KENTUCKY DERBY : Camp Is Feeling Frisky : Horse racing: Barrera and his people see many good omens going into the race.

Late Wednesday morning, a small black cat was hanging around Mister Frisky’s barn at Churchill Downs.

None of the horse’s handlers, from trainer Laz Barrera on down, seemed to care. Undefeated Mister Frisky may have a record with a large asterisk, because 13 of his 16 victories were recorded against papier-mache opposition in Puerto Rico, but this hasn’t diluted the confidence of Barrera and company, who could hyperventilate with optimism before their colt runs Saturday in the 116th Kentucky Derby.

Neil Howard, who will saddle Summer Squall, the likely favorite in the Derby, has heard the braggadocio from the Mister Frisky barn on the other side of the backstretch, and perhaps finds it intimidating.

“Mr. Barrera knows the secret to winning the Derby, and he’s not going to let anybody else know,” said Howard, who is in his first Derby. “But I can’t blame him for that.”

Barrera, who will be 66 Tuesday, won the Derby in 1976 with Bold Forbes and repeated in 1978 with Affirmed, who also is the last horse to sweep the Triple Crown. In Stall 22 of Barn 41 at Churchill Downs, Mister Frisky has the same berth occupied by Bold Forbes and Affirmed before their Derby victories. Trainer Charlie Whittingham’s two Derby winners--Ferdinand in 1986 and Sunday Silence in 1989--also resided in Stall 22.

So, maybe Barrera has the superstitions covered. Joe Barrera, the trainer’s nephew from New Orleans, has all the good omens he needs.

“When I got off the plane in Louisville, there must have been 100 other people waiting for their luggage,” Joe Barrera said. “My bag was the first one to pop up on the carousel. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me.

“Another thing: I met a guy here from East St. Louis (Ill.), where I was born--while my father (Angel, who is Laz’s brother) was training horses at Fairmount Park. The guy was even born in the same hospital I was. Now what are the odds on that? How can Mister Frisky miss?”

The winner of the Derby, of course, is not determined by stall locations or luggage arrivals. But luck can be a factor, and even Laz Barrera will concede that.

Mister Frisky has already had some good luck since he arrived in Kentucky. Last week, heat was detected in his left front ankle. There may have been a slight swelling. Barrera brought in Alex Harthill, an old friend and the same veterinarian who patched up Sunday Silence’s hoof before he won last year’s Preakness, and the heat disappeared in less than 24 hours.

Since that scare, Mister Frisky has trained here with the same verve that led to three victories in California, including the Santa Anita Derby. Gary Stevens, his regular rider, worked him five furlongs Tuesday, a good exercise that included a lot of speed at the finish.

“Laz has trained him for the last quarter-mile, and I let him do his thing the last quarter,” Stevens said. “He’s something special. He has low action and conserves his energy. I think he has the longest stride of any horse I’ve ever ridden. And he’s cooperative, so you can do anything with him. Speed him up or slow him down. He’s adaptable, and if he has to come from slightly off the pace, he won’t mind the dirt in his face.”

The winner of the Derby with Winning Colors two years ago, Stevens began his successful invasion of Santa Anita and Hollywood Park in 1985, after riding in his native Idaho and at Longacres, near Seattle.

Barrera was one of the first Southland trainers to give Stevens a chance. “My son, Larry, saw Gary on a tape, riding a filly in a $10,000 claiming race as though it was for $3 million,” Barrera said. “He told me about him, and that’s when I started using him.”

A few years later, Barrera and his wife, Carmen, went on a cruise. A woman from Seattle recognized them.

“I hate you,” she said to the trainer.

“What did I do?” Barrera asked.

“You stole our jockey,” she said, referring to Stevens.

Barrera turned to his wife and said: “Get me out of here, before this woman kills me.”

Barrera does not expect Mister Frisky to be slain by Saturday’s opposition--16 horses that include Summer Squall, winner of the Blue Grass Stakes and a victor in seven of eight starts; Thirty Six Red, winner of the Wood Memorial; Unbridled, first in the Florida Derby, and Arkansas Derby winner Silver Ending.

“I didn’t think much of the Wood,” Barrera said. “The horse that finished fourth (Pendleton Ridge) almost won the race, and he’s still a maiden. Thirty Six Red might be a consistent horse, but the Wood was his first time around two turns. My horse was going around two turns when he was a 2-year-old.”

Much is being made here of Silver Ending’s fast time in the Arkansas Derby. “That track (at Oaklawn Park) is fast, and when it gets a little rain, it’s even faster,” Barrera said.

Jose and Marta Fernandez, who bought Mister Frisky as an unraced 2-year-old at an Ocala, Fla., auction for $15,000, arrived here from Puerto Rico Monday.

The Fernandezes have already been lucky, for no matter what happens Saturday, Mister Frisky has already earned $541,085 and given them a piece of the moon. The rest of it could come Saturday.

At the same auction, the Fernandezes bought another colt for $18,000 and named him Mister Lucky. It was Mister Frisky who turned out to be lucky, because the $18,000 colt was unable to get to the post as a 2-year-old and didn’t win his first race until about a month ago.

Fourteen years ago, two days before his 52nd birthday, Barrera had as good a day as a trainer could possibly have: Bold Forbes won the Kentucky Derby; Life’s Hope won the Illinois Derby at Sportsman’s Park, and Due Diligence won the Carter Handicap at Aqueduct.

“The Derby was run first that day,” Barrera said. “Then every 15 minutes, I heard about the others. That was something, winning those two Derbys on the same day.”

Barrera will settle for just one victory Saturday. Affirmed, the horse who gave him his last big victory here, is at stud at Calumet Farm in Lexington, about 75 miles to the east. The other day, Barrera, armed with carrots, drove over to visit his Triple Crown champion. In the stall next door was Alydar, who almost beat Affirmed in the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, and the horse that Barrera says worried him into his first heart attack.

“Affirmed looked like he was ready to run,” Laz Barrera said.

Affirmed also got all of the carrots.

“Alydar got jealous,” Barrera said.

Horse Racing Notes

On a muddy track, which is the kind he likes, Summer Squall worked a half-mile in :48 2/5 Wednesday. “We were looking for anything on the better side of 49,” trainer Neil Howard said. “This got his blood popping. He looks good, he’s eating good and he’s training good.” . . . Ron McAnally, who trains Silver Ending, met his daughter, Laura, at the Louisville Airport and handed her a rose. “Maybe this will be the first of many,” McAnally said. Laura McAnally was arriving from Florence, Italy, where she is an exchange student in a UCLA program.

Go for Wand, last year’s champion 2-year-old filly, is a 4-5 favorite in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs. Since her victory in the Breeders’ Cup, Go for Wand has won two stakes at Keeneland by a combined 13 1/2 lengths. Before her trainer, Billy Badgett, could even suggest nominating Go for Wand for the Triple Crown races, owner-breeder Jane Lunger said: “Don’t even think about it. The only race I want to win is the Alabama (at Saratoga in August).” Asked what Go for Wand might have done had she run in the Derby, Badgett said: “I think she could give anyone a good race. I think she’d maybe get a piece of the purse if she ran in the Derby. But if you’re running fillies against colts, the best time to do it is in the fall, when (the fillies) are more mature.”

Surprisingly, 11 other fillies will run against Go for Wand, including four--Hail Atlantis, Bright Candles, Seaside Attraction and Paper Money--from trainer Wayne Lukas’ barn. Rounding out the field are Dance Colony, De La Devil, Piper Piper, Lonely Girl, Moreofthebest, Fit to Scout and Arm the Natives. . . . There’s more rain in the forecast today and Friday, with clearing likely Saturday.