Future shocker?

LOUISVILLE -- A few weeks ago, after cashing on Adriano in the Lane's End Stakes, I threw $5 on him and got 38-1 odds in the Derby Future Wager's third and final pool. His connections were still uncommitted to the Derby, but I figured he'd go. A horse is only 3 years old once, and who's going to sit out the Kentucky Derby with a live one who's bred to get the distance?

Not owner Donald Adam and trainer Graham Motion, who's in with a chance. Motion, a low-key native of England, is getting enthusiastic, which I was pleased to hear.

"I'm actually starting to get a little excited about it," Motion said Tuesday morning. "He's really in good form. I tend to be apprehensive going into these things. So much can go wrong.''

Especially with future bets. I'm usually willing to squander $20 each year on them, and this year's first three stabs were on horses who didn't make it to the Derby: Majestic Warrior and Blackberry Road (not good enough) and Crown of Thorns (injured). I connected last year on Rags to Riches at 8-1 to win the Oaks, and with Monarchos at 17-1 in the 2001 Derby. So I'm ahead of this silly game, which is more than most future pickers can say.

All Adriano has to do is win the Derby in only his second race on a conventional dirt surface (he finished ninth in his first one) and I'll be $195 richer. If he doesn't revert to his hot-blooded prerace behavior, then runs the race of his life and works out an excellent trip, I've got a great chance. I'm not counting my money.

Mechanical rooster

SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. -- There's plenty of nice scenery out here in the wide-open spaces of Bullitt County. After driving through rolling hills and farmland I came upon a sight that Mother Nature can't top: dozens of mattresses piled about a hundred feet from my motel.

I guess the place is under renovation. Then again, maybe the management is just airing out the mattresses to have them nice and fresh for the Derby crowd that will be rolling in Thursday night. I hope the feral tabby cat prowling by the dumpster didn't mistake any of them for a king-sized litter box.

This morning, at about 4:30, I was awakened by a metallic crash that sounded like an explosion. In my sleepy haze I thought maybe a truck had shown up to collect the mattresses and dump them somewhere else. Thousands are employed to move large objects from one place to another, so maybe a long-distance mattress trucker was working the graveyard shift.

I managed to fall asleep until about 8 o'clock, and I looked out the window and saw all the mattresses were still there. So was the cat, but the dumpster no longer was overflowing. So it was the garbage man waking me before any rooster was stirring.

Went to the 24-hour Denny's next door, and as my scrambled eggs and grits came, the Wurlitzer juke box began playing Billy Joe Royal's 1966 hit "Down in the Boondocks." I'm not sure why, but suddenly I had the giddy feeling of being in tune with this little corner of the universe. It was an emotional moment.

Some Kentucky Derby links

Ed McNamara is reporting from Louisville all week. To read more, click on the links below:

The Kentucky Derby has been a thorn in the side of great horses and trainers. Story.

Synthetic-track horses have signaled a new era in handicapping. Story.

The Kentucky Derby is a one-of-a-kind event. Story.

McNamara's Kentucky Derby horse-by-horse analysis. Story.

Kentucky Derby notebook: Two Irishmen make Derby debut. Story.

Thirsty in Shepherdsville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Hotel prices for Derby week here are obscene, so I try to save money for the company by staying out of town. The savings are substantial and I don't mind a 25-minute drive on Interstate 65, but sometimes life out in the country has its disadvantages.

After a stopover in Detroit, I arrived in Louisville Sunday night, picked up the rental car at the airport and headed south to Shepherdsville, about 25 miles away. The accents there are seriously rural, and there are plenty of wide-open spaces. I'm sure that 60 years ago it was quaint and lovely, but now it has every franchise operation in America spread on both sides on I-65. At 10 o'clock I had a snack at the local Wendy's (chicken wrap, milk) and decided to go buy a six-pack at the White Lightning convenience store. Unfortunately, I was inconvenienced.

Every night before bed I like to have a beer. Just one, but it's a need. This time, this aging creature of habit was denied. At the White Lightning there was a lock on the beer case, and a sign: By county law, no beer sales on Sunday. No! I asked if there was a bar around, and the woman at the register said, somewhat apologetically, "This county is dry on Sundays, hon. The nearest bar is about 12 miles up the road."

I was tired and didn't feel like driving, so I bit the bullet in Bullitt County. And you thought life on the road was such fun.

Jinxes? Not really

Henry Ford, the grouchy mechanical genius who put America on wheels, was a farmboy who didn't like horses. He also said, "History is bunk."

No race is overanalyzed more than the Kentucky Derby, and students of history can get mighty rigid when handicapping it. No horse has won the Derby in its fourth career start since 1915, which is quite a while. Not even Curlin, the eventual 2007 Horse of the Year, could overcome his lack of experience in the Derby, where he ran a distant third after a troubled start. Big Brown has run only three times in his lifetime. So even though he's clearly the fastest horse in the 134th Run for the Roses, is this heavy favorite an automatic throwout?

Certainly not. Very few horses run for only the fourth time in the Derby, so there's the "small sample" factor. Since 1900, besides Regret, the filly who won it in 1915, and Curlin, only nine Derby runners had three starts. Only Curlin finished in the money, but he was by far the most gifted of this group. Here are the odds on the rest: 39-1, 10-1, 39-1, 12-1, 33-1, 12-1, 19-1, 11-1, 26-1. Except for Curlin, none of them was highly rated, and the odds on four would have been much higher if they had not been part of the mutuel field or a coupled entry.

Eventually, all streaks end. Last year, Street Sense became the first to complete the Breeders' Cup Juvenile-Kentucky Derby double. Then Rags to Riches became the first filly since 1905 to win the Belmont Stakes. Of the first 22 Juvenile winners, only 12 made it to the Derby, so there was another very small sample. Same thing with fillies in the Belmont. Between Tanya's victory in 1905 and Rags to Riches, only 10 females took a shot at "The Test of the Champion."

On paper, Big Brown looks better than Curlin did before last year's Derby, and this year's 3-year-olds appear far weaker than the 2007 bunch. So if Big Brown holds his form and doesn't have a bad trip, he has an excellent chance. Street Sense had the most impressive form entering the Derby and won, and it would be no shock if that happened again. The best horse taking the Derby as the favorite in consecutive years? What a concept. Who knows, it might even start a streak.

Learn to forget

With only three days left in Keeneland's spring meeting, it's most unlikely that I can rally to break even. That's all right, because I cleaned up there last fall, and I guarantee my recent losses are a mere flesh wound compared to the gutting many have suffered. The relentlessly wacky results were reflected in an eight-day Pick 6 carryover. Granted, the Pick 6 isn't a mania in Kentucky as it is in California, so most of the smart money is directed to other pools, but everybody having an oh-fer for eight straight days? When did Horseplayer Nation get that stupid?

How many chased that rainbow for more than a week and lost their pot of gold? Quite a few, no doubt. Favorite players fared particularly badly in Keeneland's marquee races, the Ashland and the Blue Grass. Among the heavy favorites who spun their wheels on the quirky Polytrack were Pyro and Country Star. People who lost tons of money on these locks must cringe when reminded of Keeneland's slogan: "Racing As It Was Meant To Be." Now it's more like "Random Results, And Never Ask Why." As jockey Robby Albarado said after Country Star finished up the track: "There's no rhyme or reason to it. She felt great."

But there may be a way to rebound from this inscrutable meet: Ignore everything that happened on Keeneland's main track when racing shifts to Churchill Downs on Saturday. As the Doors' Jim Morrison sang long ago: "Learn to forget, learn to forget." If a horse closed to win in Lexington, assume it won't in Louisville. If a horse got burned out on the lead at Keeneland, assume it will keep going at Churchill. Even if you're wrong, you'll be getting much better odds than you should.

Last chance to make the Derby

As usual, Keeneland's Lexington Stakes offers very marginal horses a final opportunity to add enough graded-stakes earnings to make the Kentucky Derby field, whether they belong there or not. The last time the Lexington produced a Derby winner was in 1999, when Charismatic won both races at big odds. It's most unlikely that there's another Charismatic in Saturday's 1 1/16-mile Grade II on the Polytrack.

The top four appear to be Big Glen (4-for-6 on Polytrack); Atoned (a teaser who disappointed again in the Illinois Derby); Todd Pletcher's Behindatthebar (2-for-3 on Santa Anita's synthetic track) and the Peruvian-raced Tomcito (a distant third to Big Brown in the Florida Derby). I'll be sitting out the Lexington, which is filled with sprint types and two horses who just broke their maiden. Don't look for the Derby winner in here.

My only bet of the day will be in the previous race, the 5-furlong Giant's Causeway Stakes on the grass for fillies and mares. I'll play Jazzy to turn the tables on Danceroftherealm, who pulled a $23.80 upset on Jazzy last time out at the Fair Grounds. Jazzy got bottled up inside at a key point at the top of the stretch and didn't get clear until too late, and her late move wasn't enough. She ran out of ground as Danceroftherealm got first run on her down the center of the course. There's plenty of cheap speed to set up Jazzy's powerful finishing kick, and if she's on her game, she should win at 5-2 or so.

I virtually almost had it

More than $800,000 poured into the Pick 6 pool Wednesday at Aqueduct, chasing a two-day carryover of almost $206,000. Megabucks syndicates and small players risking $32 or $48 watched a string of short-priced winners guarantee there would be no three-day carryover. There would be no life-changing scores.

Favorites She's My Sunshine ($5.30) and Bebob ($4.80) won the first two legs before Volos ($9.10) got my virtual ticket of $576 halfway home. Since I never play the Pick 6, I wasn't kicking myself for not investing in the suggested play on yesterday's blog. When two more chalks, Raw Silk ($5.80) and Cosmic ($4.10), took the fourth and fifth legs, I was alive to three horses (3-2 favorite Bontempi, Wonderous Day, Sir Cryptomite) in the finale. Unfortunately, none of them was paying much, but when Bontempi opened a daylight lead in midstretch, I was pleased. Maybe somebody who took my suggestions would make some money, even though a Bontempi victory would have paid only $902. Better than ripping up tickets, and handing out a Pick 6 in cyberspace should count for something, right?

But no. It was right there, and then it wasn't. Out of the pack emerged the professional maiden Sky Dragon, who went off at 3-1 despite an 0-for-13 career record, including 0-for-10 on the grass. He passed Bontempi with maybe 100 yards to go and completed a Pick 6 worth $1,015. The five-winner consolation paid a puny $21.40, not even worth collecting if you'd blown $576, only to be tortured.

Such excruciating moments are recalled with horror years later. As Sky Dragon burned up my mind-bet ticket, I was so thankful that I don't play the Pick 6.

Carryover chaos at the Big A

I briefly considered taking a stab at Wednesday's two-day Pick 6 carryover of $205,953 at Aqueduct, but I changed my mind after checking out the first race in the sequence. This $35,000 maiden claimer on the grass has little turf form or pedigree, so I won't be investing in a pool that might approach $750,000. But if you want "guidance," I'll suggest the horses I would use if forced to play it. Just remember, nothing is cheaper than free advice, especially when dealing with somebody else's money. If my arithmetic is correct, this ticket would come to $576 -- $2 x 2 x 2 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 3. Good luck, but remind yourself why it's called disposable income.

4th race: SHE'S MY SUNSHINE and EULOGIZE have shown brief flashes of ability on the grass, more than you can say about the rest of this sad group.

5th race: BEBOP earned a top fig in breaking his maiden last out, and he finished second to PARKY when he won as a first-timer in late January.

6th race: Went four deep with JIMMY JUMP JUMP, who just missed at this level two starts ago; Allen Jerkens class dropper/Florida shipper WHO CAN BLUFF; VOLOS, an Asmussen shipper from Gulfstream who has speed; and the likely favorite, the Contessa entry of BALLADO ALERT and MACKINAW.

7th race: RAW SILK went wire to wire in her grass debut but was DQ'd; gets a free shot and could be singled to pare down the ticket. JELLY ROLL was respectable in two grass tries in Florida, and SONNETS WAY closed well on turf for fourth Dec. 31 in her debut.

8th race: COSMIC is the only one in the field who's won at 1 1/8 miles. PLURACITY has speed, won his last two and chased some good 3-year-olds in Florida, including Holy Bull winner Hey Byrn and Smooth Air, runner-up to Kentucky Derby favorite Big Brown in the Florida Derby.

9th race: If you're still alive (most unlikely), a dozen inscrutable New York-bred maiden turfers stand in the way of your life-changing score. SIR CRYPTOMITE ran second last fall in his only grass try. WONDEROUS DAY hit the board in two of his three turf races. Barclay Tagg's DIRTY WATER DOG is working well for his grass debut after a three-month layoff since he bombed at 7-5 as a first-timer.

Good luck, and if by some miracle this ticket hits, I'll be expecting a generous tip.

Adriano and me

After suffering through a depressing betting slump on Keeneland's first two weekends, I finally had something to smile about: Lane’s End Stakes winner Adriano is likely to run in the Kentucky Derby after breezing a half-mile in 50 seconds Sunday at Churchill Downs.

If the long-striding son of A.P. Indy is out there when they're playing "My Old Kentucky Home," then I won't have to make a win bet. I threw $5 on him at odds of 38-1 in Derby Future Wager 3, and he's not going to be anywhere near 38-1 on the first Saturday in May. So even if he's never in contention and finishes up the track in Derby 134, I will have gotten great value on my money and will have lost intelligently. I feel like I've already won.

I figured that trainer Graham Motion would decide to take a shot even when he and owner Don Adam were on the fence last month, calling a Derby try "unlikely." When was the last time a horse was held out of the Derby when it was healthy and had enough graded-stakes earnings to qualify?

"I’m pretty sure we’re going to go for [the Derby] after this -- I don’t know why we wouldn’t,” Motion said Sunday. “Believe me, I want to win the Derby as much as anybody else does, but I don’t think it’s engraved in my mind that I’ve got to get there. I want to get there for the right reasons, and I think when we analyze it and we talk with Mr. Adam and with [jockey] Edgar [Prado], I think it is the right thing to do at this point. That was depending upon what happened today, and I think it went well.”

Unlike last year, when Street Sense, Curlin and Hard Spun headed an outstanding 3-year-old crop, the talent is more diluted. Big Brown will be the favorite, but he's run only three times, and it's been 93 years since a horse won the Derby in its fourth lifetime start. Even superstar Curlin couldn't do it, running a distant third behind Street Sense after a rough trip, so if Adriano continues to develop, he'll be a longshot who's in with a fighting chance.

Adriano has won on Polytrack and on turf, but in his only start on a conventional dirt surface he ran ninth in the Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream. But he had serious excuses that day, starting from post 12 and having a troubled trip. A.P. Indy, the 1992 Horse of the Year who won the Belmont Stakes and Breeders' Cup Classic, has sired dozens of major stakes-winners. Adriano has the looks, the stride and the pedigree to get 1 1/4 miles, and many of his rivals don't. I'm rooting for you, my son.

Pyro gets burned

So what happened to Pyro Saturday as the heavy favorite in the Blue Grass Stakes? Was it an inability to handle the Polytrack, or was he just due for a bad race, or was he incubating a virus? It's hard to say, but he didn't fire at all at Keeneland, and his never-involved 10th-place finish will push up his odds 2 or 3 points on Derby Day.

“He just didn’t give me the same run he has,” jockey Shaun Bridgmohan said. “I asked him for run around the turn to try and set myself up pretty good and I didn’t get the response I was hoping for. I realized on the turn that it just wasn’t going to be his day. He usually gets himself traveling well by that point. He’s usually a pretty handy horse, and today he just wasn’t.”

If you have Future Wager tickets on Pyro, take solace in the knowledge that the Blue Grass has been the most misleading Derby prep in the past 30 years. Since 1978, only Spectacular Bid (1979) and Strike the Gold (1991) have pulled off the Blue Grass-Derby double, so think twice before boosting the chances of Monba and Cowboy Cal, Todd Pletcher's 1-2 Blue Grass finishers.

But although you can argue that Pyro's Blue Grass should be a throwout, Derby winners don't run that poorly in their final prep. In the past 15 years, only Giacomo (4th, 2005), Thunder Gulch (4th, 1995) and Sea Hero (4th, 1993) were out of the money in their last tuneup for the first Saturday in May. Since 1937, only two Derby winners -- Iron Liege (1957, 5th, Derby Trial) and Count Turf (1951, 5th, Wood Memorial) did worse than those three. You don't have to win your dress rehearsal, but performing miserably is a major concern.

Keeneland: Pretty and pretty weird

There isn't a more attractive racetrack in North America than tradition-rich Keeneland. Set in the heart of the Bluegrass country of central Kentucky, it gladdens the hearts and soothes the souls of Old School horse people. Its slogan is "Racing as It Was Meant to Be," but they're talking about style, not substance. To those more interested in cashing tickets than absorbing atmosphere, and that means most of us, the motto should be "What Happens at Keeneland, Stays at Keeneland."

There are few tracks whose results translate worse elsewhere than Keeneland, and that hasn't changed since its switch to a synthetic surface in the fall of 2006. A place that was insanely biased toward inside speed has done a 180, with few wire-to-wire winners on the Polytrack. It used to be that if your horse wasn't in the first three early, you were angry and prepared for defeat. Now you're happy if your horse trails until the top of the stretch. At least the turf course hasn't been tampered with. It's generally fair, though tilted toward midpack runners and closers, with front-runners often taking the worst of it.

Keeneland's marquee event, the Grade I Blue Grass Stakes, annually is hyped as a major Kentucky Derby prep, but since 1979 only one horse, Strike the Gold in 1991, has pulled off the Blue Grass-Derby double. (Street Sense almost did it last year, losing the Blue Grass by a nose.) The Blue Grass is a valuable conditioning race, but its winners are traditional underperforming underlays on the first Saturday in May. Its also-rans have done far better in the Derby, usually at juicy odds.

Saturday's Blue Grass has drawn a field of 12, its biggest in 25 years, making it an excellent betting race. Pyro, one of the top 3-year-olds, will be heavily favored off impressive wins in the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby at the Fair Grounds. But this is his debut on Polytrack, and his connections don't want to knock him out to win it. For him, it's an obvious final step to the Derby, the main goal. So even if he wins at 6-5 or so, he's a bad bet. Other contenders who have trained impressively at Keeneland are Big Truck, Cowboy Cal and Visionaire, and I'd think twice about leaving them off your Blue Grass tickets.

There's an interesting two-day double linking Friday's Maker's Mark Stakes on Keeneland's grass with the Blue Grass. If you can bet it on your Internet site or at OTB, I recommend using Kip Deville and War Monger in the Maker's Mark with Pyro, Big Truck, Cowboy Cal and Visionaire.

War Pass a bad fit for Derby

So you bet on War Pass at 6-1 and 9-2 in the first two Kentucky Derby Future Wager pools? If you misplaced the ticket, don't bother looking for it, because it's not going to be worth anything.

The 2007 2-year-old champion's odds in Future Pool 3 shot up to almost 15-1 after he was run down in the final 70 yards of the Wood Memorial last Saturday at Aqueduct. The mass of horseplayers diving off the bandwagon had a far better assessment of his second-place effort behind Tale of Ekati than his connections did.

After the race, in which War Pass was drifting in the stretch and ran the final furlong in a crawling 14 seconds, trainer Nick Zito said, "We didn't win, but it's just like a win. This is the first time I have finished second and can say it's just like a win, because of everything he had to endure and overcome. He vindicated himself."

Well, not really. Zito is correct that War Pass had a very demanding trip in the Wood, where he was hounded for a half-mile in a very quick 46.07 seconds by no-hoper Inner Light, the rabbit for stablemate Court Vision, who plodded in third. War Pass showed guts in opening a daylight lead on the turn, but Tale of Ekati didn't dazzle anyone with his rally. He ground away while chasing a very weary horse, and despite the very hot early fractions, the final time of 1:52.35 made it the slowest Wood since 1952. Running fast early and slow late is no way to prep for 1 1/4 miles at Churchill Downs.

Still, owner Robert LaPenta was upbeat, saying, "He got a lot out of this race. This was a great conditioning race."

Maybe, and it was a dramatic improvement over his previous try, a stunning last-place finish at 1-20 odds in the Tampa Bay Derby. That effort was too bad to be true, and the colt probably flipped his palate. But to think that War Pass is a viable candidate to win the Derby is illogical. His need-to-lead style and questionable distance pedigree, combined with the likelihood of facing other front-running types, weigh heavily against him. He has quality and the potential to be a champion miler, but he has the classic look of a pace casualty on the first Saturday in May.

It sounds as if Zito knows that, too. You don't win the Derby twice -- Strike the Gold (1990) and Go for Gin (1994) -- without being aware of what it takes.

"We'll take him to Kentucky," Zito said. "We'll take it one day at a time. If War Pass has a good month, we'll see if we can make it to the Derby."

Bridgmohan's high on Pyro

It was late August of 2005, and Shaun Bridgmohan was feeling pretty good about himself. After being based in New York for seven years, the native of Jamaica (the island, not the section of Queens) moved to the Midwest a few months earlier. When he won the riding title at Arlington's spring/summer meeting, the 1998 champion apprentice was in demand again. That's when he hooked up with a relentless win machine, and the partnership with trainer Steve Asmussen is still thriving.

"Steve asked me if I'd ride for him that fall at Keeneland," said Bridgmohan, who dominated the recently completed Fair Grounds meet thanks mainly to his Asmussen connection. His 2008 win rate is an outstanding 21 percent, and he's on his first serious Kentucky Derby contender, Pyro. The son of Pulpit is 2-for-2 this year, dominating the Risen Star Stakes and the Louisiana Derby in New Orleans.

"He's one of the better horses I've sat on," Bridgmohan said Tuesday. "He's pretty easy to ride, a straightforward horse, and I don't think you've seen the best of him. I don't think I've gotten to the bottom of him."

Bridgmohan rode also-rans for Asmussen in the past two Kentucky Derbys, finishing 12th on Zanjero last year and 15th on Broken Vow the year before. This spring he's in the spotlight on a colt that's never been out of the money in six tries and will be heavily favored Saturday in the Grade I, 1 1/8-mile Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

David Fiske, the racing manager for Pyro's owner, Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC, called Pyro "the total package." No one but Bridgmohan has ridden him in a career that began last July with a nose victory in a sprint at Churchill Downs. As long as Pyro stays healthy and holds his form, he'll be one of the marquee horses there during Derby week.

A Blue Grass victory appears likely but not mandatory for Pyro. "We're looking at it as his first of possibly four races in the next eight weeks," Fiske said, which translates as "We're not looking to knock him out to win." Bridgmohan already knows what he has, so this will be a paid dress rehearsal for the first Saturday in May.

"When he came from last in the stretch in the Risen Star, he showed me the explosive kick he has if I need it," the rider said. "In the Louisiana Derby, the pace wasn't very fast but he still gave me the late kick I wanted. He's answered everything I've asked of him."

Me the VIP

The envelope saluted me as a VIP and contained a "cordial invitation" to Hollywood Park's handicapping championship June 28-29. Immediately, I was suspicious. In the spirit of Groucho Marx, I won't get involved with any group whose standards are so low that it wants me to join.

The top 10 finishers will receive a spot in the 2009 Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship in Las Vegas, and the first three in Hollywood's Gold Cup Handicapping Challenge will get $50,000, $10,000 and $5,000. There are plenty of perks, too -- a cocktail party the night before, free valet parking and buffet, free admission, programs and Racing Forms and special VIP room rates. Then came the catch. The buy-in to the "real money" tournament is . . . $7,500, which kind of priced me out. I could handle losing that much over five years or so, but traveling across the continent to risk seven large in two days would not be fun or relaxing. I enjoy playing $80 no-limit hold 'em tournaments, but I'd never consider ponying up 10 grand for the World Series of Poker.

Yet if you're interested in risking big bucks in late June in Hollywood's Sunset Room, contact George Ortuzar (georgeo@hollywoodpark.com) or Tonya Brown (tonyab@hollywoodpark.com). And be sure to mention my name, because that and $7,500 will get you in the door.

Right result, wrong surface

If you scroll down two posts to "Springtime in Kentucky," you'll notice that I suggested taking a shot with Boss Lafitte if Friday's Transylvania Stakes stayed on the turf. I was almost certain it would not, and it was moved to the synthetic main track at Keeneland because of torrential overnight rains in Lexington.

Because Boss Lafitte was 0-for-2 on the synthetic surface at Arlington, losing by a combined total of 15 lengths, I decided not to bet him at 9-1 odds. How prudent, and how unfortunate. He won, paying $21.20, as I cringed. I can't say I should have had him, because my pick was based on turf only. However, he did get a positive workout comment from the Keeneland clocker, and as they say, "Got a hunch, bet a bunch."

Sometimes you cash, and other times you have a good story. Blogs are great places to vent.

Mister Ed's Saturday stakes picks

WOOD MEMORIAL: If not for War Pass' attempt to prove that his Tampa Bay Derby flop was a fluke, there would be no compelling storyline for New York's marquee prep for the Kentucky Derby. War Pass doesn't have much to beat, and I agree with his owner, Robert LaPenta, that the 2007 2-year-old champion should win the Wood. I think he'll make the lead without much trouble and never give it up. He probably flipped his palate at Tampa Bay Downs, because his last-place shocker was too bad to be true. If he's 8-5 or better, I'll be betting him.

My gut feeling is that War Pass will revive his reputation with a front-running win, bringing back many of those who jumped off his bandwagon last month. So he'll go off at underlaid odds in the Derby, get caught in a speed duel and back up at the top of the stretch. Then he might bounce back in the Preakness at a nice price. We've all been through that movie many times, so why not again?

ILLINOIS DERBY: Like War Pass at the Big A, a loss would hurt Denis of Cork more than a win against a weak field would help him. After skipping the Rebel at Oaklawn, David Carroll ships the unbeaten (3-for-3) son of Unbridled to suburban Chicago for what looks like easy pickings. Well, maybe. If you could get the morning-line odds of 2-1 on 'Denis,' he'd be worth a bet, but you won't, with 7-5 or 8-5 more likely. His deep-closing style also is a concern in a field without a lot of speed.

I see Golden Spikes getting loose on the lead, with Atoned tracking in midpack and Denis of Cork laying back until the very long Hawthorne stretch. Atoned will get in front inside the eighth pole but get caught, as usual, in deep stretch, by Denis of Cork, with Golden Spikes holding for third.

SANTA ANITA DERBY: As they did March 1 in the Sham Stakes, Colonel John and El Gato Malo will be maybe a length apart just behind the pacesetter, who this time will be the very fast Bob Black Jack. The front-runner is quality speed, but unless he's allowed to get away with easy fractions, he'll be overtaken in midstretch. El Gato Malo will turn the tables on Colonel John by winning a tight one, and both will go on to Louisville with nice records and bankrolls but absolutely no experience on conventional dirt. That will be a major theme for the 134th Derby: How seriously should you regard California horses who have raced only on synthetic tracks?

In other Saturday stakes, I like Fracas in Gulfstream's Pan American Handicap at 1 1/2 miles on the turf, and I'll go with Country Star to beat fellow multiple stakes-winners Proud Spell and Bsharpsonata in Keeneland's Ashland Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. I handicapped the rest of Aqueduct's all-stakes Pick 4 but didn't have any firm opinions about the Bay Shore Stakes, Excelsior Handicap or Carter Handicap. That doesn't mean I won't gamble on them. It just means that I shouldn't.

Springtime in Kentucky

One sure sign that spring is here is being able to walk Linus the black Lab without a coat. Another is opening day at beautiful Keeneland, which begins its three-week meeting Friday. Unfortunately, the weather is likely to be miserable, with an 80-percent chance of showers coming after heavy rain hit Lexington on Thursday. Before putting in its synthetic surface in 2006, Keeneland almost never took races off the grass, but now it does, so Friday's feature, the 1 1/16-mile, Grade III Transylvania Stakes, could be taken off the turf.

If it stays on the grass, the stakes-winning Prussian, a Bill Mott/Kent Desormeaux collaboration, will be heavily favored and perhaps vulnerable. The front-running Prussian couldn't handle Monmouth's water-logged turf course the day before the Breeders' Cup, but chances that Keeneland's turf will be as soggy as that are most unlikely, and if it is, the course won't be used Friday. If it stays on, I'll be tempted to try to beat Prussian with Boss Lafitte, which may be a silly stab. But 'Boss' is a son of Dynaformer, whose offspring, for whatever reason, do exceptionally well on Keeneland's turf. Boss Lafitte also got a positive workout comment by the Keeneland clocker.

Back later with picks for Saturday's Derby preps -- the Wood Memorial, Illinois Derby and Santa Anita Derby -- plus a few other stakes at Aqueduct and Keeneland.

The Future Is Now, Part III

The third and final Kentucky Derby Future Wager runs from Thursday through Sunday, but it's a bit late to dive into this kind of a pool. The money in future bets nearly always is made early on, when most people are taking wild shots or overbetting the leading 2-year-olds. If you have a strong opinion on a promising horse and can get what you consider overlaid odds, that's the time to get down. This year I was into stabbing mode, and barring a miracle, my $5 bets in Pool 1 on Crown of Thorns (injured, won't run), Blackberry Road (not good enough) and Majestic Warrior (great pedigree, two lousy preps) are lost and gone forever. Boo hoo.

I can't recall ever getting involved in Pool 3. Anyone who took the ever-popular "all others" in Pools 1 and 2 is rooting hard for the latest phenom, undefeated Florida Derby winner Big Brown, who was not a separate interest until Pool 3. They're also hoping that the overbet Pyro and War Pass go off form or bomb out at Churchill Downs.

I've scored this year on turf and artificial surface with Lane's End Stakes winner Adriano, so I might throw $5 on him while hoping that his connections will change their minds about skipping the Derby. The son of A.P. Indy was up the track with excuses (post 12, bad trip) in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, his only try on dirt. Maybe he deserves another chance, although they could probably find a less risky place to experiment than the Kentucky Derby.

After Adriano's 2 1/2-length romp in the Lane's End on Turfway Park's Polytrack, his owner, Donald Adam, told the Thoroughbred Times: "This is not on the dirt. I just think we'd have to think long and hard whether that would make sense for him. Because the worst thing in the world is if we were to do that and he did very poorly, it may set him back. We think there are a lot of very nice races to be run this year."

Wise words, but if Adriano runs well next time out, probably in the 1 1/16-mile Lexington Stakes on Keeneland's synthetic surface two weeks before the Derby, can Adam and trainer Graham Motion remain immune to Derby Fever? If so, good for them, and their admirable self-discipline should serve them well down the road. But maybe they'll surrender to temptation, as nearly all do, and think, "Well, there's only one Derby, so we're going to take a shot."

So this weekend I'm going to put $5 on Adriano, knowing I'm taking a chance (that he'll run in the Derby) that I'll get an even more unlikely chance (that he'll win). But bettor, beware: Do as I say, not as I do. I'm not recommending that you follow my convoluted illogic, but for $5 at odds of 20-1 or greater, I won't have any regrets.

'War Pass' must battle back in Wood Memorial

In Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," a soothsayer tells the celebrated mass murderer to "beware the Ides of March." The Roman dictator ignores the weirdo's advice, which was a bad move. Down goes Caesar! Down goes Caesar! As Clemenza from "The Godfather" would have said, "Big Julie? You won't see him no more."

The most recent Ides of March, Saturday the 15th, also was a very bad day for Robert LaPenta, a New Yorker with Italian bloodlines. Like Caesar, his previously undefeated colt War Pass ran into an ambush and went down hard. Last year's 2-year-old champion finished last at odds of 1-20 in the Tampa Bay Derby as his stunned owner watched.

"That whole day had to be my worst in racing," LaPenta said Tuesday. "Seeing him flailing and in distress at the top of the stretch, I'll never forget that."

War Pass reared just before the gates opened and was squeezed back from both sides, which kept him from gaining his accustomed position on the lead. He never recovered and retreated meekly with a quarter-mile to go, leaving LaPenta and trainer Nick Zito disgusted and searching for reasons why.

"We scoped him twice and found nothing," La Penta said, "but I think the most likely explanation is that he flipped his palate and couldn't get his air. We don't really know what happened. If he flipped his palate, then we have a reason, but if he did, that's bad because it might happen again."

War Pass' chance to prove that his only defeat was a fluke will come Saturday at Aqueduct in the 1 1/8-mile Wood Memorial, New York's most important Kentucky Derby prep. A solid comeback performance will send him to Louisville for the first Saturday in May. "Frankly, whether he wins or not isn't crucial to me," LaPenta said. "I just want to see him moving forward. I want to see how he reacts mentally and physically [to the Tampa Bay Derby].

"It's going to be a day of a lot of apprehension and stress, and we're looking forward to seeing which War Pass shows up. But if he's at the top of his game, he should win this race."