Down for Now, but Not Out

Bandini may have won the Blue Grass Stakes by six lengths and Afleet Alex the Arkansas Derby by eight, but seven of the horses they beat are expected to show up for a rematch in the Kentucky Derby.

Trainers of those seven obviously think that the 131st Derby, to be run at Churchill Downs on May 7, is still wide open.

“The horses may cross the finish line [in the Derby] before we really figure it out,” said trainer Wayne Lukas, who plans to run Consolidator, the fifth-place finisher in the Blue Grass at Keeneland, in the Derby. The three immediate finishers behind Bandini -- High Limit, Closing Argument and Sun King -- are also Derby-bound.

Afleet Alex’s winning margin broke an Arkansas Derby record, but Flower Alley and Andromeda’s Hero, who were second and third at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., and Greater Good, who finished fifth, are still headed for the Derby.

The Derby favorite is expected to be Bellamy Road, the 17 1/2 -length winner of the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct.

“I hope we’re not the favorite,” said Todd Pletcher, who trains Bandini and Flower Alley. “I’d just as soon go in there as the second choice. [Being the favorite] is not the position you want to be in -- at least historically.”

After Spectacular Bid won as expected in 1979, 20 consecutive favorites came a cropper in the Derby. Two of the last five Derby winners -- Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000 and Smarty Jones last year -- were favored.

If nine horses from just two of the preps run in the Derby, that might mean a full field of 20 and prevent Greeley’s Galaxy, the Illinois Derby winner, from running. Greeley’s Galaxy wasn’t nominated for the Triple Crown series -- either for $600 in January or for $6,000 later -- and would have to be supplemented into the Derby for $200,000. But nominated horses can bump supplements from the field.

There is one more prep at Keeneland, Saturday’s Lexington Stakes. Among the probables are Rockport Harbor, Going Wild and Sort It Out.

Although Jeremy Rose rode Afleet Alex to his impressive win at Oaklawn, the jockey’s status is unclear going into the Derby. John Velazquez, the 2004 Eclipse Award winner, has ridden Afleet Alex, but he is committed to Bandini. Rose has never ridden in a Derby, and first-time jockeys seldom win the race. When Stewart Elliott won with Smarty Jones last year, he was the first first-timer in the winner’s circle since Ronnie Franklin with Spectacular Bid 25 years before.

Lukas is not the only trainer who has been unable to assess the Derby. Bobby Frankel isn’t even sure about his own horse, High Limit, who suffered the first loss of his four-race career in the Blue Grass.

“There’s no pressure on me now,” Frankel said. “But I don’t know if he’ll go forward or backward off this race. The way he’s acted afterward, it tells you that he ran in one very tough race.”

High Limit, as he has done before, jumped the tire tracks from the starting gate as he ran through the stretch. Frankel may add blinkers for the Derby.

Frankel had a peaks-and-valleys weekend at Keeneland. His 5-year-old gelding, Cajun Beat, who won the 2003 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, suffered a career-ending ankle injury in the Commonwealth Stakes, which was run before the Blue Grass. Then on Sunday, Frankel saddled Intercontinental, who won the Jenny Wiley for the second consecutive year.

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Jim Ahern, a California deputy attorney general, said stewards ordered post-racing drug testing of four horses in the Santa Anita Derby -- the first three finishers and a randomly selected horse, whom Ahern could not identify. But the random horse wasn’t Sweet Catomine, the beaten favorite and a filly who is at the center of a controversy involving owner Marty Wygod and trainer Julio Canani.

“What was going on with Sweet Catomine [including being secretly removed from Santa Anita for almost 48 hours the week of the race] wasn’t known by the stewards or anyone else until well after the running of the race,” Ahern said. “Had the stewards known then what they know now, they might have ordered Sweet Catomine tested as well.”

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Triple Crown Ratings

Tribune Co. ratings for 3-year-olds leading to the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes:

Horse; Jockey; Trainer; St; W; P; S; Last race

1. Bellamy Road; Javier Castellano; Nick Zito; 5; 4; 0; 0; Wood Memorial (1st)

2. Bandini; John Velazquez; Todd Pletcher; 5; 3; 1; 0; Blue Grass Stakes (1st)

3. Afleet Alex; Jeremy Rose; Tim Ritchey; 9; 6; 2; 0; Arkansas Derby (1st)

4. Noble Causeway; Edgar Prado; Nick Zito; 6; 3; 3; 0; Florida Derby (2nd)

5. High Fly; Jerry Bailey; Nick Zito; 6; 5; 0; 1; Florida Derby (1st)

6. High Limit; Ramon Dominguez; Bobby Frankel; 4; 3; 1; 0; Blue Grass Stakes (2nd)

7. Buzzards Bay; Mark Guidry; Jeff Mullins; 8; 3; 1; 2; Santa Anita Derby (1st)

8. Sun King; Edgar Prado; Nick Zito; 7; 3; 0; 2; Blue Grass Stakes (4th)

9. Rockport Harbor; Stewart Elliott; John Servis; 5; 4; 1; 0; Rebel Stakes (2nd)

10. Flower Alley; Jose Chavez; Todd Pletcher; 4; 2; 1; 1; Arkansas Derby (2nd)

Triple Crown panel: Bill Christine, Los Angeles Times; Tom Keyser, Baltimore Sun; Dave Joseph, South Florida Sun-Sentinel; Neil Milbert, Chicago Tribune; Paul Moran, Newsday.