Bellamy Road

Bellamy Road, who finished seventh as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, has been sidelined with an injury to his left front leg. George Steinbrenner's colt will miss the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Nick Zito, trainer of Bellamy Road, said the colt "popped a splint," meaning a tear in the ligament adhering the splint bones to the cannon bone. Zito said the injury probably started before the Kentucky Derby but was aggravated during the race. "There is no doubt you will see the real Bellamy Road again," the trainer was quoted as saying on The Blood-Horse Web site.

Mike Smith liked Giacomo the first time he saw him. The colt was only 2, a newcomer to John Shirreffs' barn at Hollywood Park, but Smith was smitten. Giacomo (JOCK-ah-moe) had the same beautiful, gray face as his father, Holy Bull. Smith, who was Holy Bull's regular rider, saw that immediately. And then, after breezing Giacomo for the first time, he saw that the colt had some of his father's ability as well. "I told John," Smith said, referring to Shirreffs, "that if we can just get this horse to the Kentucky Derby, then he's going to redeem his father's name."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - What the sporting public has known for a month became official yesterday: Bellamy Road is the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. The powerful colt with the high-powered owner was deemed the 5-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday's race at Churchill Downs. Bellamy Road will start from Post 16 in the auxiliary gate. Before diminishing his chances from the outside starting position, consider that five of the past 10 Derby winners broke from the auxiliary gate. It has six slots and extends outside the main 14-slot starting gate.

Bellamy Road, who finished seventh as the favorite in the Kentucky Derby, has been sidelined with an injury to his left front leg. George Steinbrenner's colt will miss the Preakness and Belmont Stakes. Nick Zito, trainer of Bellamy Road, said the colt "popped a splint," meaning a tear in the ligament adhering the splint bones to the cannon bone. Zito said the injury probably started before the Kentucky Derby but was aggravated during the race. "There is no doubt you will see the real Bellamy Road again," the trainer was quoted as saying on The Blood-Horse Web site.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Nick Zito entered the Kentucky Derby yesterday at Churchill Downs with perhaps the strongest hand of any trainer in history. Four of his five horses were among the first six betting interests. But the best a Zito horse could manage was seventh, and that was Bellamy Road, his ace. The colt owned by George Steinbrenner was the 5-2 favorite. After surging to second with a quarter mile to go in the 1 1/4 -mile race, Bellamy Road faded to seventh. "I don't have an excuse," said Javier Castellano, his jockey.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The 131st Kentucky Derby gained its focal point when Bellamy Road won the Wood Memorial Stakes at Aqueduct by 17 1/2 lengths, shattering the stakes record, tying the track record and unleashing the imagination. Could this power-packed horse owned by the high-powered George Steinbrenner be the next Secretariat? Those who have watched him train for the Kentucky Derby today at Churchill Downs may be excused for thinking the unthinkable: He just might be. With neck bowed and eyes bulging, the galloping Bellamy Road has barely been able to contain the competitive rage that seems to pound inside his glistening dark-brown coat.

If you listen to the talk, Bellamy Road will win Saturday's Kentucky Derby. But the thing about the Derby is that you can always count on the unexpected. Last year, a fan favorite named Smarty Jones, a little-regarded horse from Philadelphia Park, took the Arkansas route to Churchill Downs. He won the Derby and Preakness before losing in the Belmont Stakes. His performance grabbed people beyond the usual racing fans. And that's what horse racing is in desperate need of - a hero who is recognized beyond the pari-mutuel windows.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Yankee loathers, rejoice. George Steinbrenner's Bellamy Road is the favorite in tomorrow's Kentucky Derby, but some of the wisest guys in racing are skeptical of the horse's chances. "He's got a little bit of a problem," said trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time Derby winner. "Flavor of the week," said jockey Jerry Bailey, a two-time Derby winner. "I can easily make the case against him," said Bobby Frankel, a five-time Eclipse Award winner as America's top trainer.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Despite Bellamy Road's overpowering triumph in the Wood Memorial Stakes and his elevation to Kentucky Derby favorite, Sun King remains No. 1 in Nick Zito's Derby hierarchy. "I just think he's the catalyst of our stable," said Zito of the colt he calls "Elvis" and "Captain King." "If he does well, then the whole stable does well. I like this horse to go a long way." A son of Charismatic, who won two-thirds of the Triple Crown in 1999, Sun King has won half of his six races and is the 2-1 second choice in the morning line for the $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes tomorrow at Keeneland.

WE HERE in horse country can't afford to go much longer without working out our psychological stance on a very important matter. 'Tis, after all, the season. On the third Saturday in May, the Preakness will follow the May 7 Kentucky Derby and, unless the governor of this great horse state of Maryland sees fit to immediately push the second leg of the Triple Crown to the more bucolic and someday-slots-approved Laurel, then we must consider this real and startling possibility: George Steinbrenner could limo into Baltimore to see his 3-year-old colt, Bellamy Road, take a crack at racing immortality.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The game at the Preakness is beat the Kentucky Derby winner. That may never be truer than this year, because Giacomo has no one quaking in his boots. After shocking the racing world with the second-largest upset in Kentucky Derby history, Giacomo will attempt to win the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, on May 21 at Pimlico. Six of the past eight Derby winners won the Preakness, but few on the backstretch at Churchill Downs yesterday believed Giacomo would become the seventh of nine.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Now that is funny. An invisible horse won the Kentucky Derby yesterday. Not Bellamy Road, the horse owned by George Steinbrenner, or any of the other four that trainer Nick Zito sent to the post. Not Bandini, the insider's choice, or Afleet Alex, the people's choice. They all finished behind a horse with no past, a 50-1 shot with an Italian name that had never won a race other than a maiden event for nonwinners. A horse named Giacomo that almost no one thought about, talked about or seriously considered before the race.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Nick Zito entered the Kentucky Derby yesterday at Churchill Downs with perhaps the strongest hand of any trainer in history. Four of his five horses were among the first six betting interests. But the best a Zito horse could manage was seventh, and that was Bellamy Road, his ace. The colt owned by George Steinbrenner was the 5-2 favorite. After surging to second with a quarter mile to go in the 1 1/4 -mile race, Bellamy Road faded to seventh. "I don't have an excuse," said Javier Castellano, his jockey.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The 131st Kentucky Derby gained its focal point when Bellamy Road won the Wood Memorial Stakes at Aqueduct by 17 1/2 lengths, shattering the stakes record, tying the track record and unleashing the imagination. Could this power-packed horse owned by the high-powered George Steinbrenner be the next Secretariat? Those who have watched him train for the Kentucky Derby today at Churchill Downs may be excused for thinking the unthinkable: He just might be. With neck bowed and eyes bulging, the galloping Bellamy Road has barely been able to contain the competitive rage that seems to pound inside his glistening dark-brown coat.

THE KENTUCKY DERBY is a big hole in the ground. That's sort of how NBC's Derby producer, David Michaels, put it yesterday. During a conference call, Michaels recalled asking jockey Pat Day about how to present the spectacle of the Derby. Day told him the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs is like the Grand Canyon. "Every year, I look at the show as the Grand Canyon," Michaels said. "It's the challenge of capturing this." That won't include new, big technical innovation, he said, "until the time comes when somebody invents a rail cam that won't spook the horses."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Yankee loathers, rejoice. George Steinbrenner's Bellamy Road is the favorite in tomorrow's Kentucky Derby, but some of the wisest guys in racing are skeptical of the horse's chances. "He's got a little bit of a problem," said trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time Derby winner. "Flavor of the week," said jockey Jerry Bailey, a two-time Derby winner. "I can easily make the case against him," said Bobby Frankel, a five-time Eclipse Award winner as America's top trainer.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Kiaran McLaughlin, trainer of Closing Argument, was explaining how his horse ended up in the Blue Grass Stakes. He bruised his foot before the Florida Derby and missed that race, McLaughin said, "so we had to go to Plan B - the Arkansas Derby or the Blue Grass. This looks like an easier spot, so we stayed here." For a moment, those attending the Blue Grass post-position draw yesterday remained silent. Then they burst out laughing, realizing that McLaughlin had cracked a joke - and a good one. The Blue Grass is anything but an easy spot.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The game at the Preakness is beat the Kentucky Derby winner. That may never be truer than this year, because Giacomo has no one quaking in his boots. After shocking the racing world with the second-largest upset in Kentucky Derby history, Giacomo will attempt to win the Preakness, the second leg of the Triple Crown, on May 21 at Pimlico. Six of the past eight Derby winners won the Preakness, but few on the backstretch at Churchill Downs yesterday believed Giacomo would become the seventh of nine.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - What the sporting public has known for a month became official yesterday: Bellamy Road is the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. The powerful colt with the high-powered owner was deemed the 5-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday's race at Churchill Downs. Bellamy Road will start from Post 16 in the auxiliary gate. Before diminishing his chances from the outside starting position, consider that five of the past 10 Derby winners broke from the auxiliary gate. It has six slots and extends outside the main 14-slot starting gate.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It was the simplest of questions: Where are you going to sit Saturday? But Nick Zito stopped and smiled when a reporter asked it yesterday because, for him, the question wasn't simple at all. "Oh, I'll be all alone," the 57-year-old New Yorker rasped. "I'll be off by myself somewhere." That's funny. As trainer of five of the 20 horses in the 2005 Kentucky Derby, including favored Bellamy Road, Zito is the centerpiece of horse racing's biggest show this year; he can barely take a step without being stopped to talk or shake a hand.