By John Scheinman
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, April 26, 2008

Trainer Larry Jones doesn't much care that someone else trying to get into the 20-horse Kentucky Derby field might get shut out if he runs his imposing gray filly Eight Belles next Saturday at Churchill Downs.

Nothing in the rules restricts the biggest race in the country to 3-year-old colts and geldings, and Eight Belles, with her four-race winning streak, appears as worthy a candidate as any.

Coming off back-to-back graded stakes victories at Oaklawn Park, Eight Belles almost assuredly would be favored to win the Grade I $500,000 Kentucky Oaks the day before the Derby, but owner Rick Porter ambitiously put up the Triple Crown late nomination fee of $6,000 last month to take a good, hard look at running Eight Belles against the boys.

The filly ranks No. 16 on the graded stakes earnings list with $210,000, and only the top 20 horses can make the field.

This past week, Porter and Jones said Eight Belles would be cross-entered in both the Oaks and Derby, and if she draws an acceptable post position will race Saturday.

"We've got to run our business the way we see fit to run it," Jones said. "We're not going to be a Saturday morning scratch, I can tell you that. We will definitely know by Thursday. I think a couple of the boys are vulnerable. [Favorite] Big Brown comes in as lightly raced as [last year's third-place finisher] Curlin did. I hate to hang 'super horse' on him, but Curlin is one of the best horses in training in a while."

Eight Belles would be attempting to become the fourth filly in history to win the Kentucky Derby. The last was Winning Colors in 1988.

Both Jones, 51, and Porter, 67, have reputations of going against the grain. Last year, they brought a fast horse named Hard Spun to the Kentucky Derby and were mocked when the colt worked five furlongs in a blistering 57.60 seconds the Monday before the race.

Critics said the fast work took too much out of Hard Spun, but Jones, a commercial farmer in Kentucky before venturing into thoroughbreds, turned out to have more horse sense under his trademark cowboy hats than people gave him credit for. Hard Spun led the entire way in the Derby until Street Sense ran him down in the stretch.

Porter, meantime, caught flak for criticizing the ride of Hard Spun's jockey Mario Pino in the Preakness and replacing him with Garrett Gomez for the Belmont Stakes.

If Eight Belles enters the Derby and is scratched after the draw, only 19 horses will run, potentially angering the connections of a horse left on the outside looking in.

Trainer Bob Baffert endured sharp criticism in 2002 when he entered Danthebluegrassman in the Derby an hour before the draw and then scratched the horse the morning of the race, citing a stiff back.

Baffert won that year with long shot War Emblem, but Steve Asmussen, who trained the left-out Windward Passage, said a situation like that should never happen again. The Kentucky Derby does not have an also-eligible list for horses to draw into the field if others scratch.

"It's just unfortunate we're going to keep somebody out, but I feel it's within the rules and have to take advantage of it," Porter said. "This is a business and not just a sport."

Jones does admit to feeling bad for David Carroll, the trainer of Denis of Cork, who is marooned at No. 22 on the money list and needs two defections to make the field.

"David Carroll is a friend of mine and uses my stalls when he comes to Oaklawn," Jones said.

Carroll, though, said he harbored no ill will. "I'm a good friend, but not that good a friend," he said. "If we don't get in, it's nobody's fault but our own. We're preparing as if he's going to run. If he gets in, he does, and if he doesn't, he doesn't. One, I've never had a horse in the Kentucky Derby, and two, he'd have a legitimate shot. That's the most disappointing thing."

Racing Note: Jones said jockey Gabe Saez, who rides first call for him at Oaklawn Park, will have the mount on Eight Belles if she runs in the Derby. Saez has the mount on Jones's Proud Spell, the likely favorite in the Oaks, as well.

If Eight Belles winds up in the Oaks, jockey Ramon Dominguez will have the mount.