Derby Day

Early yesterday morning, John Servis was in a hurry to get to Churchill Downs. But the Philadelphia Park-based trainer of Derby darling Smarty Jones couldn't leave his rented Kentucky home until he found the only set of house keys. After an exhaustive search, his wife, Sherry, finally unearthed them . . . stuck in the front door, left there overnight. "The pressure must be building," Servis said. That would be the only sign so far. Even longtimers here are commenting on how one of the coolest guys on the grounds going into Saturday's race seems to be a first-time Derby trainer and Bensalem resident who yesterday wore a blue cap with the words Pennsylvania's Smarty Jones, The Real Philadelphia Flyer.

The Phillies and the New York Yankees have a historic encounter today at Veterans Stadium, but Yankees owner George Steinbrenner will be at Philadelphia Park late this afternoon to see his Universe compete in the $200,000 Pennsylvania Derby. Frisk Me Now, winner of the Flamingo and the Ohio Derby this season, is likely to be a solid favorite in the 19th running of the Grade 3 Derby. None of his seven opponents has ever won a graded stake. Bob Durso trains Frisk Me Now for his wife, Carol Dender, and they have seen their $18,000 purchase earn $517,695 with four victories in 16 career starts.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As the sun first popped over the trees at Churchill Downs on Friday, Union Rags galloped for the last time before Saturday's 138th Kentucky Derby. "I think he's in good form right now," trainer Michael Matz said a little later in the morning outside Barn 42, the same spot where Matz once stabled the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro. Of his latest Derby horse, the 9-2 second choice in the morning line, owned by Phyllis Wyeth of Chadds Ford, Matz said, "I think he's ready to run. . . . We've been a little bit harder on him since the Florida Derby, getting him peaked a little bit more.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Jamie Wyeth stood off to the side of the grassy plot outside Barn 42, hard by Longfield Avenue, silently sketching the crowd watching the colt his wife owns taking a bath. If one scene could describe the Kentucky Derby experience, that would be it. "It's amazing interest," Jamie said. "It sure is a distance from my studio and my world. " The Wyeths had just been trackside at Churchill Downs Wednesday morning watching Union Rags take one of his final morning gallops before Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

It just happened this way, but it is hard not to see providence at work when Kentucky Derby Week will start off Sunday at Delaware Park with a celebration by hundreds of Barbaro fans on the occasion of what would have been the 2006 Derby winner's fourth birthday. The FOB (Fans of Barbaro) will gather in the Grove at DelPark at around noon. Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, said they plan to be there during the day. A number of events are planned, culminating with NBC's showing of its Barbaro documentary late in the afternoon.

Derby Day. This town - pronounced correctly, it's LOO-ah-vul - has practically shut down. The city has become one big rotating party. An empty hotel room cannot be found. There is hardly a vacant restaurant table. It is time to bet, drink and act silly. No legitimate nonessential business would admit being open for the last two days. Everyone - everyone - is acting like a child. A man rolling a cooler down a sidewalk yesterday suddenly jumped, kicked his heels in the air and shouted "YEEEOOOWEE!"

Ernie and Rene McAlphin stood by the railing along the race track at Philadelphia Park in Bensalem on Labor Day in eager anticipation of the day's big race. Summer Squall, the Preakness winner, was the featured attraction at the track's Pennsylvania Derby, but the McAlphin's 4-year-old daughter, Jennifer, had other things on her mind. Perched atop her father's broad shoulders, Jennifer, dressed in a pink-and- white sun dress, appeared very bored even during the big race. After all the screaming was over, Jennifer gently slapped her father's face and asked, "Daddy, can I go back to feeding the goats?"

This Ohio River town is full. Everybody who is anybody in thoroughbred racing is here, and just about every racehorse who was any horse at all in 1988 is in a stable somewhere at Churchill Downs - Winning Colors, Personal Ensign, Easy Goer, Sunshine Forever, Alysheba, Forty Niner . . . 83 in all. This is the Breeders' Cup, coming to you wherever you are on Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. It's the richest day in racing, $10 million in purses, and it...

It has been raining in Louisville this week, and every trainer with a horse in tomorrow's 114th Kentucky Derby will be asked two dozen times whether his horse can handle a muddy track. But mud is unlikely for the Derby unless there is a heavy rain on Derby Day. The racing strip at Churchill Downs dries out so quickly that the track has been fast for the last 17 runnings of the Derby. There hasn't been a muddy track in the Derby since 1958, when Tim Tam won for Calumet Farm.

Horse racing always has been a bit of a closed society. Its image is just a tad stuffy. Black owners are rare. Enter the Oaktown Stable of the Burrell family of Oakland. The Burrells own Lite Light, the sensational 3-year-old filly who won Friday's Kentucky Oaks by 10 lengths. Immediately after the race, the owners announced they plan to run their filly against the colts in the Belmont Stakes. That's pretty outrageous. But when you consider that Stanley Burrell is popularly known as M.C. Hammer, rap superstar, you can imagine what the establishment must be thinking.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As the sun first popped over the trees at Churchill Downs on Friday, Union Rags galloped for the last time before Saturday's 138th Kentucky Derby. "I think he's in good form right now," trainer Michael Matz said a little later in the morning outside Barn 42, the same spot where Matz once stabled the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro. Of his latest Derby horse, the 9-2 second choice in the morning line, owned by Phyllis Wyeth of Chadds Ford, Matz said, "I think he's ready to run. . . . We've been a little bit harder on him since the Florida Derby, getting him peaked a little bit more.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Jamie Wyeth stood off to the side of the grassy plot outside Barn 42, hard by Longfield Avenue, silently sketching the crowd watching the colt his wife owns taking a bath. If one scene could describe the Kentucky Derby experience, that would be it. "It's amazing interest," Wyeth said. "It sure is a distance from my studio and my world. " The Wyeths had just been trackside at Churchill Downs on Wednesday morning watching Union Rags take one of his final morning gallops before Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Jamie Wyeth stood off to the side of the grassy plot outside Barn 42, hard by Longfield Avenue, silently sketching the crowd watching the colt his wife owns taking a bath. If one scene could describe the Kentucky Derby experience, that would be it. "It's amazing interest," Jamie said. "It sure is a distance from my studio and my world. " The Wyeths had just been trackside at Churchill Downs Wednesday morning watching Union Rags take one of his final morning gallops before Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

BALTIMORE - Turning opinions into money at the track is definitely an art. There is some science, but one better have an imagination, a really good memory and the courage to back up any conclusions with cold, hard cash. What worked yesterday often does not work tomorrow. Which brings us to tomorrow's Preakness. If you just looked at the cold, hard results, you would have to pick Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver again. After all, he won the race by 2 1/2 lengths. The horses that finished second, fourth and fifth are not at Pimlico.

It's not easy to top a gigantic, rolling, orange octopus made out of bicycles that will still fit under the El in Kensington, but Erik Silverson and wife Hedy Sirico are determined. And in this eccentrically gritty neighborhood, where new hipster greets old rowhouse, this is a serious task undertaken in deep secrecy, where on Saturday, in a cobblestone-jarring ride through the streets, they plan to outdo Octavishnu, the celebrated entry from 2008's Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby - the ultimate imprint of the newcomers on the old neighborhood.

In recent years, Larry Jones has had such a string of fine racehorses, and his share of days when fate wasn't so kind to him at the track . . . he's not about to start boasting now. After finishing second in the 2007 Kentucky Derby with Hard Spun and second again in last year's Kentucky Derby with the ill-fated Eight Belles, the Delaware Park-based trainer feels - make that, knows - he has another top contender in Saturday's 135th Run for the...

It just happened this way, but it is hard not to see providence at work when Kentucky Derby Week will start off Sunday at Delaware Park with a celebration by hundreds of Barbaro fans on the occasion of what would have been the 2006 Derby winner's fourth birthday. The FOB (Fans of Barbaro) will gather in the Grove at DelPark at around noon. Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, said they plan to be there during the day. A number of events are planned, culminating with NBC's showing of its Barbaro documentary late in the afternoon.

The track is only 1,000 feet long. The race is over in half a minute. Just a snippet of time, but packed with jitters and thrills, smiles and tears for the hundreds of youths - and parents - who have been involved in the All-American Soap Box Derby during its 50-year run in Bucks County. "I like the excitement of racing," said Rachel Ream, 15, of Levittown, who has participated in the derby for four years. "The hardest part is staying in a straight line. The road is bumpy, and the wheels move a lot. " The road is Woodbourne Road, which on derby day - scheduled this year for June 24 - is closed near the Five Points intersection in Levittown.

One year ago, Stewart Elliott sat in the jockeys' room at Churchill Downs, waiting for the chance to make Kentucky Derby history aboard a colt named Smarty Jones. Elliott, who is scheduled to ride in seven races at Delaware Park today, said he was surprisingly composed before the 130th Derby. But when he entered the track and the band played "My Old Kentucky Home," it "really hit me," he recalled yesterday. "Believe it or not, I felt more pressure before the Arkansas Derby.

Miami Heat center Shaquille O'Neal has a mildly sprained left knee but might play tonight against the Orlando Magic. An MRI exam confirmed a very mild sprain, the team said yesterday. O'Neal, who did not comment to reporters waiting outside a Miami hospital, is listed as day-to-day. He was injured in the first two minutes of Tuesday's game in Chicago when he leaped to catch an alley-oop pass from Dwyane Wade and landed awkwardly atop Bulls forward Othella Harrington. O'Neal stayed on the court for several minutes, clearly in pain.