As Kentucky Derbies go, the 141st edition last Saturday was a satisfying one on several counts, whether or not you cashed a ticket. (I did not.)First, it was an exceptionally clean race. With the exception of Materiality (broke slow, shuffled back to 17th, closed belatedly for sixth), no one had a particularly tough trip. The first four finishers had every chance to win, and American Pharoah was simply a little bit better than Firing Line, Dortmund, and Frosted.Second, it was a rare Derby victory by a champion 2-year-old. This used to happen all the time – six times in the 1970s alone – but since Spectacular Bid in 1978-79, Street Sense in 2006-07 was the only juvenile champion in the last 36 years to win the roses. This is important in re-establishing the connection between 2-year-old and 3-year-old racing, which has become severed in recent decades as training methods have favored later debuts and fewer starts. Note, too, that the only four Triple Crown winners in the last 67 years (Citation, Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Affirmed) all were champion 2-year-olds the previous year.Third, this year’s outcome was the most formful in almost a decade. The favorite won, which has happened for three years running now, but the rest of the finish was far more logical than usual – no Commanding Curve or Golden Soul clunking up for an implausible second at more than 30-1. Instead, four of the top five betting choices ran 1-2-3-4. The six horses who had run Beyer Speed Figures of 103 or better ran 1-2-3-4-6-18.When Derbies turn out this way, it’s usually a good thing: It probably means that most of the top choices showed up and ran their races, and it may well mean it’s a pretty good group. That’s what happened in 1997 with Silver Charm, Captain Bodgit, and Free House, and in 2007 with Street Sense, Hard Spun, and Curlin. We don’t know yet if this year’s Derby top trio matches either of those groups – the race earned a Beyer of just 105, compared to Street Sense’s 110 and Silver Charm’s 115 – but when three horses dominate a race from start to finish, it’s usually a good sign.The triumph of form over randomness may have disappointed those who stabbed at longshots, but it’s not a bad handicapping lesson that there are years when you should hunt for bombs and years when you shouldn’t. Last year’s Derby field was a complete jumble of mediocrity behind California Chrome, and other years have featured a weak and vulnerable favorite. This year, however, roughly half a dozen horses would have had to misfire badly to put one of the eight horses at 30-1 or higher in the winner’s circle. Those eight ran 7-9-11-12-13-15-16-17.The public sensed it. Since Giacomo and Mine That Bird’s 50-1 triumphs, horses had stopped going off at much more than 30-1 in the Derby, but this year, there were four at 45-1 or higher. Despite the glut of talent at the top of the field, there was the usual contingent of no-hopers, and every single one of them made no impact on the race. It’s probably too much to hope that owners will ever skip the Derby with a clearly inferior horse just because he qualifies on points, but this year’s outcome was a good argument for doing so.Finally, it’s well worth celebrating the popularity of this year’s Derby, a box-office hit by nearly every metric, from attendance to handle to television ratings. This does not mean that business will boom at Golden Gate or Gulfstream next week, or that the sport will not continue to contract until it finds the right level of supply and demand. It does mean, however, that the popular narrative that the public has rejected racing as drug-addled barbarism is far more fantasy than fact.The facts did not, however, get in the way of racing’s enemies from trying to make that discredited case. The publicity hounds at PETA released a video of outtakes from its Steve Asmussen witch hunt, and two particularly dim congressmen introduced a bill that would effectively close down racing from coast to coast. Industry organizations were quick to condemn the bill, which probably has no chance of making it out of committee, but this is a direct result of racing’s so-called friends attacking the sport at every turn.