The road to the Kentucky Derby is nearly at an end, and with it our Kentucky Derby charity league.  John Perotti has taken a commanding lead, but remember that the points in our league go to the top 5 Derby finishers (300-120-60-30-15), leaving plenty of participants in striking distance.

Brian Nadeau of Horseplayer Now takes a quick look at today’s Lexington, but he’ll back in upcoming weeks with complete analysis of the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont.

The road to the Kentucky Derby comes to somewhat of a screeching halt after an extremely exciting winter, with the GIII Lexington at Keeneland the last points race on the schedule. With just 10 Derby qualifying points to the winner, the 1 1/16-miles Lexington won’t produce a Derby starter, but we’ve come this far, so let’s look at the top four. DIVINE OATH didn’t get into last weekend’s local GI Blue Grass but looks like he’s found a nice spot to make his graded stakes debut off a pair of turf wins at Gulfstream Park, while showing varying degrees of running styles as well; look out. The class is obviously MR. SPEAKER, who won the GIII Dania Beach over the GP lawn in December and just missed in their GIII Palm Beach last time; looms a real handful. There’s not a lot of speed entered, which means SOLITARY RANGER looks loose on the lead, and he does own a few Polytrack wins, too, though speed hasn’t been holding too well of late; tricky read. What you get from POKER PLAYER is anyone’s guess, as he bombed in the GIII Spiral at Turfway Park last time, but he did win the GIII Bourbon over the track/distance last fall and will be rolling through the stretch; looms a late danger.