Derby Story Lines Beginning to Take Odd Shapes

While horseplayers, handicappers, and public touts have all the fun sifting through their facts and figures for the 149th Kentucky Derby (G1) coming up May 6, we poor ink-stained wretches of the Fourth Estate must sit around twiddling our thumbs, wondering what kind of result we'll be stuck with and praying it will be a tale our grandchildren can tell. Or at least gets a few dozen retweets.

We used up a carload of karma last year when the 80-1 Rich Strike  drew into the race at the 11th hour and took colts trained by Steve Asmussen and Chad Brown to the woodshed. The fact that Rich Strike hasn't won a race since adds even more fairy dust to the story. What if the clock struck 12 for Cinderella and that was it? She had a fabulous time at the ball, so who cares about marrying a prince?

Two weeks out from the big day and certain plot lines are beginning to congeal.

Todd Pletcher and Brad Cox will saddle a third of the field (also the sun will rise in the East). Forte  will be favored because no one else deserves to be favored. It might rain.

Bill Nack of Newsday and Sports Illustrated would pass on the Red Smith mantra that a writer covering the Derby does not root for a particular horse. They root for the best story. In that spirit, if one of these things could happen on the first Saturday in May, the words would flow a lot more easily:

*Headline writers will have a field day if Derma Sotogake  replicates his UAE Derby (G2) romp, or Continuar  validates the special Japanese pathway to a Derby invitation. "The Rising Sun Shines Bright on My Old Kentucky Home," etc. The last horse bred outside the Western Hemisphere to win the Derby was Tomy Lee, in 1959. He was bred in England, at Hadrian Stud near Newmarket. 

Hiroyuki Asanuma, the owner of Derma Sotogake, is a dermatologist, while a "sotogake" is one of 82 sumo wrestling moves. This would be the first time in memory that sumo wrestling and horse racing intersect.

*In this century alone, 15 renewals of the Derby have been won by jockeys born in Peru, Chile, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, France, Canada, and the Dominican Republic. Heck, there once was a jockey born in Switzerland who won the Derby. Switzerland! Maybe it's Ireland's turn.

The old Irish sod is the birthplace of some of the finest riders in the history of the sport, including Pat Eddery, Johnny Murtagh, Kieren Fallon, Pat Smullen, and Michael Kinane. Dublin's James Graham can do them all one better if he can make his third Derby mount the lucky charm aboard Confidence Game , his stretch-running winner of the Rebel Stakes (G2) earlier this year.

*For that matter, as long as the Derby wants to flaunt its internationalism, the last time a trainer from a Latin American nation won the Derby was 1978, when Cuba's favorite son, Lazaro Barrera, added Affirmed to his earlier win with Bold Forbes. Argentina's Horatio Luro also won twice, with Decidedly and Northern Dancer. 

Now comes Gustavo Delgado, a tower of racing power in his native Venezuela, who has Mage  primed for the Derby off his second to Forte in the Florida Derby (G1). Go ahead and think it was a fluke. But this pen will be poised just in case Delgado joins Juan Arias of Canonero II fame as Venezuelans taking home the roses.

*Canonero, now there was a surprise. Who knows what kind of price he would have been had he not been lumped in the 1971 mutuel field with five others, at $8.70 on the dollar for the lucky lottery players in the crowd. The other five in the field of 20 finished 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. 

After Rich Strike's ambush last year, there figures to be no sneaking up on the Derby for a while. The horses on the cusp of making the race are known quantities—including the 2-3 finishers from the Santa Anita Derby (G1)—but there are some wild hares already in the race, like Sun Thunder , who will enter the gate with only a maiden win to his name. Just like the 50-1 Giacomo in 2005.

*Thoroughbred racing thrives on family connections for prosperity and continuity. The richer the families the better. William K. Warren Jr. has been a stalwart supporter of the game for the past 40 years, campaigning the likes of Saint Liam, City of Light  , and Derby third-place finisher Denis of Cork . His son and daughter-in-law, Andrew Warren and Rania Warren, will step into the Derby ring on their own with Raise Cain , a son of Violence   who has Lemon Drop Kid on the bottom for help at the mile and a quarter.

Raise Cain gave the younger Warrens their first graded stakes winner in the Gotham Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct Racetrack for trainer Ben Colebrook. He was stopped cold on the rail that day and won anyway, ignoring a loose horse on the lead as he drew off by an official 7 1/2 lengths. This guy does not seem to rattle.

*Charlie Whittingham, who trained horses to the end of the line, once said nobody would know how old they were if they weren't told when they were born. Fat chance in this age-obsessed culture, which is why Ken Tohill—of the Castro Valley, Calif., Tohills—is brushing close to history as the oldest jockey ever to ride in racing's greatest spectacle. 

Tohill, who has boots older than Flavien Prat, has won 4,099 races through April 21. He has never even ridden at Churchill Downs, but he has been a perennial force at places like Prairie Meadows, Sunland Park, and Turf Paradise. Tohill will be riding his longshot Sunland Park Derby (G3) winner Wild On Ice  in the Kentucky Derby. But just to keep things real, he will be riding three on Saturday at Turf Paradise in a program geared to Arizona-breds. Tohill maintains he's only as old as he feels, and he feels great about his Derby debut. Anyway, he doesn't turn 61 until June 19.