Filly

Winning Colors established herself as a strong Kentucky Derby contender yesterday, leading all the way to become the first filly in 29 years to win the Santa Anita Derby, posting a powerful 7 1/2-length victory over Lively One. The triumph was the fifth in six lifetime starts for Winning Colors, owned by Eugene Klein and trained by D. Wayne Lukas, and was worth $275,000, raising her career earnings to $470,150. The filly finished second in the only race she did not win. Winning Colors, ridden by Gary Stevens, covered 1 1/8 miles on a fast track in 1:47 4/5 and, as a slight favorite of the estimated crowd of 47,200, paid $7.20, $4 and $3.20.

It is no longer news that Winning Colors was only the third filly to win the Kentucky Derby. If she wins today's Preakness, she will become the fifth filly to win the second leg of the Triple Crown, the first since Nellie Morse, in 1924. And she would be the first to win two parts of the Triple Crown. Only 50 fillies have started in the Preakness, none since Genuine Risk in 1980. That Preakness was the most controversial in history. Codex, trained ironically enough by Wayne Lukas of Winning Colors fame, beat Genuine Risk on the track and later in a Maryland Racing Commission appeal hearing.

She is the color of rich Colombian coffee with a dash of cream, and her dappled bay coat glistens like fresh varnish as she moves. She is a near-perfect picture of a racehorse, so elegant in her motion that veteran horsemen are moved to call her "sexy. " "My best description of her," blood-horse agent J.B. McKathan said, "is that if she was a woman, I'd marry her, because she is absolutely the sexiest thing. " Perhaps the only minus on the resume of 3-year-old Silverbulletday is her unbecoming name, given to her by fun-loving owner Mike Pegram in tribute to his favorite silver-canned beer.

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a filly can't be named "Sally Hemings" after Thomas Jefferson's most famous slave and reputed lover. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that the Jockey Club can legally bar horse owner Garrett Redmond from naming his 4-year-old horse after Hemings. Judge Alice Batchelder, writing for the three-judge panel, said Redmond has other options that may be approved by the Jockey Club, which forbids horse owners from using names of famous or notorious people without special permission.

Debra Sones was thrilled to see her filly in front. She wasn't quite as pleased when she saw the fractions Who Did It and Run was setting in last night's Jersey Derby at Garden State Park. "I saw them and I said, 'Oh, God,' " Sones said. "But then I saw how easy she was going and I said maybe she'll be all right. She has a huge heart. " And she's really, really fast. Bidding to become the first filly to win America's oldest Derby, Who Did It and Run, the only filly in the eight-horse field, blitzed through supersonic fractions of :21 4/5, :45 1/5 and 1:09 2/5 on a grass course that simply does not produce such fractions.

Undefeated Relaxing Rhythm will go postward as the favorite in Sunday's $500,000 Delaware Handicap and face last year's 3-year-old filly champion, Ajina, and seven other fillies and mares. The Del 'Cap, a Grade III event raced at 1 1/4 miles, is the headliner of the Delaware Park meeting and is one of seven stakes, worth $2.15 million, to be contested this weekend at the track in Stanton, Del. Relaxing Rhythm will carry 117 pounds for the Stronach Stables and trainer Patrick Byrne.

UNBEATEN has even more cachet than champion. There is always a champion at the end of every season. Unbeaten never happens anymore in sports where sanctioned money is involved. (So we are not counting college football.) In horse racing, unbeaten has become a synonym for impossible. Which was why Zenyatta was such a fascination last year when she nearly finished her career 20-for-20. Standardbred racing also involves horses, but is quite different from thoroughbred racing.

Lazer Show, a horse who has made a career of running in Breeders' Cup special races, is expected to go into the gates Saturday for the $150,000 Philadelphia Park Breeders' Cup Handicap, track officials said yesterday. Racing secretary Paul Jenkins assigned the 4-year-old filly 119 pounds for the seven-furlong sprint, which will be the live feature of a Saturday card that includes simulcast wagering on the $750,000 Washington, D.C. International from Laurel Race Course. In all likelihood, Lazer Show will be the highweight for the race, which contains $50,000 of the track's money and $100,000 from the Breeders' Cup program.

The Kentucky Derby is the one race each year in which most bettors aren't concerned as much about price as they are about just having the winner. Everybody wants to have the Derby winner. Today's 114th Kentucky Derby is no different. Still, it's nice to get a price as well. Shopping around, which is one of the many benefits of simulcasting, could pay dividends today. There has been much debate this week about which horse will be favored at Churchill Downs. Track line-maker Mike Battaglia is convinced it will be unbeaten Private Terms.

Saturday's 114th Kentucky Derby is easy to define, simple to explain. Winning Colors, left alone for all but the final milliseconds of her journey around the outer limits of the frenzied thousands in the Churchill Downs infield, was the star. Only the third filly to win America's greatest race, Winning Colors took the lead so effortlessly, was striding so smoothly and was so clearly going to win by the far turn that her effect was almost hypnotic. Focus was difficult to get, nearly impossible to maintain.

ALMOST AS soon as horse trainer Tony Dutrow bought the filly for $95,000 in 2010, his wife Kim knew the name. She could only be Grace Hall. One of her owners was Mike Caruso, the three-time NCAA champion Lehigh wrestler from the mid-1960s, a man whose high school and college record was 141-1. Then as now, the Lehigh wrestling venue was intimidating Grace Hall, named after Eugene Grace, the president of Bethlehem Steel and a great Lehigh baseball player. "I've lived in Bethlehem the last 50 years since I came to Lehigh," said Caruso, who went to St. Benedict's in Newark, N. J. He was on the Lehigh Board of Trustees for 14 years.

Almost as soon as horse trainer Tony Dutrow bought the filly for $95,000 in 2010, his wife Kim knew the name. She could only be Grace Hall. One of her owners was Mike Caruso, the three-time NCAA champion Lehigh wrestler from the mid-1960s, a man whose high school and college record was 141-1. Then as now, the Lehigh wrestling venue was intimidating Grace Hall, named after Eugene Grace, the president of Bethlehem Steel and a great Lehigh baseball player. "I've lived in Bethlehem the last 50 years since I came to Lehigh," said Caruso, who went to St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, N.J. He was on the Lehigh board of trustees for 14 years.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A day of Breeders' Cup surprises began with a horse from Philadelphia pulling off a massive upset on the Breeders' Cup undercard, and climaxed with some head-turners on horse racing's biggest day. The two most accomplished local horses, 4-year-old filly Havre de Grace and 2-year-old eye-opener Union Rags, wound up short of the big prizes. Jockey Mike Smith, who couldn't quite get there in last year's Breeders' Cup Classic with the great filly Zenyatta, pulled off an upset Saturday, and made some Breeders' Cup history of his own, as 2010 Belmont Stakes winner Drosselmeyer won the $5 million Classic, the sport's richest event, coming from behind - "out of nowhere," screamed the track announcer - for a 11/2-length victory over Game On Dude.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Right outside the temporary office of trainer Larry Jones at Barn 43 at Churchill Downs, there is a makeshift memorial of sorts, a hanging sign with two hand-painted words: EIGHT BELLES. Dangling from the sign are eight tiny golden bells. "It travels with us," Jones said Thursday. "We will never forget. " It was at Churchill where Eight Belles stumbled badly galloping out after finishing second to Big Brown in the 2008 Kentucky Derby, suffered severe injuries to both her front legs.

Craig Donnelly scraped together nickels and dimes as a boy and begged his mother to place $2 bets for him at the track. While his siblings went off to Dartmouth, Bryn Mawr, and Harvard Law, the Radnor High School graduate got his higher education at the local horse tracks, where he began a life-long career as a racing handicapper. "If you're good at it," he says, "you'll still be wrong two-thirds of the time. " He was perfect early on with one pick - the young secretary working at Keystone Park in Bensalem, now Parx Racing.

UNBEATEN has even more cachet than champion. There is always a champion at the end of every season. Unbeaten never happens anymore in sports where sanctioned money is involved. (So we are not counting college football.) In horse racing, unbeaten has become a synonym for impossible. Which was why Zenyatta was such a fascination last year when she nearly finished her career 20-for-20. Standardbred racing also involves horses, but is quite different from thoroughbred racing.

The morning line favorite Saturday for the $75,000 Power By Far Stakes at Parx Racing is Ann's Smart Dancer, a 3-year-old filly that has been named for the late wife of popular former Inquirer handicapper Craig Donnelly. Owned by Silver Lake Stable, Ann's Smart Dancer has been nearly flawless in her young career, winning three of her first four starts, losing only to speedball Quantum Miss in her track record performance at Penn National in the Wonders Delite Stakes in late May. The Dance With Ravens filly seemingly gets better with every start and is coming off her career best, a 23/4-length victory in the $75,000 Caught in the Rain Stakes here on July 2. She will face five others in the six-furlong sprint Saturday.

Havre de Grace, the leading filly and mare in the nation, and Blind Luck, the 2010 3-year-old filly champion, are slated to square off Saturday at Delaware Park in the $750,000 Delaware Handicap. Havre de Grace is owned by Richard Porter's Fox Hill Farm and trained by Larry Jones. California's Blind Luck is trained by Jerry Hollendorfer. They headline the 74th renewal of the $750,000, Grade II Delaware Handicap. The mile-and-a-quarter race for fillies and mares has attracted a field of five.

The California invader Blind Luck, last year's 3-year-old filly champion, arrived at Delaware Park at approximately 4 p.m. Wednesday for her engagement in the $750,000 Grade II Delaware Handicap. The Kentucky-bred conditioned by Jerry Hollendorfer is slated to square off against the leading filly and mare in the country this year, Havre de Grace, and the defending Delaware Handicap champion, Life At Ten, in the mile-and-a-quarter filly and mare summer classic this Saturday. In her final workout for the Delaware Handicap at her home base of Hollywood Park, the 4-year-old daughter Pollard's Vision went four furlongs handily in :48.20 yesterday.

Jerry Hollendorfer has won nearly 6,000 races. He has dominated racing in Northern California for decades, winning 37 consecutive training titles at Bay Meadows and 32 straight at Golden Gate Fields. Only four trainers in history have won more races than Hollendorfer. Hollendorfer has made it in the game the hard way. Nothing was ever handed to him. He won all those claiming races because he worked at it. And whenever he got a top stakes horse in his barn, he won major races. All he has ever needed was a chance.