When Candy Boy finished third in the Santa Anita Derby behind likely Kentucky Derby favorite California Chrome and Hoppertunity it seemed like his Derby dreams were in real trouble. Thanks to an odd set of preps the next weekend, though, his 30 points wound up being enough to get him into the Derby field. So, now the question we have to ask is if he can prove to be more than just the third best horse out of California in the Derby. Can Candy Boy win the Kentucky Derby? According to the oddsmakers at Sportsbook.ag, Candy Boy's odds to win the Kentucky Derby sit at +4500, which puts him well beyond the elite contenders.

As you try to determine if there is any value in that big price here are five factors to consider:

The Santa Anita Derby: The nicest thing you can say about the race for Candy Boy was that he was consistent. After dealing with some rough traffic early, he settled in third place and pressed the early pace set by the overly ambitious Dublin Up and eventual winner California Chrome. From that point up to the wire, the only time that he briefly wasn't in third place was when eventual second-place finisher Hoppertunity had passed him and Dublin Up had not yet completed his fade out of the action. It's like Candy Boy never really moved - the race just unfolded around him. He was nowhere close to the second-place horse, and the fourth-place horse was nowhere close to him. It was a non-effort punctuated by no real move down the stretch. The race in and of itself was no reason to completely disregard this horse in the Kentucky Derby, but it also gave us absolutely no reason to get excited about him.

What came before: The horse had raced six times before the Santa Anita Derby. It took him four tries to break his maiden, but the efforts each time were solid. He made his stakes debut in the CashCall Futurity in mid-December, and he was a very respectable second behind the very impressive Shared Belief, the two year old champion owned by Jim Rome who was knocked off the Derby trail after that outing with an injury. He bounced back next in the Robert B. Lewis on Feb. 8 and won in professional fashion over two Bob Baffert horses - Chitu and Midnight Hawk - that both have enough points to make the Derby field and are both under consideration for the big race. It was a strong performance. Unfortunately, a minor setback meant that he didn't run for two months after that win, and the rust was evident in the Santa Anita Derby. So, how much of the flat, underwhelming performance in that race was due to the rust and how much was that he just wasn't good enough? Yet another challenging question for handicappers heading into what is shaping up as a very tough Kentucky Derby.

Trainer: John Sadler is a very strong California trainer with well over 2,000 wins to his credit. He has never had a lot of success in Triple Crown races, but that is largely because high-level three year olds have never been a major focus of his business. He had his first Derby entrant in 1993, finishing sixth. In 2010 he had two starters, but neither Sidney's Candy nor Line of David fired on the day, and they wound up 17th and 18^th, respectively, in the 20-horse field.

Jockey: Gary Stevens has been on board for the last three starts for this horse, and he is expected to be on board again in the Derby. That may not have been the case if things worked out like Stevens hoped, though. Stevens was aboard the unbeaten Bayern in the Arkansas Derby, and he would likely have stuck with that horse if things had turned out well. That race didn't go well, though, and Bayern didn't make the Derby field. That leaves Stevens available, and for Candy Boy that's a very good thing. Since coming back, Stevens has been red hot in big races, and his familiarity with both the horse and the pressures of the Derby mean that we are likely to see the best Candy Boy has to offer on the day.

Breeding: I really want to like this horse, but I am a big believer in pedigree handicapping in this race, and that makes it tough to like this horse. His sire, Candy Ride, sired one great winner at a classic distance - Misremembered, who won the 2010 Santa Anita Handicap. Beyond him, though, there aren't a whole lot of horses that have done well at a mile or even shorter. It's a stretch to assume that Candy Ride is even a little of an asset on the male side of this pedigree. Dam sire In Excess again primarily seems to have offsprings that shine at shorter distances, though son Indian Charlie was third in the Derby. Overall, this isn't an absolute disaster of a pedigree, but it doesn't do Candy Boy any favors.

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Read more articles by Trevor Whenham