Get to know every trainer saddling a contender in the 2023 Kentucky Derby
It’s almost time for the annual Run for the Roses.
The 149th edition of the Kentucky Derby is set to take place on Saturday, May 6, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, and the top contenders for this year’s race are beginning to arrive on site.
While the 20-horse Kentucky Derby field won’t be officially set until Monday’s post position draw, we already have a good feel (thanks to the Kentucky Derby points qualifying leaderboard) about which horses will be in the field, and the trainers who are preparing them for the biggest stage in horse racing.
Here’s a look at which trainers are expected to saddle horses for the 2023 Kentucky Derby, and how those trainers have fared before in the race.
Trainers are listed alphabetically.
All trainers with a horse currently ranked in the top 24 of the Kentucky Derby points qualifying leaderboard are included.
Steve Asmussen
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: Second with Nehro (2011), Lookin At Lee (2017) and Epicenter (2022).
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Disarm (16th on the Kentucky Derby qualifying points leaderboard with 46 points).
▪ Only five of Asmussen’s 24 all-time Kentucky Derby starters have finished in the money.
▪ Asmussen is the Thoroughbred trainer with the most wins in North American history.
▪ Asmussen was the trainer for last year’s Kentucky Derby favorite Epicenter, who lost the lead, and the race, in the stretch to 80-1 long shot Rich Strike.
Ben Colebrook
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: None.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Raise Cain (ninth with 64 qualifying points).
▪ Colebrook is expected to be one of four trainers making their Derby debut in this year’s race.
▪ Colebrook was the original trainer for Knicks Go, who went on to become the 2021 American Horse of the Year.
Brad Cox
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: Mandaloun (2021).
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horses: Angel of Empire (third with 154 qualifying points), Hit Show (11th with 60), Verifying (13th with 54) and Jace’s Road (18th with 45).
▪ Cox is the first and only Louisville-born trainer to have a horse win the Kentucky Derby, although it came after the fact when Medina Spirit was taken down as the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Derby in February 2022.
▪ All three of Cox’s horses in last year’s Kentucky Derby — Cyberknife, Tawny Port and Zozos— finished seventh or worse.
▪ Cox leads all trainers with four horses currently projected to be in the 2023 Derby field.
Gustavo Delgado
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: 13th with Bodexpress in 2019.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Mage (15th with 50 qualifying points).
▪ This year will mark the third time Delgado, who is from Venezuela, has a horse in the Kentucky Derby.
▪ Mage ran second behind Kentucky Derby favorite Forte in the Florida Derby in early April.
Keith Desormeaux
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: Second with Exaggerator in 2016.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Confidence Game (12th with 57 qualifying points).
▪ The Desormeaux name is a familiar one for horse racing fans: Keith is the brother of Hall of Fame jockey Kent, who was a three-time winner of the Derby himself and nearly captured a Triple Crown in 1998 with Real Quiet and in 2008 with Big Brown.
▪ Desormeaux’s close call in the 2016 Derby with Exaggerator bore fruit at the next time of asking: Exaggerator won the 2016 Preakness Stakes.
Terunobu Fujita
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: None.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Mandarin Hero (23rd with 40 qualifying points).
▪ It’s going to take some good fortune, at the misfortune of others, if Fujita is to make his Kentucky Derby debut as a trainer. Mandarin Hero was an ultra-impressive second in the Santa Anita Derby, becoming the first Japan-owned horse to hit the board in that event.
▪ Fujita and Mandarin Hero will need several more defections to gain a spot in the Derby starting gate.
Saffie Joseph Jr.
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: Eighth with Ny Traffic in 2020.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Lord Miles (sixth with 105 qualifying points).
▪ Joseph is expected to make his third trip to the Kentucky Derby this year: He finished eighth with Ny Traffic in the 2020 Derby that was delayed several months due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, and finished 16th last year with White Abarrio.
▪ Lord Miles is only in the projected Kentucky Derby field after winning the Grade 2 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct at 59-1 odds, and after surviving a postrace inquiry to win by a nose.
Kenny McPeek
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: Second with Tejano Run in 1995.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Sun Thunder (14th with 54 qualifying points).
▪ McPeek’s two entrants in last year’s Derby, Smile Happy and Tiz the Bomb, finished next to each other in eighth and ninth.
▪ Only one of McPeek’s previous eight Derby horses finished in the money.
▪ McPeek is a Lexington native.
Ron Moquett
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: 15th with Far Right in 2015.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: King Russell (24th with 40 qualifying points).
▪ Moquett and King Russell will need significant help to make the Kentucky Derby starting gate, as King Russell sits several places outside of the projected field.
▪ King Russell emerged as a possible Derby contender after finishing second in the Arkansas Derby.
▪ Former Kentucky Governor Brereton C. Jones is the breeder of King Russell.
Bill Mott
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: Country House (2019).
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horses: Rocket Can (10th with 60 qualifying points).
▪ Mott’s only Kentucky Derby triumph came amid controversial circumstances, as Country House was awarded the 2019 Derby title after race winner Maximum Security was disqualified.
▪ Mott was formerly the all-time wins leader at Churchill Downs.
▪ Mott also finished third in the 2019 Derby with Tacitus after the disqualification of Maximum Security.
Hidetaka Otonashi
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: None.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Derma Sotogake (seventh with 100 qualifying points).
▪ The former jockey is training one of the dark-horse favorites for the race in Derma Sotogake, who was third in the Saudi Derby and first in the UAE Derby earlier this year.
▪ Derma Sotogake has won half of his eight career starts.
Todd Pletcher
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: Super Saver (2010) and Always Dreaming (2017).
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horses: Forte (first with 190 qualifying points), Tapit Trice (fourth with 150 qualifying points), Kingsbarns (eighth with 100) and Major Dude (22nd with 40).
▪ Eight of Pletcher’s 62 all-time Kentucky Derby starters have finished in the money.
▪ Pletcher had gone 0-24 at the Derby dating back to his race debut in 2000 (when he had four horses) before winning the race in 2010 for the first time.
▪ None of Pletcher’s three horses in last year’s race — Mo Donegal, Charge It and Pioneer of Medina — finished in the money.
▪ All three of Pletcher’s top Derby contenders this year — Forte, Tapit Trice and Kingsbarns — won top Kentucky Derby prep races in their last starts.
Larry Rivelli
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: None.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Two Phil’s (fifth with 123 qualifying points).
▪ Another trainer set to make his Derby debut in 2023, Rivelli is in the Run for the Roses after Two Phil’s posted a commanding win in the Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park in Florence.
▪ Two Phil’s has won at Churchill Downs before, as he crossed the line first in the Grade 3 Street Sense Stakes last October in Louisville.
Dale Romans
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: Third with Paddy O’Prado in 2010 and Dullahan in 2012.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Cyclone Mischief (21st with 45 qualifying points).
▪ Cyclone Mischief is currently the first horse out of the Derby field, and he needs just one more defection to make the starting gate.
▪ A Louisville native, Romans was also fourth in the 2011 Kentucky Derby with Shackleford, who went on to win that year’s edition of the Preakness Stakes.
▪ Romans got his start in horse racing helping his father, Jerry, who was a trainer at Churchill Downs. Romans had his first Derby horse in 2006.
John Shirreffs
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: Giacomo (2005).
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Skinner (19th with 45 qualifying points).
▪ Skinner made his way into the projected Kentucky Derby field under tragic circumstances: Wild On Ice suffered a leg injury during training at Churchill Downs on Thursday morning and was euthanized because of the injury.
▪ Shirreffs has pulled off a significant upset in the Kentucky Derby before, as Giacomo was a 50-1 long shot when he won in 2005.
▪ Shirreffs was the trainer of the famed Zenyatta, the mare who won 19 of her 20 career races.
Yoshito Yahagi
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: None.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horse: Continuar (invitation).
▪ Yahagi will be making his Kentucky Derby debut after Continuar accepted an invitation to the Derby via the Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby qualification pathway.
▪ In 2021, Yahagi became the first Japanese trainer to win a Breeders’ Cup race.
▪ Continuar has already tested himself in graded stakes competition overseas, although the results weren’t great: He was fifth in the Grade 3 Saudi Derby and third in the Grade 2 UAE Derby.
Tim Yakteen
▪ Past Kentucky Derby winners: None.
▪ Best Kentucky Derby finish: 12th with Taiba in last year’s race.
▪ Potential 2023 Kentucky Derby horses: Practical Move (second with 160 qualifying points) and Reincarnate (17th with 45).
▪ Yakteen, who rose up the ranks as an assistant trainer for Bob Baffert, made his Derby debut last year with two of Baffert’s former horses: Tabia was 12th and Messier was 15th.
▪ Practical Move, the horse that figures to be Yakteen’s best shot at a Derby win in 2023, was originally bred by trainer Chad Brown.
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