One last 'prep' before Derby Fever breaks out

Last year was Street Sense's year at the Kentucky Derby. Jeff Haynes/AFP/Getty Images MAILBAG Submit a question or comment for Tim Layden. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Early Friday morning I drove through Gate 5 on the Churchill Downs backstretch. I motored along, without stopping once, through a maze of horse barns and small auxiliary buildings until I pulled into a parking spot alongside the massive racetrack, across the infield from the twin spires. One car was parked next to mine. Trainer Nick Zito, whom I had arranged to meet at the track, stood nearby, talking with an acquaintance. Not another person was in sight. Had I brought my crossbow, I could have fired arrows in four directions and not harmed a soul.

This is unexciting information except in the context of time and place. Slowly over the next three weeks Churchill Downs will rise to life, culminating on May 3 with the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby. On the mornings leading to the race, it will be challenging to walk -- never mind drive -- through the barn area, as thousands of spectators mix with media and track workers -- a vast sea of Derby celebrants, some of them drinking bourbon and Bud Light much too early in the day.

Derby Day is another matter, on which volumes have been written. It's all true, every word and more. And while there is a singular buzz to the climactic event, the beauty of the Derby lies in the buildup.

There is a certain cliché to the concept of Derby Fever, which democratically afflicts sheiks and commoners alike, and all forms in between. Man (or woman) breeds (or buys) horse. Trainer, owner and jockey together pursue the lifelong dream of winning the most significant horse race on the planet. Horse wins. Everybody cries. It only works every year as a story because it's true.

As a primer on this concept, I suggest you view the movie The First Saturday in May, a documentary filmed in the Triple Crown season of 2006 by brothers Brad and John Hennegan. The film premieres April 13 and hits selected theaters nationwide on April 18.

The Hennegan brothers shot miles of film chasing down Triple Crown contenders for the campaign that would include the brilliant and ill-fated Barbaro. I say this not only because their publicity materials state so, but because in my own annual journey along that same trail, I couldn't escape Brad's HD camera. I sat in paraplegic trainer Dan Hendricks' office in California. There was Hennegan. I lounged in the empty grandstand at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, visiting with septuagenarian trainer Bob Holthus. There was Hennegan.

(Footage of this exchange appears in the film. Holthus' cell phone rings, he flips it open and puts off a caller by drawling, "I'm here talking to Sports Illustrated." You can see me sitting nearby, taking tokes in an awkward left-handed scrawl.)

My point: The Hennegans were relentless in capturing the passion -- maybe even desperation -- that accompanies the Derby chase every year. Almost everyone associated with a horse clawing his (or her) way to the Derby understands that if even if they have been there before, they might never be back again. It's an added bonus that 2006 brought Barbaro, who was both one of the most talented horses of the last several decades, but also one whose story became one of the most poignant. See the movie. It will help you understand that the Derby is more than mint juleps, My Old Kentucky Home and a little too much pre-game on NBC (and everywhere else).

Saturday brings the Blue Grass Stakes and the Arkansas Derby, the final two traditional Kentucky Derby "prep" races, an onerous term for events with a combined value of $1.75 million and rich, proud histories of their own. But we are a big event culture. The whole NFL season is a Super Bowl "prep." (Among Derby prep races, the Blue Grass is truly emblematic of this thinking: Because it is contested on a synthetic surface considered unreliable by handicappers, it is literally a throw-out workout, albeit for a big paycheck with thousands watching. Last year Street Sense finished second in a blanket, four-horse photo finish with three horses who could not touch him in his Derby win three weeks later and 70 miles away. Louisiana Derby winner Pyro will be the Blue Grass favorite, but there is little concern over whether he wins the race).

After these races are finished, we will largely know which horses are headed to Louisville for the Derby and which will be favored. The meteoric Big Brown, winner of the Florida Derby in a sensational performance, is likely to be the favorite. Wood Memorial winner Tale of Ekati, with likeably irascible trainer Barclay Tagg of Funny Cide fame, will be popular as well. Pyro was considered by many handicappers the leader in the clubhouse until Big Brown's performance in Florida.

Among the 20 horses in the Derby's starting gate, Zito will probably have at least two. Maybe three. One of the likely starters is Cool Coal Man (so named by Zito because he is a son of Mineshaft and because, well, Zito thinks he's cool), who will ahem, race, in the Blue Grass. Another is War Pass, the 2-year-old champion who was roundly denigrated after finishing last at 1-20 odds in the Tampa Bay Derby, but rallied last week to finish a game second in the Wood Memorial. There are serious questions about whether War Pass can handle the Derby's one and one-quarter miles, but there are none about his toughness after the Wood, where he dismissed a rabbit who forced him to run a blistering pace and still wasn't beaten until the final jumps.

On Friday morning at the deserted Churchill backstretch, Zito climbed into War Pass's stall and checked the horse's forelegs, running his hands up and down the skin. Whether he can run 10 furlongs or not, War Pass is a breathtaking and talented animal. "Unbridled's Song, Bellamy Road, War Pass," Zito said. "For pure talent, those three are special out of all the horses I've trained. Never mind the mile and a quarter." This from a man who has trained two other Derby winners (Strike The Gold in 1991 and Go For Gin in '94) and countless Grade I stakes winners.

It is worth viewing the Derby experience through Zito's eyes. He has a New Yorker's gift for bluntness (and for b.s., but that's part of every game and part of the fun) and an eye for the larger picture. In 2005, Zito started five horses in the Derby, a record-tying 25 percent of the bloated field. Among them was Bellamy Road, who won the Wood by 17-and-a-half lengths and broke a longstanding track record for the distance. It was arguably the best prep race performance in history.

Bellamy Road did not win the Derby. He got cooked by fast fractions that set the race up for long shot Giacomo (and introduced the world to delightful trainer John Shirreffs and owner Jerry Moss). None of Zito's five starters ran well and that made him an easy target. He lost the Kentucky Derby five times in the same day. Asked if he's scarred by the experience. "Scars? No," he said. "Do I feel bad that I had the five horses and had a chance to win and I didn't? Sure. But I'm a lucky guy. Compared to some things that happen in life, this is nothing. Maybe five was a little too many."

Now he is back. He is standing outside the barn. It's not yet mid-April. There is the quiet again. Churchill before the chaos. If Zito gets two horses to Derby week, or maybe three, there will be daily press conferences outside his barn. There will be dozens of media from newspapers and magazines and television and radio stations and blogs. We will all be demanding to know if he can win another one. It has been 14 years since his last and three years since he had those five starters.

So I ask him now if he wants it again and it is the easiest of answers because this is the Derby. "You've got me in a vulnerable spot," says Zito. "You see guys like Bill Parcells or Bob Knight, who win it all once and they want to win it again. Yes, I'm thirsty to win one more Derby. Fourteen years, I'd like to finish my career with one more Derby. Am I greedy? Absolutely. What else can I say?"

They run the Kentucky Derby only once year. The rest of the year you park and shoot crossbows. That is why a man -- any many -- gets greedy.