eclipse Sportswire)

Essential Quality’s trainer, Brad Cox, runs Siena Farm and WinStar Farm’s Timberlake in Friday’s Juvenile, and Good Magic’s trainer, Chad Brown, starts Klaravich Stables’ General Partner, runner-up to Timberlake in the Oct. 7 Champagne Stakes during the Belmont at the Big A meet.

Informed of the statistics of Juvenile-to-Derby runners, Brown said he found the figures “interesting” but speculated they may not be unique to the division. He said he finds it challenging to have a horse maintain its peak for an extended period.

He wondered how many Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winners took the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes the next year at Keeneland? (Answer: one from a sample of 14.) Or how many NetJets Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winners were successful in the Alabama Stakes or the Longines Kentucky Oaks? (Answers: From 39 runnings of the Juvenile Fillies, four and two, respectively.)

Part of the reason for these figures is that 2-year-old stakes experience is less emphasized by many trainers today than it once was. Under the Kentucky Derby points system, a late-developing 3-year-old can typically gain entrance into the Derby now by simply performing well in one of the final rounds of Derby preps, rendering early form of far less importance.

“When you run in the juvenile races and [the juvenile turf] divisions, 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,” Brown said. “They’re not even winners yet; maybe they’re just getting started.”

Justify and this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Mage, did not race at 2.

Brown added that by the time the Triple Crown and major summer races for 3-year-olds occur, “the whole dynamic of the crop has really changed.”

Timber Country is the lone Juvenile-Preakness Stakes combo winner in 1994-’95. Counting all Juvenile participants, 10 others have won the Triple Crown’s second jewel, most recently National Treasure this May after he showed in the 2022 Juvenile.

Speaking specifically of the Derby, Pletcher said: “I think it’s just the fact that you have to be exceptionally good at 2 in order to win the Breeders’ Cup, and then you gotta be great at exactly the right time as a 3-year-old [in the Derby]. ... I wouldn’t say [this is] an anomaly but I think it’s just something difficult to do and then of course, so many hiccups can happen.”

Pletcher this fall at Keeneland. (Eclipse Sportswire)

The hiccups Pletcher knows well. Uncle Mo and Forte, the respective Juvenile winners for the trainer in 2010 and 2022, both missed the Derby after setbacks leading up to the first leg of the Triple Crown. Uncle Mo missed the race due to a mysterious liver ailment. Forte was scratched on the recommendation of a regulatory veterinarian the morning of this year’s Kentucky Derby due to a still lingering foot bruise incurred days before the race.

“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 said.

Mage had lost to Forte in two starts leading up to this year’s race.

Forte and Uncle Mo have company in not making the Derby. Counting all Juvenile starters, more than 77% of Juvenile participants did not run back in the Kentucky Derby.

“You circle that date on that calendar. Everything has to go right on that date,” O’Neill said.

Substandard form also contributed to many horses not starting in the run for the roses.

A great horse can also miss the Juvenile due to physical setbacks. American Pharaoh would sweep the Triple Crown in 2015 but was withdrawn from the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile due to what Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said was a bruised foot. Texas Red would win the Juvenile but would be outpolled by American Pharoah in year-end Eclipse Award voting.

Another factor is simply the time between the two races. Much can happen over six months in many sports, with horse racing no different. 

O’Neill, as one of only two trainers in history to pull off the Juvenile-Derby double, agrees with his counterparts that horses mature at different paces, or as he described it, they “kind of ebb and flow.”

Asked how November 2-year-old Thoroughbred would translate in age to a human athlete, O’Neill compared a Juvenile winner of that age to roughly the equivalent of a star 18-year-old basketball player. A May 3-year-old is more in line that same player hoping to shine in the National Basketball Association years later after college.

With that additional time, “You have such a huge, bigger pool of mature, talented classmates,” O’Neill said.

Then there is the matter of distance. Although both races are routes, the 1 1/4-mile Derby tests participants’ stamina more so than the 1 1/16 miles of the Juvenile. Milers can sometimes stretch out enough to win at 1 1/16 miles, but a classic distance, notably a Kentucky Derby with its customarily hot pace, can unravel others.

In the end, O’Neill said, “It obviously takes an extremely talented horse, but it also takes a lot of luck.”