This Race Proves Handicapping Is Far From an Exact Science

“Who do you like?” the stranger asked, inviting himself to sit at the table next to a friend and me in the bar at the Brownsboro Inn. We had gone there to hear Jerry Green, touted to us as the black Frank Sinatra, even though, our tout added, he doesn’t sound like Sinatra or sing any of his songs.

“Stephen Got Even,” I said.

“No,” the stranger said.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Stephen Got Even can’t win,” the stranger said.

I started to say that he shouldn’t have asked me if he knew so much. Instead, I took the bait and asked who he liked.

“Cat Thief,” he said.

I wish now that I could remember why he said that. It was a little hard to hear him over Jerry Green’s rendition of “Music of the Night” (the black Michael Crawford?), but I believe it had something to do with his once meeting Cat Thief’s trainer, Wayne Lukas, and thinking he was a nice guy.

That’s as good a reason as any for liking a horse in today’s Kentucky Derby. I can’t remember a Derby that had so many people so confused. It doesn’t matter whether you are new to horse racing, like the schoolteacher from Naperville, Ill., who said Friday that she probably won’t decide until just before post time who to “vote” for, or a veteran handicapper.

Even the smartest people in the sport have no clue who will win, which is the reason the race attracted a field of 19 horses. You can make a case for any of them.

Or against.

According to conventional wisdom, you can eliminate:

* The three Bob Baffert horses, General Challenge, Excellent Meeting and Prime Timber, because no trainer in the 124-year history of the Derby has won three in a row. He won in 1997 with Silver Charm and ’98 with Real Quiet.

(General Challenge and Excellent Meeting have two strikes against them. Excellent Meeting is a filly. Only three fillies have won, none since Winning Colors in 1988. General Challenge is a gelding. No gelding has won since Clyde Van Dusen in 1929.)

* Three Ring. See the second strike against Excellent Meeting.

* Valhol. See the second strike against General Challenge.

* The horse from Dubai, Worldly Manner, because he has yet to race as a 3-year-old. No horse has won the Derby in his first start of the year since Morvich in 1922. (Worldly Manner’s owner, Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, was at least halfway persuaded by this argument because he scratched his other lightly raced horse, Aljabr, on Friday.)

* Answer Lively, because no horse who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile for 2-year-olds has ever won the Derby.

* Charismatic, Vicar, Menifee and Lemon Drop Kid because they are starting from post positions 16, 17, 18 and 19. Only three horses have won from outside 15.

On the other hand, there is nothing conventional about this Derby.

The betting public is expected to “vote” for the Golden Eagle Farm entry of General Challenge and Excellent Meeting, thereby throwing both of them a third strike. No favorite has won since Spectacular Bid in 1979.

The bettors may put their faith and their money elsewhere if they learn how General Challenge has schooled. He has never been a well-behaved horse or else he wouldn’t have been gelded and Jack Disney, the PR man at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, wouldn’t have nicknamed him Rodman.

But General Challenge has been an even bigger challenge than usual this week, and that’s absent the 140,000 spectators, blaring bands, television cameras and photographers, all of which can unnerve even the most docile horses on Derby Day.

Of course, he also reared in the paddock, cutting Baffert’s hand, before last month’s Santa Anita Derby. When I relayed that information to the press box, one colleague scurried to the parimutuel window to cover the bet he had made on General Challenge. Then General Challenge won by 3 1/2 lengths.

Baffert, however, is concerned. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t have been so insistent that General Challenge’s owners, John and Betty Mabee of San Diego, give themselves another chance to win with Excellent Meeting. They initially preferred entering Excellent Meeting in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks for fillies.

There are some other tips you hear on Churchill Downs’ backside. Prime Timber might be this year’s Indian Charlie, who was favored 12 months ago but didn’t take to the track and finished third. Valhol looks good even if his rider is not prodding him with a red hot poker. Kimberlite Pipe is the best longshot hope. Menifee has a bum knee.

That’s not Menifee’s only problem. His post position is 18.

A reporter tried to cheer Elliott Walden, Menifee’s trainer, the other day by telling him that the hypotenuse between the outside of the starting gate and the rail at the first turn means that the horse in the 20th post has to run only 2.4 feet more than the horse in No. 1.

Walden wasn’t cheered.

“I wasn’t very good in math,” he said.

So why do I like Stephen Got Even?

The Seattle Slew grandson hasn’t lost in three starts this year, has a trainer, Nick Zito, and jockey, Chris McCarron, who each have two Derby victories, drew an excellent post position at No. 4 and seems to like the track.

Besides, the letter S has been the first letter in the names of more Derby winners than any other.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.