Easy pickings for War Pass

There will be big doings in Tampa on Saturday, and I don't mean the renewal of the Yankees-Rays blood feud in that split-squad game at Legends Field. Twelve miles away, the Triple Crown trail makes its annual stop at Tampa Bay Downs, where the undefeated 2007 2-year-old champion, War Pass, will go off at odds of 2-5 or so in the Tampa Bay Derby.

The numbers stack up as a worse mismatch than the Yankees' and Rays' payrolls. It looks like another runaway for the 5-for-5 War Pass, the controlling speed and an unbettable favorite. He might be able to win even with 6-5, 215-pound Shelley "Spike" Duncan in the saddle. Of War Pass' six rivals, only Atoned and Big Truck look remotely competitive, and unless War Pass refuses to leave the gate or falls down, those two will be battling to complete the exacta.

Although War Pass' need-to-lead style and sprinter/miler pedigree will pose concerns down the road, they won't matter in the 1 1/16-mile, Grade III race won last year by eventual Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense. He won't be asked the distance question until next time out in his final Derby prep, when he'll go 1 1/8 miles for the first time. Yet even if he handles 9 furlongs, there still will be doubts about his ability to get 1 1/4 miles at Churchill Downs. Will War Pass perform in May like A-Rod in October?

David Carroll trains unbeaten Denis of Cork, one of the few horses that appears to have the pedigree and credentials to test War Pass when the 3-year-olds stretch out. Denis of Cork isn't scheduled to race again until April 5, when he might run into War Pass in the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.

"It's hard to win the Derby on the lead, but it's been done -- Winning Colors, War Emblem," Carroll said this week. "[War Pass] just goes out and runs them all off their feet. He urges you to go after him, and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. We're hoping that when he gets to the eighth pole [in the Kentucky Derby], that's when we start to see the chink in his armor, if he has a chink in his armor.

"We don't know. He's unbeaten, so we have to look for something to give us hope."