Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem for May 1, 2025

Jason shares some final thoughts on the Kentucky Derby and gives his official picks! 

A good Thursday morning to you all! Happy Thurby! I’m actually looking forward to looking at this Thurby card after I type this column, as staring at the Derby past performances were making my head spin the last little bit. The big race of course is the highlight of the week and the year for many. And in this final column I always make my official picks which of course are subject to change up until post time, just like all of your Derby selections are as well! But it’s fun to get something down on paper as an official pick, and this year, mine arrived after watching a replay. 

So in our Wednesday Kentucky Derby preview podcast, I was joined by TwinSpires’ own Darin Zocalli to talk about the big race and the contenders. We got to number 14 Tiztastic and I told Darin I felt like I hadn’t heard anyone talking about this horse. Part of that I’m sure is because he comes out of the Louisiana Derby (G2), which is one of the first of the final big 100-point prep races to be run. So people often forget a little bit about those horses because they’ve seen five or six other big 100-point races won by nice horses. I kind of even forgot what the race looked like so I went back and watched. Tiztastic made that long stretch kick and came with a very strong rally to win in the end over Chunk of Gold, who I also like. He’d had some trouble and not great trips in his races at Oaklawn, so I began to think maybe he’s better than I originally thought. 

So I started going through the other preps and of course Journalism is the logical favorite and deserving one at that. Not picking him at all comes down to the point that I think the Derby is a race that produces so many intangibles, it’s just impossible for me to take a short priced horse who I don’t think is an absolute world beater. And I don’t think he is. He’s very good, but a bad start or bad trip or if he doesn’t like a potentially wet racetrack, there’s just so many ways for a horse to get beat in this race that I couldn’t dream of taking 3-1 on him. Plus I can find 3-1 shots anywhere in any race on any day. 

The other issue is the pace, and while I think a lot of people think on paper there is a lot of pace, I’ve seen a growing number of folks suggest that maybe there isn’t as much as we thought. I think the pace will be strong but my thinking is I just don’t think the probable pacesetters are all that good, so even if it isn’t crazy fast, I do think the winner and runners up are coming from further back. 

Without further ado, here are my picks for the Kentucky Derby. I hope whoever you select you have a fun day and cash some tickets. This race is such a part of our games history and importance and we only get so many Derby’s in our lifetime. Enjoy them. 

1. Tiztastic
2. Sovereignty
3. Chunk of Gold 
4. Owen Almighty (I’m legally obligated by my contract at Tampa to have him in there).