Just minutes away from being omitted from the 2026 Kentucky Derby, the Doug O’Neill-trained Robusta got into the field for the first leg of the Triple Crown after Right to Party was scratched from the race. Getting into the starting gate may have been the easy part. Robusta now faces a deep field of contenders and is a 50-1 longshot to win the roses. Bet Robusta and the entire Kentucky Derby at TwinSpires, where new users who click through our links get a supersized $400 sign-up bonus:
23 Robusta (50-1)
- Trainer: Doug O’Neill
- Jockey: Emisael Jaramillo
- Last race: Seventh in the Santa Anita Derby by 16 lengths
- Career record: 5 starts: 1 win, 1 second, 1 third
- Career earnings: $83,500
- Best career Beyer Speed Figure: 89 (San Felipe)
- Sire: Accelerate
Below, we’ll dig further into Robusta as part of our series profiling all the horses competing in the 152nd Kentucky Derby on Saturday, May 2. We’ll look back into his past performances, what questions need to be answered Saturday and analyze how the post draw affects his chances.
1 Renegade | 2 Albus | 3 Intrepido | 4 Litmus Test | 6 Commandment | 7 Danon Bourbon | 8 So Happy | 9 The Puma | 10 Wonder Dean | 11 Incredibolt | 12 Chief Wallabee | 14 Potente | 15 Emerging Market | 16 Pavlovian | 17 Six Speed | 18 Further Ado | 19 Golden Tempo | 21 Great White | 22 Ocelli | 23 Robusta
Now that you know who’s in the field, you’ll want to know how to bet the Kentucky Derby on the top horse racing betting apps. FanDuel Racing offers a $25 bonus with a $5 bet. Claim it here:
What to know about Robusta
When Robusta entered the San Felipe Stakes on March 7, he had a, shall we say, light résumé. He had only one maiden win in three starts, with his other two starts being a sixth and a seventh. Predictably, he left the starting gate in the San Felipe Stakes as a 67-1 longshot in the seven-horse field.
Amazingly, the horse nearly pulled off the upset of the Kentucky Derby prep season, finishing second by a head to Potente after leading in deep stretch. The effort earned an 89 Beyer Speed Figure, his best by 11 points.
One month later in the Santa Anita Derby, he dueled for the lead up front before fading to last of seventh and losing by 16 lengths.
That result suggests that the San Felipe performance may have been an outlier. And even if it wasn’t, speed figure makers across the board say a duplication of the San Felipe effort wouldn’t be enough to be competitive on Saturday. He needs to get faster in a hurry.
But trainer Doug O’Neill has a history of getting horses to peak in the Kentucky Derby. He has won the race twice, with I’ll Have Another and Nyquist. But those two had far more credentials entering the first Saturday in May.
Because of his slow speed figures and the fact that he got into the race only on Friday, Robusta is likely to get forgotten in the betting at FanDuel Racing, TwinSpires and 1/ST BET. Claim our jumbo-sized 1/ST BET offer here to get a $500 sign-up bonus:
Post draw analysis
After drawing in from the also-eligible list, Robusta has no choice but to inherit the far outside, No. 20 post. He has some speed but not enough to get to the front, so he’s very likely to get caught very wide and lose significant ground. The good news for his connections is that they will get a close-up look at the horse when he passes under the wire for the first time.
