NEW ORLEANS – Kenny McPeek thinks big. The veteran trainer has private facilities in both Kentucky and Florida, isn’t shy about running in Europe, or placing fillies against males, or heading down to South America to buy imports. Couple that with his well-known knack for picking out young horses at moderate prices, Curlin being the best of that long list, and he’s a force to be reckoned with wherever one turns at the track or the sales ring. This spring, though, McPeek could put himself in position to pull off an unprecedented, intercontinental double. He has top 3-year-olds like Rattle N Roll – who runs here at Fair Grounds on Saturday in the Louisiana Derby – and Smile Happy, the favorite on Daily Racing Form’s Derby Watch, both trying to move on to the May 7 Kentucky Derby with strong final preps, and Dash Attack will get a chance, too, to prove he belongs. And though Tiz the Bomb, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, also will run in a Derby prep in the next fortnight, his major objectives, McPeek said this week, are the English 2000 Guineas and the Epsom Derby. “He’s going to the Jeff Ruby,” McPeek, 59, said of the Turfway Park race April 2, for which Tiz the Bomb won the prep, the Battaglia Memorial on Tapeta. “It’s doubtful he’d run in Kentucky. He’s nominated. I wouldn’t rule it out. But I’m pretty sure we’re going to the 2000 Guineas and the Epsom Derby.” Rattle N Roll, winner last year of the Breeders’ Futurity, is first of his quartet who will go to post in a final prep for his ultimate goal. He will seek to improve upon a sixth-place finish earlier this month in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park, his first start in nearly five months. McPeek warned before that race that Rattle N Roll would need it, and he’s hoping on Saturday he sizzles like a char-grilled oyster at Drago’s. “He was a little rusty his first race back. He’d been off awhile,” McPeek said. “My hope and expectation is that he’ll improve. He needs to get points out of this. It should be a different race. A mile and a sixteenth with the short stretch at Gulfstream is different than a mile and three-sixteenths at Fair Grounds.” Rattle N Roll’s past few days exemplified the scope of McPeek’s operation. He worked Saturday at Gulfstream, where he’s been based all winter, was vanned to Ocala, Fla., and trained at McPeek’s Silverleaf Hills Training Center on Tuesday, before continuing his van ride here on Wednesday. Paddock schooling sessions were scheduled for Thursday and Friday to add the finishing touches, like parmesan atop the pasta at Domenica. Smile Happy ran here last month in the Risen Star, finishing second to Epicenter – the favorite in the Louisiana Derby – in his first start since winning the Kentucky Jockey Club nearly three months earlier. He has since been training at Gulfstream, and will go to Keeneland for the Blue Grass on April 9 for his Derby prep, seeking to add to the 30 points he’s already banked. “Very happy with his last race. He was a little farther back, got beat by a really good horse,” McPeek said. “I think he’s got enough points to get in. Need one more good prep and then take our shot at the big race. I wanted him and Rattle N Roll to have two races into the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont.” Tiz the Bomb earned his maiden score in a dirt race that came off the turf last summer at Ellis, but after that was given a steady diet of grass, and thrived, winning two stakes before the Breeders’ Cup. He was given a shot on dirt earlier this year in the Holy Bull, in which he finished seventh. Since then, he’s raced on synthetic, with McPeek clearly indicating he believes he’s better suited to races on synthetic or turf. :: KENTUCKY DERBY 2022: Derby Watch, point standings, prep schedule, news, and more Dash Attack won the Smarty Jones Jan. 1, but since then was fifth in the Southwest and seventh in the Rebel, all at Oaklawn. Like Smile Happy, he’s headed to Keene-land, but taking a softer route, via the Lexington, the last of the points-scoring races, on April 16. He thus will have a horse in a major 3-year-old stakes race on four consecutive Saturdays. McPeek ran his first horse in the Derby back in 1995, and it was his best finish, with Tejano Run – like Rattle N Roll the winner of the Breeders’ Futurity at 2 – crossing the wire second to Thunder Gulch. Since then, McPeek has had just five starters, and none since 2013. But he’s won the Belmont, with Sarava, and not 18 months ago sent out the filly Swiss Skydiver to win the postponed Preakness at the expense of the Derby winner and subsequent Horse of the Year, Authentic. His best chance since Tejano Run might have been Repent, who in 2002 won the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby, and in his final Derby prep ran second in the Illinois Derby. He subsequently was found to have a chip in his left front ankle and missed the Derby, which was won by the Illinois Derby winner, War Emblem. “We’ve been around it,” McPeek said. “It takes a bit of luck, doesn’t it?”