more angles:

No "A" horse has won in 20 years.
Just 2 "B" horses have won in past 71 years.
No "D" horse has won in 36 years.
No "E" horse has won in 71 years.
No "F" horse has won in 21 years.
No "H" horse has won in 54 years.
Just one "I" horse has won the Derby in 133 years. (and it was because of Shoemaker's mistake!)
No "J" horse has won in 67 years.
Just 2 "K" horses have won the Derby, but none in 40 years.
Just 2 "N" horses have won the Derby; none in 50 years. (so toss out No Biz)
Just 2 "O" horses have won the Derby; none in 71 years.
Just 1 "U" horse has won the Derby
Just 1 "V" horse has won the Derby; none in 46 years.
Just 1 "X","Y",or "Z" horse has won the Derby; none in 83 years.

And, on the plus side:
"G" horses have won 3 of the last 13 runnings.
17 "S" horses have won the Derby, including 3 TC winners and 5 of the last 17 winners.

Boy, it's going to be easy this year. Looks like a Superfecta with Street Sense, Scat Daddy, Stormello and Great Hunter. The fact that Street Sense fails the 3-syllable test is offset by the fact that he has 2 starting "S"'s in his name. Think Seattle Slew and Sunday Silence.

--Dunbar

"So where does the confusion between grey and roan in the TB breed come from? From the American Jockey Club. Here is their definition of the two colors:

"Gray: The majority of the coat of the horse is a mixture of black and white hairs. The mane, tail and legs may be either black or gray, unless white markings are present.

Roan: The majority of the coat of the horse is a mixture of red and white hairs or brown and white hairs. The mane, tail and legs may be black, chestnut or roan, unless white markings are present."

What that means in a nutshell is that the JC terms black-based greys to be greys and bay- or chestnut-based greys to be roans. It's a matter of semantics, technically, but it's confusing to those familiar with color genetics. Most people understand there is a definite genetic and physical difference between grey and roan. The JC is happy just to lump them together despite the fact that true roan is not found in the breed.

*The Catch A Bird Exception: The only exception to the statement that there are no true, dark-headed roan TBs has cropped up very recently. In 1982, a very unusually marked Thoroughbred was born in Australia named Catch A Bird. He looks like a bay horse with white brindling, the opposite of the dark lines seen on "normal" brindles. Stranger still, as a stallion, Catch A Bird has produced four offspring that appear to be true, dark-headed roans, indicating that Catch A Bird carries a one-time genetic mutation that has produced roan. As far as I know, none of the 4 "roan" foals, Odd Colours (1992 mare), Slip Catch (1993 mare), Goldhill Park (1994 horse), and Red Noble (1996 gelding), have been tested to see if they carry the roan gene, but they certainly exhibit the typical roan phenotype. Please note that these four horses appear to be the only true roan TBs in existence. All other horses registered as roan or grey/roan worldwide are actually greys."

Scat Daddy is your 2007 Kentucky Derby winner. LOL :D

Cajun -
Did they have a picture of Catch a Bird?

Genetically WC is grey. The roan gene doesn't exist in the breed. If they lighten w/age, they are grey and she's white now.
"Grey" in a horse is a progressive "conditition" effecting color. Roan is permanent. What does exist in the TB is rabicano which (similar to roan, but different genetically) is a sprinkling of white hairs over the primary body coat. In a rabicano, like a roan the white does not progress and become more prominent.

Here are two of his babies that turned out roan...

Skip Catch


Odd Colours

Not all hope is lost on Time Squared....4 horses with "T" have won the Derby. :)

Although "I's" only won once, they have filled out the tri 8 times.

Now wait a second, an "E" horse won in 2002 and a "F" horse won in 2003 and 2000.

This one is a cutie!

For the last time people, this is from the KD website!! LOL

LMAO! I know, I know. :D

Wouldnt War Emblem count as a "W" horse?

I think all hope was lost when Spanky visited the concession stand during the race and still beat him.

Meanie. LOL

A horse named Spanky shouldn't even be allowed in the gate!!! :p

interesting looking horse.

looks like he stood too long under a pigeon roost...

Doh! Yes, I do know the alphabet.

Its ok... all the talk about numbers around here makes you forget about letters sometimes!

While not a Derby angle, two criteria I use are:

1) Three two turn preps as a 3 year old.
2) The final 1/8 of the horses last prep is 13 seconds or less.

You don't see true roans in the TB these days (mixture of colored and white hairs that does NOT change with age). BUt the Jockey CLub decided to use the term 'roan' to describe horses whose coat base color was reddish (like a bright red bay, or red chestnut). Nearly all the so-called 'roans' in the Stud Book are actually, genetically grays. Just to make things interesting, however, the JC sometimes registers colored horses with minimal random white hair patterns (like rabicano or skunk-tail) as roans, too.