On the eve of the Derby, the Colonel helps sort it all out

Like most everyone who grew up here in the bluegrass, I’ve got a horsey uncle.

Old goateed guy, tortoise shells on his nose, tiny pencil behind his ear, name of Bill McLaughlin, age 87, sometimes speaks English, mostly speaks pony.

He saw his first Kentucky Derby in 1939, but only after sneaking through a hole in a fence and watching from a backside barn on a hot tar roof.

“We kept jumping up and down, but it had nothing to do with the horses,” he says.

He once owned two thoroughbreds, most notably a doomed stallion he eventually sold to a little old lady looking for a Sunday riding companion.

“She said she wanted something that wouldn’t run away with her,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Ma’am, have we got the horse for you.’ ”

Uncle Bill has, however, made one enduring contribution to the sport, and it recently arrived for the 50th consecutive year in the mailboxes of failed gamblers and ruined scofflaws and weird cousins.

It’s called “The Colonel’s Derby Ratings.”

Almost forgot to mention, Uncle Bill is also an official Kentucky Colonel.

“That might not mean so much to people out in California,” he says. “But I assure you, it means even less back here.”

The newsletter is hammered out on an old-fashioned typewriter and filled with throwback sensibilities. He doesn’t look for hot trainers or hyped jockeys. He looks for heart. He watches all those prep races in all those strange places -- from Hawthorne to Oaklawn to Fair Grounds -- and somehow he finds it.

“There’s something about a horse that you have to see,” he says. “I know it when I see it.”

He doesn’t make actual picks, he gives ratings, but if you followed them closely, in 50 years they would have given you plenty of mint julep money. Family and friends clamor for them. Even when he was battling cancer, everyone urged him to continue writing them.

It is my assignment to pick a winner in today’s Derby, and explain why, and I hope my editor won’t mind if I use the Colonel for help.

“Billy, I’m going to get you fired,” he says.

With Quality Road being dropped from the race because of a bad hoof, there is no clear favorite, making this one of the more interesting fields in recent history. The Colonel finds losers more interesting than winners, so we’ll start with the horses who don’t have a chance.

Chocolate Candy? “I’m a diabetic.”

Nowhere To Hide? “He’s looking for somewhere right now.”

Mr. Hot Stuff? “This isn’t chili.”

Advice? “Don’t take it.”

Join In The Dance? “Don’t want to.”

West Side Bernie? “Wasn’t that a musical?”

Mine That Bird? “He couldn’t win at Sunland, and I don’t even know where Sunland is.”

Flying Private? “Flying coach.”

Now for the horses with an outside shot, horses to stick in an exacta box, horses to bet with your heart.

Regal Ransom and Desert Party are both from Dubai, from the gazillion-dollar Godolphin Stable that has tried for several years to win this race. Maybe this is the year they finally figure it out.

Hold Me Back is ridden by Kent Desormeaux, trying to become the first jockey to win consecutive Derbies in 26 years. If you bet jockeys, bet on the guy trying to outlast the rap that he blew it on Big Brown in last year’s Belmont.

General Quarters is owned and trained by a former high school principal named Tom McCarthy. He won the Blue Grass Stakes, so he’s not just a good story, he’s a real one.

Papa Clem won the Arkansas Derby, Musket Man won the Illinois Derby, both ran the races of their lives, so maybe they’re peaking at the right time.

Then there are the head-fake horses, the horses that look like winners but aren’t.

Dunkirk looks strong after finishing second to Quality Road in the Florida Derby, but he did not race as a 2-year-old, and no horse with that blank spot on his resume has won this race since 1882. Plus Dunkirk’s trainer, Todd Pletcher, is 0 for 21 here, which means you’ll be betting against plenty of history.

Pioneerof The Nile has the smartest living Derby trainer in Bob Baffert, and the country’s top jockey in Garrett Gomez. Problem is, the horse is like a domed team playing in an outdoor Super Bowl. The horse’s big victories came on the synthetic turf at Santa Anita, but now he must navigate the dirt of Churchill Downs.

Even though Baffert claims the horse has adjusted well, isn’t Baffert also our smartest living salesman?

This leaves two horses. The Colonel has his, I have mine.

Keeping with his toughness theme, he says the winner will be I Want Revenge, even though he so hates picking the favorite, last year he talked himself out of Big Brown.

“I have no choice this time,” he says. ‘Did you watch that horse win the Wood? Coming from dead last to dominate on a dirt track? That’s all I needed to see. A Derby-winning ride.”

I agree that the race could end up being won early, and because of the track, but that’s why I’m picking Friesan Fire.

I watched him come from behind to own the Louisiana Derby in the mud, and predicted rains are supposed to make today’s track just as muddy.

I watched a tape of him working out this week, and no Derby horse here has trained faster.

He has the pedigree for distance with A.P. Indy, and the right trainer for the track in Larry Jones, who finished second here in each of the last two years.

He also has the trademark sentimental Derby back story, as Jones’ horse last year was, of course, Eight Belles, who died on the track. One year later, still haunted by that memory, Jones will soon retire.

I love the story. I love the horse. I love this race.

“Tingle time in Luhavul,” wrote the Colonel for the 50th consecutive year, and that, you can bet on.

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bill.plaschke@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

BILL PLASCHKE’S PREDICTED FINISH

*--* 1. Friesan Fire 2. I Want Revenge 3. General Quarters 4. Hold Me Back *--*