The 2025 Kentucky Derby will be held on Saturday, May 3, and the field for the 151st Run for the Roses is quickly taking shape. Burnham Square is among the top horses in the 2025 Road to the Kentucky Derby standings with 130 qualifying points after wins in the Holy Bull Stakes and Blue Grass Stakes. Trainer Ian Wilkes won the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Fort Larned and was an assistant to Carl Nafzger when Street Sense won the 2007 Kentucky Derby, but this may be his best chance at a Derby winner as the man in charge. Burnham Square is 15-1 in the latest 2025 Kentucky Derby odds with three wins in six career starts.
Journalism won the Santa Anita Derby to punch his ticket to the Run for the Roses and is the 3-1 favorite in the latest 2025 Kentucky Derby futures, followed by Sandman and Sovereignty at 8-1. Before making any 2025 Kentucky Derby picks, be sure to see the horse racing predictions and futures bets from SportsLine’s elite horse racing expert Jody Demling.
A fixture in the horse racing world who has been writing about, talking about and betting on races for years, Demling has nailed the Kentucky Oaks-Derby double 11 times in the last 16 years. He also predicted the winner of the Belmont Stakes four of the last seven years and called 10 of the last 20 Preakness winners, including in 2023, when he hit the winner, exacta, trifecta and superfecta, as well as the trifecta in 2024. Anyone who has followed him on those picks is up huge.
Now, with the 2025 Kentucky Derby futures already on the board, Demling is sharing his picks and 2025 Kentucky Derby predictions over at SportsLine. Go here to see them.
Top 2025 Kentucky Derby predictions
One of Demling’s surprising 2025 Kentucky Derby picks: He is fading Rodriguez, even though he’s one of the favorites. In fact, Demling says Rodriguez doesn’t even hit the board in his 2025 Kentucky Derby projections. Perhaps the strongest Kentucky Derby contender out of Bob Baffert’s barn this year, Rodriguez has finished in the top three in all five of his career races, including the Wood Memorial on April 5.
However, that doesn’t completely erase concerns over his relatively poor run at the San Felipe Stakes in March. In that race, he finished a distant third behind Kentucky Derby favorite Journalism and Barnes, a horse that then went on to finish fifth in the Santa Anita Derby. Demling has identified better values in his early 2025 Kentucky Derby bets. See which other 2025 Kentucky Derby horses to avoid at SportsLine.
Another stunner: Demling is high on Luxor Cafe, even though he is a 15-1 longshot in the latest Kentucky Derby odds 2025. Japanese horse racing has taken off in recent years and the use of talented American thoroughbreds in their stud program is a big reason why. Luxor Cafe was sired by American Pharoah, who won the Triple Crown in 2015 and then entered the conversation for greatest thoroughbred in history by also winning the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The victory made American Pharoah the only horse in history to win American horse racing’s grand slam.
Now there’s understandable excitement to see his offspring run and Luxor Cafe qualified for the 2025 Kentucky Derby by way of wins at the Hyacinth Stakes and Fukuryu Stakes in Japan. We’ve seen horses from the island excelling at Churchill Downs in recent years. Forever Young was the first Japanese horse ever to hit the board with his third-place finish last year and T O Password also finished fifth in the 150th Run for the Roses. See which other horses to back at SportsLine.
How to make 2025 Kentucky Derby picks, bets
Demling is especially high on a double-digit longshot who “has a legit shot.” Demling is sharing which horse it is, along with his entire projected 2025 Kentucky Derby leaderboard, over at SportsLine.
Which horse wins the Kentucky Derby 2025, and which double-digit longshot is a must-back? Check out the latest 2025 Kentucky Derby odds below, then visit SportsLine to see Demling’s picks for the Kentucky Derby, all from the expert who has nailed 11 Derby-Oaks doubles.
2025 Kentucky Derby odds, futures
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