Afleet Alex, at 9-to-2 odds, could be this year's version of Smarty Jones. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
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During the last two Triple Crown seasons the horse-racing gods have given their sport entry into America's living rooms -- and chat rooms -- with heartwarming storylines that transformed the Sport of Kings into the sport of commoners. The sports landscape is impossibly cluttered and noisy; horse racing gets precious help when its stars seem like they could be the guy next door.

The 2003 Kentucky Derby was won by Funny Cide, a New York-bred gelding with 10 owners, including five fun-loving former high-school buddies from upstate New York. They called themselves Sackatoga Stable and traveled to Churchill Downs in a rented school bus they christened their "Yellow Stretch Limo." In a game where yearlings are sold every year for millions of dollars, they bought a gelding for $75,000, and he nearly took them -- and America -- to the Triple Crown. The TV ratings soared. A horse's name punctured water-cooler conversations.

In '04, a repeat seemed impossible, yet along came a reddish colt named Smarty Jones. Smarty won the Kentucky Derby and, in one of the most dominant performances in recent racing history, the Preakness. As a 2-year-old, he had nearly killed himself in a starting-gate accident, and neither his owners -- two senior citizens from the Philadelphia suburbs -- nor his trainer or jockey ever had participated in the Derby. Smarty's TV ratings were even better than Funny Cide's. People cried when Birdstone beat him in the Belmont Stakes.

Is it too much to ask the fates for a triple crown of another sort, for a third consecutive horse-racing story America will embrace?

The good news is that there's a chance. Afleet Alex, who was tabbed the 9-to-2 betting choice in Saturday's Derby at Churchill Downs, is a treasure trove of delightful and heartwarming little stories. Like Funny Cide, he was bought for $75,000 by a group of friends; like Smarty Jones, those owners are from Philadelphia. Alex, named for three of the five owners' children, was nursed from a Coors Light beer bottle as a yearling by the then 9-year-old daughter of his breeder. That breeder, John Silvertand of Florida, is ill with cancer of the colon and liver, but has outlived a six-month terminal prognosis and says the horse is helping keep him alive. With each of the horse's victories, money is donated to a pediatric-cancer charity called "Alex's Lemonade Stand.''

And Alex can run. Most recently, he won the Arkansas Derby by a storming eight lengths, reversing a surprising sixth-place finish in the Rebel Stakes (both races were held at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark.), when he was suffering from a lung infection. In the long view, Alex arguably is the most accomplished horse in the Derby field, with two second-place finishes in six Grade I and Grade II races. He has demonstrated talent and toughness and it is difficult to imagine any race or pace scenario in which Alex would not be a factor (unless his rider, Derby rookie Jeremy Rose, falls apart).