Florida 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.

Shug McGaughey catches Derby fever every once in a while, and the Hall of Fame trainer just might have it again, thanks to a 3-year-old colt named Orb . Orb rallied in the stretch for a half-length win over favorite Violence in Saturday's Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park for his third straight victory. Even though McGaughey admits he's excited about a chance to win his first Derby - he's 0 for 6 there - he's trying to remain his usual low-key self. "If he keeps improving, maybe he'll be something," the trainer said.

WHEN UNION RAGS finished his 2-year-old season, the colt did not need to earn any more money to get a spot in the Kentucky Derby. Under a new points system announced Thursday by Churchill Downs to determine the now-normal 20-horse Derby field, 2-year-old form will be much less relevant. The system does not include races at less than a mile or races restricted to fillies. Instead of the old graded stakes earnings that could be won in 185 races worldwide, points can be earned in only 36 stakes races, only one on grass.

Quality Road's troubled feet could keep him out of the Kentucky Derby. Trainer Jimmy Jerkens found a spot of blood on a newly patched quarter crack in the Florida Derby winner's right hind foot during a gallop on Belmont Park's training track yesterday morning. Jerkens says the 3-year-old colt will have to come out of a 5-furlong breeze "perfectly" today to get a trip to Churchill Downs for Saturday's Derby. "If he takes one bad step anywhere, forget it," Jerkens said.

In the vast, fast world of sports, tonight is what you could call a slow night, a 24-hour void in the kind of competitive fix to which we have grown accustomed. That's just the way it is, sometimes. No NBA, no hockey, no local basketball, and, of course, no football. All on vacation, brief or otherwise. So, as the NBA takes a well-deserved breather after its All-Star Game, as the NHL readies for its All-Star Game tomorrow night, as the local college hoopsters take a little pause and as the NFL sleeps off its past season, what's left?

Villanova won the gold medal last night in the men's distance medley relay at the NCAA indoor track and field national championships in Fayetteville, Ark. The team of Ryan Hayden, Nic O'Brien, Paul Moser and Adrian Blencoe ran the distance in 9 minutes, 29.12 seconds for the Wildcats' second consecutive national title in the event. Stanford was second in 9:29.60, and Michigan third in 9:29.76. Villanova has won 36 gold medals indoors, including six in the DMR. Haverford's Greg Bielecki finished seventh in the 800 meters at the NCAA Division III indoor track championships at Greencastle, Ind., to earn his second career all-American recognition.

Perhaps never before in the 24-year history of the Pennsylvania Derby has a horse had the opportunity to control the pace as Wiseman's Ferry does this afternoon in the 1 1/8-mile test at Philadelphia Park. Wiseman's Ferry appears to be the lone horse with early speed in the $500,000 Grade III event. He will be ridden by the talented and aggressive Jorge Chavez, who has been aboard the $300,000 yearling since he arrived in this country from Ireland, the home of the colt's trainer, Niall O'Callaghan.

The favorite hasn't won a Kentucky Derby in 16 years. No Wood Memorial Stakes winner has won a Derby since 1981. No Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion has ever won the Derby. So what do you think of that, Ernie Paragallo, owner of Unbridled's Song, who just happens to be this year's Derby favorite, the current Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion and, after today, perhaps the winner of New York's last major Derby prep race, the Wood Memorial? "Doesn't concern me at all," said the saucy 38-year-old self-made multimillionaire, who has yet to fail at a business venture.

The Wood Memorial, a 75-year-old race that has lost favor on the Triple Crown prep trail, was won yesterday by a colt with the same problem. Adonis, a B-team player in trainer Nick Zito's stable after a disappointing sixth-place finish in the Florida Derby last month, finished first in a field of 11 in the $600,000, 1 1/8-mile race and likely earned a berth in the May 1 Kentucky Derby. Jockey Jorge Chavez, who convinced Zito to put blinkers on Adonis after he wandered wide in the Florida Derby, raced Adonis up close until the turn for home, then stormed to the front down the stretch and finished in 1 minute, 47.3 seconds, just three seconds off the track record set by Riva Ridge in 1973.