Jockey Mike Smith, Trainer Todd Pletcher and President of Dogwood Stable Cot Campbell celebrate Palace Malice’s victory in the Belmont Stakes. It was Dogwood’s first Belmont win, Mike Smith’s second and Trainer Todd Pletcher’s second win.

Another Triple Crown campaign has come and gone and our streak without a horse that could sweep the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes stands at 35 years.

It’s not an impossible thing.  There were three horses that swept the trio of Spring Classics in what now should be dubbed the “Spoiled Us ’70s.”  But just as Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (’77) and Affirmed (’78) proved in their varied running styles that the sweep was possible, the more valuable lesson on the true challenge posed by their feat came when Spectacular Bid failed to make the roster of Triple Crown winners a quartet in 1979.

The mighty Bid was one of the greatest American horses of any era and his campaign as a 4-year-old ranks with the best anywhere.  A Blood-Horse poll in 1999 ranked Spectacular Bid 10th among the 20th Century’s Hot 100.  Ahead of him were (in order) Man o’War, Secretariat, Citation Kelso, Count Fleet, Dr. Fager, Native Dancer, Forego and Seattle Slew.  Below him were Tom Fool, Affirmed, War Admiral, Buckpasser and, well, you get the idea.

But soaring hopes for the now “easy game” of winning the Triple Crown crashed in the homestretch at Belmont Park, where the Bid gave away a big lead and was passed by both the victorious newcomer Coastal and runner-up Golden Act, who had finished third in the Derby and second in the Preakness.

Spectacular Bid finished his three-year racing career with a record of 26-2-1 in 30 races and was so dominant late in his career that his career finale was a walkover in the 1980 Woodward Stakes.  No other horse was entered to run against him.

The big gray was close to perfect by almost any measure, but he was not good enough to win the Triple Crown.  And if Spectacular Bid couldn’t pull off the sweep, why should we be stunned that the streak of disappointment he started in 1979 will continue at least until 2014.

There were high hopes for an end to the drought this year when Phipps Stable and Stuart Janney III’s Orb splashed home for an impressive victory in Kentucky Derby 139 at Churchill Downs.  But he followed that bright and optimistic moment with losing efforts in the Preakness (4th) and Belmont Stakes (3rd) and the streak rolls on.

Racing fans of all levels of enthusiasm and sophistication would love to see the roll of the names of Triple Crown winners expand beyond its current 11.  Count me in that group, but if there was to be no Triple Crown winner in 2013, it’s hard to imagine a more satisfying conclusion to the five-week series than last week’s upset by Palace Malice in its final jewel.

Palace Malice with Mike Smith in the Winner’s Circle for the 145th running of The Belmont Stakes for trainer Todd Pletcher and owner Dogwood Stable.

If there had to be three different winners in these Triple Crown races, the winners and their connections were a collection of owners, trainers and jockeys that that essentially made this year’s classics a “throwback Triple Crown.”

Let’s take the races one-by-one:

Orb scored an emphatic victory in the Kentucky Derby for his co-owners/breeders, members of one of racing’s few “old money” families still active in the game.  Phipps Stable’s Dinny Phipps and Janney are cousins whose family’s unsuccessful pursuit of the Derby stretched back to 1928.  The family’s Derby hopes had included the likes of Bold Ruler, Buckpasser and Easy Goer, but even with those champions they had never gotten a scent of Derby roses.

Lexington-born trainer Shug McGaughey grew up with Derby dreams and spent a good many years on his climb up racing’s ladder looking at Churchill Downs’ Twin Spires on cold, grey autumn mornings while dreaming of the first Saturday in May.  He had saddled only one horse in the racing since his best shot, favored Easy Goer, was beaten by rival Sunday Silence in the 1989 Derby, but his turn finally arrived when Orb struck the front in the late stages of  Derby 139.

Toss Bluegrass legend Claiborne Farm into the mix, as Orb was the 10th Derby winner to be bred or raised at the century-old Paris, Ky. institution.

Some of the Derby’s romance faded when Orb was outrun in Baltimore, but who could suppress at least a small smile after Oxbow led from start-to-finish for a trio of American racing icons in Calumet Farm, trainer D. Wayne Lukas and jockey Gary Stevens.

Calumet, a true racing and breeding legend that has raced eight Kentucky Derby winners and bred nine, is now under the leadership of Kentucky-born billionaire Brad Kelley and Oxbow’s Preakness provided the Lexington farm with its first victory in a Triple Crown race since 1968. The 77-year-old Lukas, winning his 14th Triple Crown race and his first since 2000, broke a tie with fellow Hall of Famer “Sunny Jim” Fitzsimmons for all-time wins in the series. And Stevens, a Hall of Fame rider who emerged at 50 from seven years of retirement, boosted his Triple Crown win total to nine with his first triumph in the series since 2001.

Then came the Belmont, where runner-up Oxbow and Orb, who finished third, fared well, but the day belonged to longshot Palace Malice, pioneer owner W. Cothran “Cot” Campbell and 47-year-old jockey Mike Smith.

The 13-1 Palace Malice earned redemption after predictably wilted to finish 12th after setting an unexpected blazing pace in the Derby.  Smith was aboard for the Derby ride, but trainer Todd Pletcher ended a one-race experiment with blinkers, a piece of equipment that surely contributed to his strange Derby run.  This time Palace Malice relaxed behind the early pacesetters, took over with a quarter-mile to run under the 47-year-old Smith and cruised home to win by 3 ¼-lengths.

The result validated Smith’s Hall of Fame credentials and status as a jockey who is frequently at his best when the spotlight is the brightest.  And the win might have been the career highlight for Campbell, an 85-year-old former Aiken, S.C., ad man who pioneered racing’s owner partnership model with Dogwood Stable.  It’s the second classic win for Campbell and Dogwood, who had won the Preakness with Summer Squall in 1990.

While the continued absence of a horse that could sweep the Triple Crown series frustrated many fans, it is difficult to describe three races with a roster of winners that included such respected and treasured figures as the Phippses, Janney, McGaughey, Calumet Farm, Lukas, Campbell and jockeys Stevens and Smith as a disappointment.

Just call it a “Throwback Triple Crown” and savor a five-week period during which this group that has meant so much to racing over a span of nearly a century took turns in the spotlight.

The 3-year-olds that participated in the Triple Crown races will now take a collective breather and look toward races like the Travers at Saratoga and Monmouth Park’s Haskell Invitational and, after that, races against older foes that will test and affirm their talent and quality.

Many of the top older horses in training will compete Saturday night at Churchill Downs in the $500,000 Stephen Foster Handicap, a Grade I event and a “Win and You’re In” race on the road to this fall’s $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.   The evening will feature ceremonies during which McGaughey and winning jockey will accept the engraved trophies earned in Orb’s Kentucky Derby triumph.

The Foster field includes 2012 Foster winner Fort Larned, defending winner Ron the Greek, 2011 winner Pool Play, multiple stakes winner Successful Dan and rising star Take Charge Indy.  Three other stakes races will be featured during the first of three consecutive “Downs After Dark” Saturday night racing programs, with two-time champion and defending winner Royal Delta due to run in the $175,000 Fleur De Lis Handicap.

The 2013 renewal of the 1 ½-mile final jewel of the Triple Crown lacks the drama and anticipation of renewals when a rare Triple Crown is possible, but this year’s running should be enjoyable and a pretty good horse race.

It provides the stage for a “rubber match” between the winners of the Triple Crown’s first two legs.  The results of both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness produced feel-good stories that overcame the disappointing realization, which hit home in the upper stretch of the latter, that 2013 would not be the year that would end racing’s 35-year wait for a Triple Crown winner.

Despite Orb’s disappointing fourth-place finish, there was much post-Preakness cheering for age-defying Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who scored his record 14th victory in a Triple Crown race with Oxbow’s middle jewel win; the resurgent Gary Stevens, the winning rider who was back in action at 50 following seven years of retirement from the saddle; and owner Calumet Farm, a true racing and Bluegrass legend being led back to prominence by Kentucky-born billionaire Brad Kelley, a onetime Franklin, Ky., tobacco farmer who now ranks among the wealthiest individuals and largest landholders in the United States.

The goodwill toward the Preakness victories was similar to the love that flowed for the connections of Orb at Churchill Downs on the soggy first Saturday in May. The long-awaited success in the Derby for co-owners/breeders Stuart Janney III and Ogden “Dinny” Phipps’ Phipps Stable, cousins whose family had first attempted to win the Derby in 1928, and Lexington-born trainer Shug McGaughey, already a resident of racing’s Hall of Fame whose infrequent visits to Louisville for Kentucky Derby Day belied a burning desire to win the race, were met with a warm embrace for all from throughout the racing and breeding industries.

Orb’s was seen by many as a just reward for adherence by the owners and trainer to traditional and time-tested practices and a focus on “doing things the right way.”

Also part of the team, and recipients of post-Derby love, was Claiborne Farm, the century-old Paris, Ky., farm where Orb was bred and raised, and winning jockey Joel Rosario, the youngster of the Derby-winning team at the age of 28.

There is a very good chance that Orb, running over his home track at Belmont Park, will rebound to Derby form and win Saturday’s Belmont, a race that Phipps and McGaughey won in 1989 with Easy Goer after that colt had dropped both the Derby and Preakness to rival Sunday Silence.

Preakness winner Oxbow has tactical speed to put him on or close to the lead, which often turns out to be the preferred running style of Belmont winners, although the race is a quarter mile longer than the Kentucky Derby’s demanding mile and a quarter. And, as he did in the Derby and Preakness, Lukas will take a second shot at the Belmont with Will Take Charge, a stretch runner who encountered major traffic problems on Derby Day and had no chance to contend in Oxbow’s pace-less Preakness.

McGaughey and Lukas, the Belmont’s “Big Two” going in, have very strong hands heading into the final Triple Crown race of 2013.  But if someone other than Lukas should knock off favored Orb and McGaughey, chances are the horse that ends up in the winner’s circle will have been saddled by a Lukas protégé.

Two days before entries for the race were drawn on Wednesday, 15 horses were still listed as candidates for the Belmont, which is limited to 16 runners. Of those prospective starters, nine are trained either by Lukas or one of his former assistant trainers.

Heading the latter group is Todd Pletcher, the one-time Lukas pupil who could saddle a record five starters in the race.  His horses include Revolutionary, who ran a fast-closing third in the Derby, and the filly Unlimited Budget, who is coming off a runner-up finish to stablemate Princess of Sylmar in the Longines Kentucky Oaks, the first defeat of her career.  The remaining members of Pletcher’s quintet are the surprise Derby pacesetter Palace Malice and Overanalyze, who finished 12th and 11th, respectively, in the Run for the Roses; and Midnight Taboo, a winner of one of three starts for owner Mike Repole, who also owns Unlimited Budget and Overanalyze.  If all three go, Repole will tie a record for Belmont starters that goes back to 1875, when Price McGrath ran 1-2-4 in a field of 14 with the victorious Calvin, runner-up Aristides – winner of the first Kentucky Derby – and Chesapeake.

Then there is Golden Soul, the 35-1 runner-up to Orb in this year’s Derby for longtime Lukas assistant Dallas Stewart.  Golden Soul bypassed the Preakness at Stewart’s home base at Churchill Downs to await a rematch with Orb in New York.

A late addition to the 2013 Triple Crown fray is Incognito, a son of 1992 Belmont winner and Horse of the Year A.P. Indy trained by Lexington native and former Lukas assistant Kiaran McLaughlin. He has a single win to his credit, but might have the best pedigree for the Belmont’s 12 furlong distance.

In a race with the tradition and importance of the Belmont Stakes, it should be astonishing that nearly two-thirds of a 15-horse field would somehow be connected to a single individual. But American horse racing has never seen anyone quite like D. Wayne Lukas, and nine of Saturday’s 15 likely starters have either a direct or dotted-line connection to the four-time Belmont Stakes winner.

Pace, as the adage goes, makes the race, and the scorching pace in Derby and the slow early fractions in the Preakness were enormous factors in the results of each race. The guess here is that the pace will be honest – at least in regard to a rare major U.S. race run at 1 ½ miles. That pace should be solid enough to set up a big run by Orb, but Palace Malice is a long shot in Saturday’s race that merits a long look from fans.

Palace Malice lost all chance in the Derby when he jumped out of the gate, shot to the front and rolled through withering fractions before he faded abruptly on the far turn.

Look for a more sensible stalking trip for the Dogwood Stable runner in Saturday’s race.  He has trained beautifully since the Derby and, should jockey Mike Smith be able to coax him into a spot behind the leaders in the first mile, Palace Malice should offer a big run at the right price in the Belmont.

Make my Belmont Stakes top four: Palace Malice, Orb, Oxbow and Golden Soul.

A victory aboard Stephen Foster contender Take Charge Indy in the Alysheba on Kentucky Derby Day was one of three Spring Meet stakes wins for jockey Rosie Napravnik.

By the time a period is added to the final sentence of this piece and the time it meets your eyes, four major players in the Belmont Stakes will probably have worked at Churchill Downs in preparation for the final jewel of the 2014 Triple Crown.

Kentucky Derby runner-up Golden Soul had one workout postponed, but was expected to have a single pre-Belmont move on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday. Calumet Farm’s Preakness hero Oxbow and D. Wayne Lukas-trained stablemate Will Take Charge were set this week for their first serious moves since the Preakness, and the Bob Baffert-trained Code West, who romped in a Pimlico allowance race on Preakness Day after finishing second to the popularly-named Bellarmine at Churchill Downs on Derby Day, was also set for a possible Belmont prep.

It’s easy at this time of year to become so focused on the spring classics that one loses focus on strong performances turned in during the Spring Meet at Churchill Downs, which is nearing its midpoint.

So, as we anticipate a strong Churchill Downs impact on the Belmont in the form of big efforts by Kentucky Derby winner Orb, third-place finisher Revolutionary or the brigade from Louisville led by Oxbow and Golden Soul, let’s pause to reflect on some highlights and thoughts about the Spring Meet so far.

Jockey Joao Moreira after winning his first race in North America on Sunday at Churchill Downs.

Let’s begin with:

A stellar field taking shape for the June 15 Stephen Foster Handicap: While 2013 Horse of the Year Wise Dan, the runner-up in last year’s renewal of this race for trainer Charles LoPresti, is now expected to run on the grass in the Firecracker Handicap on June 29, stablemate and older half-brother Successful Dan is a great candidate to uphold the family’s honor.

Carefully handled by LoPresti over the last three seasons because of delicate tendons, he looms as a major threat in the Grade I Foster.  He would be unbeaten in four starts at Churchill Downs if not for a disqualification from a victory in the Grade I Clark Handicap in 2010. He is 8-2-1 in 12 lifetime starts.

But Successful Dan’s run of success will be challenged by 2012 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Fort Larned; Take Charge Indy, a romping winner of the Alysheba on Kentucky Derby Day; 2011 Foster winner Pool Play; Golden Ticket, dead-heat winner of the 2012 Travers at Saratoga; and Alysheba runner-up Cyber Secret.

The Foster undercard will likely feature a bid of two-time champion and Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic winner Royal Delta for a repeat win in the Fleur De Lis Handicap.

A memorable “Downs After Dark” night under the Churchill Downs lights is shaping up for this year’s Stephen Foster Handicap program.

The brilliance of Joel Rosario: the highlight of the Spring Meet for jockey Joel Rosario was his stretch-running victory aboard Orb in the Kentucky Derby, but that was more than three weeks ago. He left town after Derby Day but, as of the end of Monday’s Memorial Day racing program, the 14 wins scored by Rosario during Kentucky Derby Week still ranked fourth among all jockeys competing at the Spring Meet. Five of those wins came during the “Opening Night” program.

Rosie Napravnik delivers: This is hardly shocking news, as Napravnik and Rosario are two of racing’s hottest young stars. Riding in her first full meet at Churchill Downs, the 2012 Kentucky Oaks winner’s 19 wins ranked third in the Spring Meet standings behind Shaun Bridgmohan (29 wins) and Corey Lanerie, who has ridden 23 winners in defense of his 2012 spring title. Three of her wins have been in stakes races.

Midnight Lucky could still be America’s top 3-year-old filly: A previously perfect record for trainer Bob Baffert’s filly went to the wayside when she finished fifth to the surprising Princess Sylmar in the Longines Kentucky Oaks. She traveled from Churchill Downs to Belmont Park on Memorial Day to romp by 6 14 lengths under Napravnik in the one-mile, Grade I Acorn. The Oaks was only the third career start for Midnight Lucky, and the tough outing could have been just what the inexperienced filly needed to take a big step forward.

Biggest riding surprise: apprentice Dylan Davis has six wins so far, and is tied in the jockey standings with three-time Kentucky Derby winner Calvin Borel and Brian Hernandez Jr., who won last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic aboard Fort Larned.

Maker, Asmussen sizzle: Trainer Mike Maker’s barn has been among the nation’s hottest over the winter and spring, and he is atop the “leading trainer” race with 16 wins. But Eclipse Award winner Steve Asmussen is also rolling with 14 wins – five of which have come with 2-year-olds, usually a source of strength for his barn.  Each trainer has a meet winning percentage in excess of 30 percent.

As Maker goes, so go the Ramseys: Perennial leading owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey are making a runaway of the race with leading owners. Their 15 wins through Monday triples the total for current runners-up Richard, Elaine and Bert Klein. Maker is their primary trainer, but the Ramseys have also won with runners trained by Wayne Catalano and Wesley Ward.

Most Impressive 2-year-old: That honor at this very early stage goes to Teardrop, a daughter of Tapit and half-sister to Grade I winner Pyro, who did everything wrong and still rolled to an easy victory at five furlongs in her May 23 debut. Trained by Asmussen, she could run next in the Debutante Stakes on June 22.

Star on the rise: Trainer Ron Moquett’s Gentlemen’s Bet fits that description after winning a six-furlong allowance race on May 17 in a scorching 1:07.90, just missing the track record of 1:07.55. He has won four of five races and could show up next in Saturday’s $100,000-added Aristides at six furlongs.

Strongest First Impression: Globetrotting jockey Joao Moreira made the most of a quick weekend beneath the Twin Spires when the 29-year-old Brazilian notched his first North American victory aboard 25-1 shot Princess Millie in Sunday’s 10th race and returned on Monday to finish a close second to victorious Beat the Blues aboard favored Judy the Beauty in the Grade III Winning Colors.

Moreira has returned to Singapore, where he has been a record-shattering sensation for several years. But his holiday weekend experience in Louisville, preceded by a quick stop at Chicago’s Arlington Park, was a good one.

“The United States is a great place and I’ve always dreamed to get here someday,” he said after the Winning Colors. “If there is really an opportunity for me (to ride in the U.S.), I will definitely grab it.”

Oxbow and Gary Stevens won the Preakness Stakes.

The message should be crystal-clear by now to anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention to goings-on in Thoroughbred racing.

If you write-off D. Wayne Lukas anytime or anywhere, you do so at your peril.

Sure, it had been a long time between sips of success by Lukas in Triple Crown races.  His most recent of his spring classic wins, four of which have come in the Kentucky Derby, was a victory in the 2000 Belmont Stakes.  The winner that day was Commendable, an unlikely longshot who cruised to a front-running Belmont Stakes victory under jockey Pat Day.

But now it has happened again. Lukas added an historic win to his roster of Triple Crown successes when Calumet Farm’s Oxbow shot to the front at Baltimore’s Pimlico under no-longer-retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, set slow fractions and said bade farewell to the field in the stretch for a 1 ¾-length win in the Preakness, the Crown’s middle jewel.

Lukas’ latest Triple Crown success came at the age of 77, though any stranger challenged to guess the age of this calendar-defying legend would be hopelessly outmatched.

The numbers of horses in his stable is much smaller than in during his most successful years, but that has never affected his approach to his craft and his near-mythic work ethic.  The ageless wonder still arrives at the barn each day at 4:30 a.m. and is astride his pony when the track opens for training.  That’s a perfect position to allow Lukas to train his educated eye upon what his horses are doing with their time in those important minutes that ultimately lead to places like the Preakness winner’s circle.

Oxbow’s Preakness victory – along with an upset win by Calumet’s Skyring in Pimlico’s Dixie Handicap that immediately preceded the Triple Crown triumph –  rewarded Lukas for his relentless devotion to his rigorous schedule at an age at which many individuals would be worried be most about making the day’s tee time.

Stuart Janney III and Phipps’ Stable’s Orb, a dominant winner of the Kentucky Derby just two weeks earlier and a strong favorite to win the Preakness and take aim on racing’s first Triple Crown in 35 years, was never a real factor, though he rallied decently to finish fourth.

The victory by Lukas was his 14th in a Triple Crown race, which broke a tie with fellow racing Hall of Famer Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons.  “Mr. Fitz” trained a pair of Triple Crown winners for William Woodward’s Belair Stable, but spent the latter part of his storied career as the private trainer for the Phipps family.

The best of his Phipps trainees might have been Bold Ruler, who had the bad luck of catching what is widely regarded as the toughest Kentucky Derby field when he finished fourth to Calumet’s Iron Liege in its 1957 running.  Perhaps best known as the sire of the legendary Secretariat, Bold Ruler rebounded from his Kentucky Derby setback to earn “Horse of the Year” honors for that 3-year-old season.

So it was a bit ironic that the victory that separated Lukas from Fitzimmons came at the expense of the Phippses, Mr. Fitz’s longtime client.  While Orb had delivered the Kentucky Derby, a victory sought by generations of the family, the Phipps’ dream of winning its first Triple Crown ended with a resounding thud when Lukas’ Oxbow and his renowned pilot Stevens put the Preakness field to sleep and the sixth-place finisher in the Derby pulled off his Preakness surprise.

Lukas, who has always displayed a keen understanding throughout his incredible career of the importance of keeping score, appreciated that his latest solo spot in the record books involved surpassing one a racing icon.

“I well shared that record with a very special man in this industry,” Lukas said after Oxbow’s triumph.  “If I never broke it, I was proud of that. I know he meant so much to the thoroughbred industry. I thought maybe we’d win another one, but to get it done, it’s probably going to be on Trivial Pursuit in about five minutes, but that’s about it.”

The Preakness result was a huge disappointment for Shug McGaughey, the Lexington native whose overdue Kentucky Derby success with Orb elicited overflowing praise and warmth throughout a horse industry often criticized for its narrow, “me first” focus.  But the 62-year-old McGaughey, still a pup in comparison to Lukas, handled his setback with the grace he displayed in victory on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs. And he saluted Lukas, who ended McGaughey’s Triple Crown dream, at least for this year.

“One thing about him, when he wasn’t doing as good, he was still the first guy on that pony at 5 o’clock in the morning going to the racetrack,” McGaughey said. “He was always a very optimistic guy. He’s been a credit to this game for a long time. Some of his things might have been questioned along the way, but my hat’s off to him. It always has been.”

Another key player in the Preakness saga is reclusive Kentucky-born billionaire Brad Kelley, who was not on the grounds at Pimlico when Oxbow and Lukas provided him with the biggest win of his relatively brief run in Thoroughbred racing. The onetime Franklin, Ky. tobacco farmer – now one of America’s wealthiest individuals and one of the world’s largest landowners – runs Kentucky’s famed Calumet Farm –(winner of a record eight Kentucky Derbys and breeder of nine Derby winners) and is intent on reviving that historic property as a force in American  racing and breeding.

His partnership with Lukas is a perfect pairing of individuals who dream big and have a proven knack for finding ways to turn those dreams into reality.

The power of that partnership suggests that a fifth Kentucky Derby victory by Lukas – which would move him alone into second place for all-time Derby wins behind Calumet’s six-time winner Ben Jones – is realistic and very possible. But let’s wait a bit before we enter that discussion.

It appears there is a very good chance that the winners of 2013’s first two spring classics could meet again in the Belmont Stakes, Triple Crown’s final jewel, at Belmont Park on June 8.  The most recent meeting of Derby and Preakness winners came two years ago, when longshot Ruler On Ice upset troubled Derby winner Animal Kingdom and Preakness winner Shackleford.

It is reasonable to expect that Orb would bounce back from his disappointing Preakness with a stronger effort over his home track at Belmont.  But Oxbow has a running style that fits well in a 1 ½-mile race that often favors horses with early or tactical speed over stretch runners and deep closers.

In short, when the Belmont Stakes is run, you’d be advised not to overlook Oxbow and Lukas.

“You’ve got to be in it to win it,” a racing adage advises, and it might have well have been invented for the resurgent Lukas.  As he helps guide the Calumet revival with the enthusiastic and deep-pocketed Kelley, the odds are improving that racing’s most accomplished septuagenarian has a chance to win the Belmont and more big races in the months and years to come.

Orb won the first leg of the Triple Crown on May 4 in the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby.

By virtue of living in what is clearly a horse racing town, it’s not exactly a surprise when people want to talk about the new Kentucky Derby winner and their experience at Churchill Downs during Derby Week.

Louisville is, after all, a horse racing town.

But the tone of the talk in the nearly two weeks since the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby on the streets and in the shops of this town has seemed a bit different since Stuart Janney III and Phipps Stable’s Orb swept past most of the field on a soggy Derby Day at Churchill Downs to win America’s greatest race.

Surely there has been much love expressed in this community for Shug McGaughey, the Hall of Fame trainer from Lexington who finally secured his first victory in the Derby with the homebred son of Malibu Moon.  Churchill Downs was a stop on his rise to the top of American racing, and Shug is regarded as a favorite son by fans in every corner of Kentucky’s horse industry.

But since Orb splashed home on that soggy Derby Day at Churchill Downs, those conversations have seemed to focus much more on looking forward instead of a backward glance to the Run for the Roses. As a fairly recognizable member of the Churchill Downs team, I’m approached many times a day to talk about Derby, which is a delightful part of the job.

This year, however, those conversations are pointing in a special direction. Those fans want more from Orb.

They want victories in Saturday’s Preakness at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course, followed by another victory three weeks later in the Belmont Stakes at New York’s Belmont Park. Wins in those races would provide Thoroughbred racing with its first Triple Crown sweep since Affirmed outlasted Alydar in a dramatic run through the final yards of the 1 ½-mile Belmont 35 years ago.

Not only do they want that elusive Triple Crown, many were so taken by the style and authority of Orb’s Kentucky Derby triumph and believe that this horse is special and the one that will complete that difficult task.

While there is always hope that the Derby winner will go on to join the elite group of 11 Triple Crown winners, it seems that optimism – and the confidence, shaky as it might be – has been a good bit stronger than usual in the days following Orb’s victory in the Run for the Roses. Lots of people in this horse racing town want to believe a Triple Crown can happen, but this year the words rolling off the lips of a good number of those fans provide evidence that they do believe that Orb can be the one.

The hope among fans of the sport and the Derby that they might see a Triple Crown winner in their lifetime accounts for some of the sunny optimism. But there are other factors in Orb’s victory that have fueled stronger Triple Crown dreams.

One is the horse himself.  Orb is unbeaten on the season, is a beautiful athlete and, once he got rolling on Derby Day under jockey Joel Rosario, he left little doubt as to which member of the Derby field was the best horse.

Another is the Shug factor. The display of love and appreciation for the Derby-winning trainer in the hours and days following his signature victory on the first Saturday in May has been as warm as the embrace for Calvin Borel after the first of his three Derby wins with Street Sense in 2007. Perhaps the crowd was not as demonstrative as it was for Calvin as he celebrated that Derby win or his encore performances in 2009 and 2010, but McGaughey’s story and his success have connected with a lot of people.

To borrow a well-worn adage, if I had a dollar for every person who has uttered the phrase “I’m so happy that Shug won” in post-Derby conversations, I might be able to go out and buy a nice yearling myself.

It also can’t hurt that, after watching Orb’s only workout between the Derby and the Preakness, the always calm and measured McGaughey called the move “breathtaking” and said it gave him “chills.” If you’re looking for another confidence-builder, those words will do.

And, along with Shug, the rest of Orb’s connections resonate with many fans. Racing and Derby fans love Cinderella stories like those surrounding the Sackatoga Stable group of high school buddies that won the 2004 Derby with Funny Cide and the team that vanned Mine That Bird from New Mexico to Louisville to rattle the Twin Spires with a 50-1 long shot victory in 2009.

But they also appreciate the clear joy expressed by Stuart Janney and Ogden “Dinny” Phipps, the cousins who bred and co-own Orb, in realizing a dream of a family that has loved racing and competed on its highest levels for well over a century. The family had produced the likes of Bold Ruler, Buckpasser and Easy Goer – who ranked 14th, 19th and 34th on a ranking by The Blood-Horse of the top 100 horses of the 20th century – but had not been able to win the Derby’s roses. All three horses, now enshrined in racing’s Hall of Fame, were bred and foaled at legendary Claiborne Farm. Orb is the 10th Derby winner to be bred or raised on the grounds of the Paris, Ky. farm.

Orb is clearly a talented horse and appears to be improving as the second jewel of the Triple Crown approaches. Throw in the foundation provided by McGaughey, his owners and the Claiborne pedigree, and it’s easy to see why fans at every level of racing find a reason to believe when discussion turns to Orb’s Triple Crown chances.

As of this writing, it appears that Orb will face eight rivals in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness.  There appears to be ample pace to set up a Derby-style late charge, but Orb has more tactical speed that he displayed in the Derby and there’s a good chance he’ll be much closer in the early stages of Saturday’s race in Baltimore.

His biggest rival could be one of three new shooters in the Preakness, and a foe that is familiar.  Departing won the Illinois Derby and is a gelding owned and bred in partnership by Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider, the team that turned back the unbeaten Zenyatta with Blame in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs. Orb and Departing spent time in the same Claiborne paddock early on, and now they’ll meet with much on the line in the Preakness.

Of those horses back for another try after losing to Orb in the Derby, the ones most likely to offer turnaround performances would appear to be Will Take Charge, who was running alongside Orb at Churchill Downs until Verrazano shifted into reverse in front of him in the homestretch, and Itsmyluckyday, who simply threw in a poor run on Derby Day.

The guess here is that Orb will again prove to be the best horse, with the help of the hottest jockey in the land at the controls in the saddle. Make my Preakness top four: Orb, Itsmyluckyday, Departing and Will Take Charge.

If Orb delivers, he’ll fuel three more weeks of “what if” conversations leading up to the Belmont, the Triple Crown’s remaining jewel and people inside and outside of the sport will be talking up the horse and the possibility of the first Triple Crown in 35 years.

He has a big chore to accomplish in the Preakness, but Orb could be the horse to really give them something to talk about in the days leading up to the Belmont and beyond.

Orb with jockey Joel Rosario captured the 139th running of the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands, giving trainer Shug McGaughey and owners Stuart S. Janney III and Phipps Stable a win. Golden Soul was second; Revolutionary was third.

As the realization of a lifelong dream unfolded before him on a soggy first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs, Claude Ray “Shug” McGaughey was not watching from a warm and cozy spot on Millionaires Row, over even one of the Churchill Downs boxes in Section 318 where the connections of Kentucky Derby runners spend some of the most anxious two-minute increments of their lives.

Although he works for one of the few “old money” family stables that were commonplace in racing’s brightest days in the American sports spotlight in the middle decades of the 20th century, Shug watched his first Kentucky Derby come to pass from the spot in which he is most comfortable. He was downstairs on the bricks, watching the race on a television in a small office just off the side of the paddock runway.

It was there that Shug quietly watched Orb fly down the middle of the sloppy track, blow past his remaining challengers and win the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands by an emphatic 2 1/2 lengths. Only when a couple of bystanders embraced him did McGaughey allow himself to smile.

But there were no high-fives. There was no jumping about to celebrate the achievement of a lifetime dream. The Lexington native smiled and simply headed across the track to the infield Winner’s Circle that greets only one horse each year.

Orb took the lead late in Kentucky Derby 139.

That’s the winner of the Kentucky Derby, and in 2013 that horse came from Shug McGaughey’s barn.

During a training career that had already earned McGaughey a spot in the Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame, the native son of the Commonwealth has now won the sports’ ultimate prize.

“It’s a race I’ve always wanted to win, a race I’ve always wanted to compete in if I thought I had the right horse,” McGaughey said during the post-win press conference. “Finally today, we had the right horse.”

McGaughey scored his first victory as a trainer in 1976 at New Hampshire’s Rockingham Park, but prior to last Saturday, McGaughey had only had seven horses in the Kentucky Derby, two-horse entries in a pair of those. His best chance at winning was clearly a 1989 run by Easy Goer, a talented and beautifully-bred colt who ran into a California-based buzzsaw named Sunday Silence. Those horses participated in one of the great East-West rivalries in American racing in the latter half of the 20th century.

The McGaughey-trained Easy Goer and stablemate Awe Inspiring finished second and third, respectively, on that cold and rainy Saturday at Churchill Downs. The trainer had saddled only one Derby hopeful since Easy Goer, a stretch that says much more about the patience of the trainer and his main clients than the quality of the well-bred horses in his care.

Orb, a son of the Maryland-based stallion Malibu Moon, is owned and bred by two branches of one of the most revered families in racing. Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps heads Phipps Stable, which hired McGaughey to be its private trainer in 1985. Phipps Stable’s partner is Stuart Janney III, a cousin of the Phippses whose family owned and raced the great filly Ruffian. A deep and abiding love of Thoroughbred racing and breeding has been a part of life in their families for nearly two centuries.

The working relationship between Phipps and McGaughey has really been a beautiful friendship. The Kentuckian’s thoughtful, patient approach fit perfectly with the Phipps philosophy, and now it has produced a first-ever thrill for both the trainer and the Phipps and Janney families: a victory in the Kentucky Derby.

Jockey Joel Rosario, owner Ogden Phipps, trainer Shug McGaughey (holding trophy), co-owner Stuart Janney and Governor Beshear and his wife Jane celebrated the Kentucky Derby winner.

“He does it the right way,” an appreciative Phipps said of McGaughey’s style moments after the realization of their shared dream.  “Take your time. Let the horse bring you to the race.”

On the morning after Orb’s Kentucky Derby win, McGaughey made it clear that his feeling toward the Phipps and Janney families was mutual.

“I think it’s pretty unusual to have people that are as patient as they are, to have the relationships that we’ve got between owner and trainer,” he said. “There’s absolutely no interference whatsoever, and with that it allows me to do and operate in the best way that I think that I can. I’m not sure that if I was in a position where someone was pushing me that I would be able to train the way that I do and that would, maybe, force me into making a mistake that I don’t want to make.”

Another part of Orb’s Kentucky Derby is Claiborne Farm, the legendary Paris, Ky., racing and breeding operation where the 2013 Derby winner was foaled and raised.  The Phipps family’s mares reside there, and Orb is the tenth Derby winner to be raised or foaled on its sprawling grounds.

Jockey Joel Rosario, the hottest young star in racing, was the newcomer to the team, but he rides with the confidence of Derby legends Hartack and Arcaro.  One gets the feeling that reporters will be talking with Rosario for many Kentucky Derbies to come.

McGaughey was quick to deflect praise to his owners and rider, and to his barn staff.  But also in his thoughts in the moments following the greatest triumph of a Hall-of-Fame career were the many people who helped him step into racing and make it a career.  And he thought of those who have shared the journey with him.

Those thoughts certainly included David Carr, who offered McGaughey, then a student at Ole Miss, a hot-walking job that became a job as assistant trainer.  In the mid-70’s, he went to work as a groom for Hall of Fame trainer Frank Whitely, and later became an assistant to Whitely’s son, David.

Many others were on Shug McGaughey’s mind in the hours after Orb crossed the finish line at soggy Churchill Downs, the moment he could, for the first time, say that he had trained the winner of the Kentucky Derby. He talked of those friends on the morning after the race.

“The biggest thing I think about is a lot of the guys I came around with, like (trainer) Steve Penrod, who was here when I got here this morning, that are every bit as good or better trainer or horseman that I am, but they didn’t get this opportunity,” McGaughey said.  “(Former trainer) Mike Bell, who was the guy that told me that ‘You ought to come to work for the Whiteleys.’ Same thing.  He didn’t ever get this opportunity. Sometimes I pinch myself and say ‘Why is this happening to me?

“When I got started and got to really rolling, I remember many days after we won a big race there’s a lot of people that are underneath the screen and that nobody knows about that helped me get to where I am today. I know who they are and I appreciate what they’ve done and the little ways they did it.  I know who they are, and they’re in my thoughts, too.”

It was a Kentucky Derby that was as stepped in reverence for the sport’s tradition as any in recent memory.  And the story is not over.

The Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, the remaining jewels of the Triple Crown, await. No horse has swept those races since Affirmed won the crown 35 years ago.

Orb has much work to do to end that string, but his resounding Kentucky Derby victory made it clear he has the foundation for the large task ahead.

Kentucky Derby contender Orb.

The time has arrived. For the 139th consecutive year, the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands and its esteemed sister, the Longines Kentucky Oaks, are upon us. Their respective story lines are replete with drama, romance and magic.

That’s no exaggeration.

Just when you think the stories from past Derbys cannot be topped, the current year’s Run for the Roses sends us in a new direction or to a new level. How lucky are we to see it all come together and witness the issue being settled on the track at the end of the 1,234.5 feet of heartbreak, agony and exhilaration known as the homestretch of the sandy loam track at venerable Churchill Downs.

This year:

• Can University of Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino continue his mythic spring by adding a Kentucky Derby victory by Goldencents to his NCAA championship earned by his Cardinals and the basketball Hall of Fame induction that preceded the title. Could there ever be a greater hat trick for a Kentuckian than those hoops accomplishments and a victory in the greatest race of them all?
• Will Todd Pletcher’s five-some of Derby starters provide him a second victory in the Run for the Roses? Will his Verrazano become a rare unbeaten winner of the Derby? Will the Pletcher-WinStar Farm-Calvin Borel team duplicate their 2010 Derby magic with Super Saver? Can Overanalyze take Pletcher and owner Mike Repole where Uncle Mo could not? Will Palace Malice or Charming Kitten score long shot wins in the 20-1 to 30-1 realm?
• Can Hall of Famer and four-time Derby winner D. Wayne Lukas, now an incredibly youthful 77, become the oldest trainer to win the roses? He saddles both Oxbow and Will Take Charge, and is reunited with Oxbow jockey Gary Stevens, back from retirement at 50 and a two-time Derby winner for Lukas.
• Will legendary Calumet Farm, owner of a record eight Derby winners and breeder of nine, resume its Derby success with Oxbow for new Calumet master Brad Kelley, a former Franklin, Ky., tobacco farmer who is now among America’s wealthiest citizens and one of the largest landholders in the world?
• Can we run a Kentucky Derby without a starter saddled by three-time winner Bob Baffert? His last hopes – Governor Charlie and Code West – were pulled from consideration on Monday.
• Will Lexington-born Shug McGaughey win his long-overdue first Kentucky Derby with Orb, who also carries the hopes and dreams of New York’s famed Phipps Stable, which has yet to win a Derby despite racing such stars as Bold Ruler, Buckpasser and Easy Goer.
• Could Irish training superstar Aidan O’Brien extend his success in Breeders’ Cup races at Churchill Downs to a victory in the Kentucky Derby? O’Brien will saddle a UAE Derby winner.
• Can jockey Kevin Krigger, aboard Goldencents, become the first African-American jockey to win the Derby since 1902, when Lexington native and Hall of Famer Jimmy Winkfield won his second Derby?
• Will Rosie Napravnik, fresh off her historic, ground-breaking victory aboard the well-named Believe You Can in last year’s Kentucky Oaks, win the Derby with long shot Mylute and became the first woman to ride the winner of the Run for the Roses?
• Will Normandy Invasion, highly regarded despite the fact that he carries only one victory into the Derby, become the first horse since the redoubtable Alysheba – a future Horse of the Year and Breeders’ Cup winner who won the 1987 Kentucky Derby – to take the roses with only one official win to his credit?
• Will Florida-based Itsmyluckyday, brilliant over the winter at Florida’s Gulfstream Park, find the cooler Kentucky climate and the Churchill Downs surface to his liking on Derby Day?

Oxbow.

That roster of possibilities represents a sampling of the storylines for the 2013 “Run for the Roses.” Any number of them could be described as spectacular, but each has a high bar to clear when one considers the previous Runs for the Roses conducted in years ending in “3.”

A few examples:

• 1913 – Long shot Donerail wins the Derby under Louisville native Roscoe Goose at odds of 91-1. A century later,  the win by Donerail – named for a post office stop near Lexington wiped away by the construction of Interstate 75 – remains the biggest upset in Derby history, with the 50-1 wins by Mine That Bird in 2009 and Giacomo in 2005.  Adding to the 1913 magic is the fact that Goose’s brother, Carl Ganz, won the Kentucky Oaks 24 hours earlier on a filly named Cream.
• 1933 – Brokers Tip edges Head Play by a nose after Don Meade, aboard the winner, and Herb Fisher, riding the runner, pound on each other through the stretch in an unforgettable Derby dubbed “The Fighting Finish.”  Meade and Fisher were so furious after the race that it took 32 years for them to speak, shake hands and start to put that Derby behind them. By the way, the win by Brokers Tip was his only triumph in 14 career races.
• 1943 – Count Fleet scores a comfortable three-length victory in the Derby on his way to a Triple Crown that was completed by a 25-length victory in the Belmont Stakes – a record for that race that stood for 40 years. Jockey Johnny Longden rode Count Fleet and returned to Churchill Downs in 1969 to saddle unbeaten Majestic Prince to win the Derby. Longden remains the only person to ride and train a Kentucky Derby winner.
• 1953 – The great “Grey Ghost” Native Dancer entered the starting gate as an odds-on favorite, but endured a trouble-plagued journey during the Derby’s mile-and-a-quarter and lost by a head to Dark Star. It was the only defeat in 22 career races for A.G. Vanderbilt’s superstar who was racing’s first TV hero and one of the top horses of the 20th century. A racing Hall of Famer, Native Dancer was voted in the top 10 in a pair of polls on the top horses of the 20th century – but the only loss came at Churchill Downs in the race that everyone remembered.
• 1973 – Secretariat. ‘Nuff said.
• 1993 – Philanthropist and Thoroughbred lover Paul Mellon and trainer and native Kentuckian MacKenzie “Mack” Miller win the Derby in their final respective attempts with the mercurial Sea Hero, who picked a great day to be on the top of his game. Mellon became the only owner to win the Kentucky Derby, England’s Epsom Derby and France’s Arc de Triomphe.
• 2003 – A group of high school chums from Upstate New York rode individual investments of $5,000 into their first stab at horse ownership during a Memorial Day picnic in 1995. The partnership had expanded to 10 by the time they arrived at Churchill Downs in a rented yellow school bus on May 3, 2003 to watch their New York-bred gelding Funny Cide score a 12-1 upset. Funny Cide’s unlikely victory was another example of why the Kentucky Derby is the most democratic – small ‘d’ – of major American sports events. Where else could one turn an initial investment of $5,000 into victory in one of the world’s great sports events in just eight years?

As promising as this year’s field of Derby contenders appears to be – and there are several colts with pedigrees and accomplishments that point to potential stardom with continued development – those colts and geldings have a high bar to clear to earn a spot alongside the great horses and Derby exploits who competed beneath the Twin Spires in earlier years that ended with a 3.

Before matching those feats, the Derby stars will need to eventually prove that they are faster and better than the fillies who’ll be running on Friday in the Longines Kentucky Oaks. It’s been an era of “Girl Power” in U.S. racing with Rachel Alexandra, Zenyatta and Havre de Grace earning Horse of the Year honors over males from 2009-11.

Another superstar could be lurking in the 2013 Oaks field.

Likely favorite Dreaming of Julia won the Gulfstream Oaks for trainer Todd Pletcher by more than 20 lengths in a performance that was the fastest by a 3-year-old – male or female – this year. The Bob Baffert-trained Midnight Lucky has dazzled in her two career starts, and 2012 2-year-old filly champion Beholder has been untouchable since undergoing throat surgery earlier this year.

After that comes Unlimited Budget, unbeaten in four starts for Pletcher but overshadowed by stablemate Dreaming of Julia, and the duo of Flashy Gray and Close Hatches from the barn of Hall of Famer Bill Mott, the all-time win leader at Churchill Downs still looking for his first victory in both the Kentucky Oaks and the Derby.

Bargain basement filly Rose to Gold, a $1,400 yearling purchase, brings an impressive stretch of wins and the riding services of Derby Weekend magician Calvin Borel into the race.

A horse-by-horse look at the Derby accompanies this piece, but the forecast for the Oaks is dazzling. The projected order of finish:

1. Midnight Lucky
2. Close Hatches
3. Dreaming of Julia
4. Beholder

Asher’s Derby Rundown

Giant Finish – A last-second entry into the Derby field. His trainer will not be in Louisville to saddle the horse, a fact that doesn’t exactly make one optimistic.

Falling Sky – A nice colt who seems a notch below the best in this group. Should get his name called early.

Black Onyx – He arrived on the scene with a win in the Spiral on the Turfway Polytrack. He hasn’t trained particularly well at Churchill Downs and his timing seems a bit off for this kind of challenge.

Lines of Battle – Would not be surprised to be completely fooled by this one as his Claiborne Farm pedigree is intriguing. But the UAE Derby was a strange race and he’s traveled a lot of miles since.

Java’s War – The Toyota Blue Grass winner has had little serious impact since Keeneland installed its synthetic Polytrack surface. He has raced and trained here, but has not seemed comfortable over this surface in recent days.

Overanalyze – Another that could easily fool your handicapper. Dull effort last fall in his one race over the track, but his lone work here was described as the “best of his life” by Pletcher.

Vyjack – A very nice colt who has the running style of a distance horse, but his pedigree indicates that a mile is more to his liking.

Fear the Kitten – Didn’t enter the Derby picture until late Monday, but some of his races – including a Kentucky Jockey Club run here last fall – are deceptively good.

Will Take Charge – Lukas trainee beat his stablemate at Oaklawn Park and his mother, Take Charge Lady, thrived here.  Look for a good, even effort in the Derby from this colt.

Itsmyluckyday – Good tactical speed should have this colt in the hunt every step of the way. If he repeats his brilliance at Gulfstream Park, he could be the one to catch turning for home. He has looked beautiful on the track since his arrival from Florida.

Palace Malice – This horse is doing very well and will likely be a well-touted long shot in Derby 139. He looks good on the track here and has a chance to run very well.

Verrazano – There’s much to like about this unbeaten colt, but what appears to be a modest early pace for the race will likely be a bit hotter than it might seem on paper. He has yet to be challenged in his four starts, but he’ll know what pressure feels like after Saturday.

Goldencents – It’s difficult to go against the sizzling Rick Pitino run, but he’s another that could suffer from a hotter-than-expected pace. Should be in the hunt when the field turns for home.

Mylute – Jockey Rosie Napravnik had the best finisher for a female rider in Derby history when she was ninth aboard Pants On Fire in 2012. She should do a bit better aboard this closer who likes the track.

Normandy Invasion – Warning to regular readers of this spot: he’s been my top horse in our Derby Power Pool at www.KentuckyDerby.com for the past three weeks. The last Derby horse I demoted from first to sixth in the final week: Fusaichi Pegasus.

Frac Daddy – McPeek-trained long shot has a chance to run very well. He ran very well over this track and has trained well here after a foot injury slowed his progress early this year.

Golden Soul – Dallas Stewart-trained long shot has a chance to hit the board at a huge price. Ran well here last fall and will do his best running as others fade late.

Oxbow – Versatile Calumet Farm colt can either stalk a hot pace or command a slow one if back-from-retirement Gary Stevens gets him out of the gate. If no one wants the lead, he’ll take it – and he might not give it up.

Orb – A beautiful work on Monday probably made Shug McGaughey’s colt the Derby favorite. He has the running style to win, a good pedigree, a great trainer and the game’s hottest jockey in Joel Rosario. The winner of this Derby will either have to pass Orb or hold him off. Shug and the Phipps Family are way overdue – and deserving of – Derby success.

Revolutionary – He has a knack for getting himself into trouble – not an advantage in a 20-horse Derby field – but also finds a way out. Landing Calvin Borel as his jockey is a significant move – the coolest customer in a Derby saddle seems a perfect match for this Pletcher colt. With a little luck, the new racing Hall of Famer in the saddle could work out a trip similar to the one enjoyed by Super Saver in 2010. You know how that worked out.

But precious few have focused on the Kentucky Oaks, the “Derby for Fillies” to be run 24 hours earlier beneath the Twin Spires, and that should not have happened.

In the recent “girl power” era of Thoroughbred racing, the exploits of fillies and mares have frequently overshadowed the heroics of the males who most often grab the majority of the spotlight.

Wise Dan’s “Horse of the Year” award in 2012 snapped of three consecutive females – Rachel Alexandra (2009), Zenyatta (2010) and Havre de Grace (2007) – honored as America’s top horse.  And Rachel Alexandra launched her rush to stardom with a record-smashing 20 1/4 length victory in the Kentucky Oaks and followed that victory with a win over males in the Preakness.  Her victory in the latter, a race in which Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird was the runner-up in the second jewel of racing’s Triple Crown, was her first of three wins over males that year

Just two years earlier, Rags to Riches won the Oaks and five weeks later edged Preakness winner and future two-time Horse of the Year Curlin in the 1 ½-mile Belmont Stakes, the Triple Crown’s third jewel.

And last year’s Oaks was a true measure of “Girl Power” when jockey Rosie Napravnik, aboard the appropriately-named Believe You Can, became the first woman to ride a Kentucky Oaks winner.  She narrowly-missed two Oaks wins in succession when Napravnik and St. John’s River fell a nose short of catching Plum Pretty in the 2011 Oaks.

It would not be a major surprise if one or more of the 3-year-old fillies that will run in next week’s 139th Oaks keeps the “Girl Power” vibe rolling with big performances in the Oaks, followed by possible success over males later in the year.

The roster of Derby probably looks solid, with several contenders that offer hints of good things down the road if they can run well in the Derby.  But, in terms of performance-to-date and future potential, the Oaks fillies could be a more promising group.

Atop the Oaks roster are three fillies that appear on the verge of being something special.  Dreaming of Julie, Beholder and Midnight Lucky will be the top three wagering choices in the race and a brilliant performance by any member of that trio, or all of them, could not be called a surprise.

Dreaming of Julia is a homebred from Stonecrest Farm, the outfit the purchased Rachel Alexandra following her Kentucky Oaks win and guided her through the rest of her championship season.  Todd Pletcher, a two-time Oaks winner, trains the daughter of A.P. Indy, who was one of the top 2-year-old fillies of 2012 but had a breakthrough run in the Gulfstream Oaks, a race at Florida’s Gulfstream Park that was her second start of the year.

Dreaming of Julia won by a Rachelian 21 ¾ lengths for her fourth victory in six career races.  Her winning time was more impressive that her gaudy margin of victory, as she covered the 1 1/8 mile distance over fast footing in 1:48.97.  Two hours later, possible Kentucky Derby favorite Orb won the Florida Derby 1:50.87 – nearly two seconds, or 10 lengths, slower than the filly.

That big afternoon earned Dreaming of Julia a Beyer Speed Figure of 114 from Daily Racing Form, which is easily the best number turned in by a 3-year-old this season.  Although she had always displayed talent, Dreaming of Julia’s Gulfstream Oaks effort was such an out-of-the-blue performance one must wonder if she will repeat it in next week’s Kentucky Oaks – or ever.  But she could shave several points off that performance and probably win the race at Churchill Downs.

But there’s a chance that either Beholder or Midnight Lucky might be better fillies.

Beholder was the champion 2-year-old filly of 2012 after she capped her season with a victory in the Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita.  She was upset in her first start of 2013, but underwent throat surgery for Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella after that surprise setback.  The speedy champion has run twice since the surgery and scored dominant front-running wins in the Grade I Las Virgenes and Santa Anita Oaks at Santa Anita that pushed her record to five victories in eight races.

But the most intriguing of the trio is Midnight Lucky, a sturdy gray filly from the barn of trainer Bob Baffert who will bring a two-for-two record into the Oaks.  She made her racing debut in mid-February in a dazzling 7 ¼-length win at Santa Anita, then shipped to Sunland Park for an eight-length victory in her stakes debut in the Sunland Oaks.

She is co-owned by Mike Pegram, the Princeton, Ind., native whose success with Baffert has included victories by Real Quiet in the 1998 Kentucky Derby and a triumph the following year by champion Silverbulletday in the Kentucky Oaks.

While her racing record is a good bit lighter than that of Dreaming of Julia or Beholder, Midnight Lucky worked earlier this week in the company of the Baffert-trained Power Broker, a Grade I winning-colt at two who competed in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.  She brushed him aside in the home stretch with complete disdain and cruised through six furlongs in 1:13 in a work that was as good as one could hope to see in her first win over the track.

As impressive as those three fillies have been, there is reason to look elsewhere in a very talented Oaks field. Unlimited Budget, also trained by Pletcher, is a daughter of 2007 Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense and is unbeaten in four starts, including three consecutive stakes races.

Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott has a pair of Oaks contenders in unbeaten Close Hatches, who scored her third win in the recent Gazelle at Belmont Park, and Classy Gray, who has not run worse than second in five races.   Mott has won more races than any trainer in Churchill Downs history, but has yet to win the Derby or the Oaks.

And jockey Calvin Borel, a lead player in the Rachel Alexandra saga, will ride Rose to Gold, a winner of five of eight races.  Rose to Gold was a $1,200 yearling purchase and will be the filly that represents the dreams of everyman in what could be a special running of the Kentucky Oaks.

Here’s the Asher Kentucky Oaks Top 10 in the Power Ranking at www.KentuckyOaks.com;
1. Dreaming of Julia
2. Midnight Lucky
3. Beholder
4. Unlimited Budget
5. Close Hatches
6. Flashy Gray
7. Rose to Gold
8. Silsita
9. Princess of Sylmar
10. Pure Fun

The field just after breaking from the gate heads down the stretch for the first time in the Kencutky Derby 138.

With just over two weeks remaining until Kentucky Derby 139, the major races on the new “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points system  have been run and the prospective field for the great race on May 4 at Churchill Downs is taking shape.

Two “wild card” races remain: Saturday’s Coolmore Lexington at Keeneland and the Derby Trial on Opening Night, which is April 27 at Churchill Downs. Both offer 20 first-place points and the potential to make the difference for a horse or two that have yet to earn a spot in the 2013 Run for the Roses.

The Kentucky Derby jockey shuffle was underway during the first two days of this week, with three-time Derby winner Calvin Borel landing the mount on Revolutionary, the winner of the Arkansas Derby and a horse likely to be among the top five betting choices on Derby Day. The colt is owned by WinStar Farm and trained by Todd Pletcher, and both partnered with Borel to win the 2010 Kentucky Derby with Super Saver.

Revolutionary is a colt who is unbeaten at two-turn distances, but he has had to overcome trouble in a couple of races.  No one rides with more confidence and courage in the Kentucky Derby than Borel, whose three Derby wins in four years from 2007-2010 was a first in the history of the race, and the presence of the Louisiana native in the saddle aboard Revolutionary would appear to enhance his chances.

The mount on Revolutionary became open when Javier Castellano chose to ride Wood Memorial runner-up Normandy Invasion.

Verrazano is the winner of the Tampa Bay Derby for Trainer Todd Pletcher, remaining undefeated.

Rosie Napravnik, who became the first woman to win the Kentucky Oaks when she guided the victorious Believe You Can to the finish line, secured a Derby mount on Tuesday when she was named by trainer Tom Amoss to ride Mylute, runner-up in the Louisiana Derby. Napravnik’s first Derby ride came a year ago when she finished ninth in Derby 138 aboard Pants On Fire.

That was the best finish in Derby history for a female jockey.

Napravnik was the regular rider aboard 2012 2-year-old champion and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Shanghai Bobby, but he was knocked out of contention for the Derby by an injury suffered in a fifth-place finish in the Florida Derby.

Mike Smith, who won the 2005 Derby aboard longshot Giacamo, landed a Derby 139 ride aboard Toyota Blue Grass Stakes runner-up Palace Malice.  Garrett Gomez had ridden Palace Malice in the Blue Grass, but was committed to Gotham winner Vyjack on Derby Day.

With those shifts and a solidified look at the likely field of 20 horses for Derby 139, here’s an updated look at under-the-radar horses that could make a difference on Kentucky Derby Day.

Oxbow – The Calumet Farm runner opened the season for four-time Kentucky Derby winner with a romp in the Lecomte Stakes at Fair Grounds, but has been unlucky in three subsequent starts.  His run in last week’s Arkansas Derby was the worst of those unlucky runs as the colt and jockey Gary Stevens were shuffled far back and was running last on the run down the backstretch.  He rallied mildly in the stretch and

Orb and Johnny Velazquez returned to the Winner’s Circle for the Florida Derby.

missed finishing fourth by a nose.  Oxbow has natural speed in a Kentucky Derby that appears to lack its regular potential for a sizzling early pace and a good break and good early position could allow Oxbow to be on or near the lead when the Derby field turns for home.  His chances would be good for there at likely odds in the range of 30-1 or 40-1.

Will Take Charge – Also trained by Lukas, this colt edged stablemate Oxbow in the Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park.  Ridden by Churchill Downs regular Jon Court, Will Take Charge bypassed the final round of major prep races and is being trained-up to the Derby by the 77-year-old Lukas, whose last visit to the Derby Winner’s Circle came with Charismatic in 1999.

Frac Daddy – One of two Derby 139 hopes trained by Lexington native Ken McPeek, Frac Daddy earned a spot in the race with a runner-up finish in the Arkansas Derby.  The McPeek colt has been behind schedule for most of the spring after a disappointing run in his 2013 debut in the Holy Bull, but he ran a pair of spectacular races last fall at Churchill Downs and the return to what appears to be his favorite surface makes him a threat at a hefty price – say, 50-1 or so – on Derby Day.

Charming Kitten – He earned his way into the Kentucky Derby field with a solid late run behind Java’s War in the Blue Grass, but has run well over the Churchill Downs surface and seems to be a colt that could hit the board at a big price to flesh out a trifecta or superfecta wager.

Golden Soul – He’s a longshot to get in, but has a chance.  Trainer Dallas Stewart scored the biggest upset in Kentucky Oaks history when he saddled Lemons Forever to win that race in 2006.  A lot of good things would have to happen to get him in the Derby starting gate, but this is a colt with a future that will do his best running deep stretch at odds that will likely be 75-1 or-higher in a 20-horse field.  He ran very well in a maiden race last fall at Churchill Downs and has a chance to run well at odds of 70-1 or so should he make his way into the Derby starting gate.

Unbeaten Verrazano continues to head the Power Rankings on www.KentuckyDerby.com.  Here’s one voter’s look with just over two weeks remaining before the Run for the Roses:

1. Normandy Invasion
2. Orb
3. Verrazano
4. Goldencents
5. Revolutionary
6. Oxbow
7. Vyjack
8. Itsmyluckyday
9. Will Take Charge
10. Java’s War

Photo by AMBER CHALFIN | Contributing Photographer

During the span of those days, the University of Louisville basketball coach has (in timeline order):

• Watched his University of Louisville Cardinals basketball team justify high season-long expectations by winning the final post-season tournament of the Big East Conference (as we know it), completing the deal in Madison Square Garden – one of Pitino’s favorite stages.

• Coached his team through a bruising NCAA regional and a final game romp into the Final Four past Duke, a game that avenged his 1992 regional final loss with the University of Kentucky’s “Unforgettables” but made more dramatic by the staggering on-court injury suffered by Cardinal guard Kevin Ware.

• Celebrated as son Richard, who had completed a remarkable first season as head coach of Florida International University in the Sun Belt Conference (my WKU Hilltopper brethren can testify on the turnaround the younger Pitino engineered there), was named head coach of the University of Minnesota.

• Scored a rugged victory over Wichita State in the Final Four opener on Saturday.

• Watched Goldencents, a 3-year-old colt in by the elder Pitino in partnership, score an emphatic victory in the Santa Anita Derby to enter the short list of horses considered major threats to win the Kentucky Derby;

• Induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame

• And continue the otherworldly run with Monday’s victory of Michigan in one of the most entertaining NCAA championship games ever, a win that provided Pitino with his second national championship and made him the first coach to earn NCAA titles at different school. And, need you be reminded, he won those titles at schools in the same state. Perhaps most remarkable, that state is Kentucky.

• His NCAA victory pulled him into a tie with UCLA legend John Wooden for career victories.

“He needs to play the lottery,” said Luke Hancock, the sharp-shooting Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four of Pitino’s recent fortunes. “I mean, he doesn’t need any more money, but he needs to play the lottery.”

All that good fortune brings us back to Goldencents, the gifted Throroughbred who has the chance to earn a Kentucky that is nearly incomprehensible in its scope. Most Kentuckians, at one time or another, dream of winning an NCAA title or earning a victory in the Kentucky Derby. But who could imagine both things happening to one person? And could anyone have imagined achieving both nearly impossible dreams the same year, separated by fewer than 30 days?

To borrow an adage: You can’t make this stuff up.

This is not Pitino’s first run at Kentucky Derby glory. His affection for racing grew with his move to the University of Kentucky, where he won his first national championship at UK in 1996 with a remarkable collection of talented future pros and draft picks.

Over those years his stables have been small, but high on quality. His runners have included Halory Hunter, who won Keeneland’s Toyota Blue Grass Stakes before a solid fourth-place finish to Real Quiet in the 1998 Kentucky Derby, and A P Valentine, who won the prestigious Champagne Stakes at Belmont Park at two. The latter finished a disappointing seventh to Monarchos in the 2001 Kentucky Derby, but completed a good Triple Crown series with runner-up with runner-up finishes in both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

The Santa Anita Derby victory by Goldencents came on the heels of a disappointing fourth-place finish in the San Felipe at Santa Anita, a race in which the colt was engaged in a surprising early duel with the well-regarded Flashback and faded to fourth in the stretch. But he relaxed perfectly in the Santa Anita Derby, took the lead on the far turn and pulled away from Flashback in upper stretch to win comfortably under jockey Kevin Krigger.

The rider brings some sizzle of his own into the Derby. An African-American from the Virgin Islands, Krigger was aboard Goldencents in the colt’s successful debut in September at Del Mar and has been in the saddle for trainer Doug O’Neill in all six of the colt’s starts.

African-American riders dominated the early years of the Kentucky Derby, but none has won since Hall of Fame jockey Jimmy Winkfield got Alan-a-Dale up to win by a nose in 1902. If Krigger and Goldencents make it into the starting gate on May 4, he will be the first African-American to ride in the Derby since Marlon St. Julien finished seventh aboard Curule in 2000. Before St. Julien, one had to go all the way back to 1921 to find an African-American rider in the Derby. That was Harry King aboard Planet, who finished 10th to Behave Yourself.

O’Neill, many will recall, saddled I’ll Have Another to win last year’s Derby and Preakness and two of Pitino’s co-owners with Goldencents were along for that ride.

Six trainers have won back-to-back Derbys. They are (from earliest to most recent): H.J. “Derby Dick” Thompson (1932-33), Ben Jones (1948-1949), Jimmy Jones (1957-1958), Lucien Laurin (1972-1973), D. Wayne Lukas (1995-1996) and Bob Baffert (1997-1998).

Yup, all six are in racing’s Hall of Fame. O’Neill will be working a very tough room as he tries to pull off back-to-back Derby wins.

In review, Goldencents will attempt to win the Derby for a trainer seeking rare, Hall of Fame quality successive wins; with a rider bidding to become the first African-American jockey in 111 years to win the race and just the second in 92 years to ride in the race; and an owner who is trying to win the Kentucky Derby and an NCAA hoops championship in the same month and year.

The odds of those things coming together with the result of Goldencents wearing a mantle of roses while standing in infield winner’s circle reserved only for the winner of the Kentucky Derby cannot be calculated. Lottery-style numbers, just as Luke Hancock said.

But it’s Rick Pitino at the center of this improbable journey and he’s pretty far down the road, with just three weeks remaining until Derby Day. As we have all learned in the last few weeks, the coach – in this magical year – is very tough to bet against.

Here’s the updated personal Kentucky Derby poll that can be found at the top of the Power Rankings at www.KentuckyDerby.com. The new top-ranked horse has only one win in his career, but looks like the most dangerous one-win horse in the Kentucky Derby since Alysheba in 1987. Things worked out pretty well for him that year.

1. Normandy Invasion
2. Orb
3. Revolutionary
4. Verrazano
5. Goldencents
6. Itsmyluckyday
7. Oxbow
8. Vyjack
9. Will Take Charge
10. Rydilluc