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Sample sizes are too small. Most likely the string of favorites is random variance.
Indeed I have some evidence of this from last year-- Always Dreaming was clearly not the best horse in that race, even though he went favored. He apparently took advantage of a track bias produced by the sealing of the racetrack.
Orb was probably not the best horse in his Derby either.
California Chrome and American Pharoah were superlative racehorses who were going to win the Derby no matter what eligibility system was in place. They were the best 3 year olds in their respective crops by far.
So basically, all this hangs on Justify (who might turn out to be another superlative racehorse) and Nyquist, who peaked on Derby day.
There are going to be plenty of non-favorite winners of the Derby in the future, don't worry.
And honestly, I don't care about the points system. We have owners who are ridiculous about entering unqualified horses in the Derby, so they had to cap it at 20 and once you do that, there's going to have to be some arbitrary means of keeping them out. The points system is fine.
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