The stewards were taking forever – 10 minutes, 15 minutes – while the clock kept ticking and the massive crowd grew dangerously restless. This was the Kentucky Derby, for Pete’s sake, held up by a jockey’s objection and the three dithering officials trying to unpack what happened, while the horses circled, their people paced, and the media chafed at the bit. Finally, after 18 minutes, it was announced that Bill Boland’s protest had been disallowed and Tomy Lee, with Bill Shoemaker aboard, was declared the winner of the 85th Kentucky Derby over Sword Dancer by the slimmest margin in 26 years. Sixty years later, Boland, now 85, was more than intrigued by the ruckus over the disqualification of Maximum Security and jockey Luis Saez from first to nowhere in Derby number 145. After hanging up his white pants in 1969, Boland trained, then became an official in New York, serving as a steward. Reached this week at home in Florida, his recollection of the ’59 Derby still was vivid. “My horse was about a half a length in front,” Boland said. “Shoe thought he was beat and yelled, ‘Good luck!’ Then Shoe’s horse came out, hit my horse in the rear end, and turned him in. He doesn’t do that, and he’s never going to get by me.” Boland had been aboard for trainer Elliott Burch in Sword Dancer’s maiden win the summer before at Saratoga. “There wasn’t a whole lot to him,” Boland said. “If he’d have been a big, strong horse like Tomy Lee he’d have won the Derby. “I watched the film of the race when I was at the Derby Museum,” Boland added. “From the films they had at the time, I don’t think I could have taken the winner down. But I know in the race itself I was bothered.” So much for the difference between perception and reality. Boland rode Sword Dancer in the Derby only because Shoemaker had a choice, as usual, and went with Tomy Lee. “I knew if I had any chance to keep the mount for the Preakness, I had to win the race,” Boland said. “Either that, or if Shoemaker stayed with Tomy Lee.” As it happened, Tomy Lee became that rare Derby winner to pass the Preakness. Burch put Shoemaker back aboard Sword Dancer in Baltimore, but the result was the same. Royal Orbit, fourth in the Derby, exploded under Bill Harmatz to beat Sword Dancer by four lengths. Sword Dancer went on to take the Met Mile, Belmont, Travers, Woodward, and Jockey Club Gold Cup to be Horse of the Year. Whether you count first-place Derby finisher Maximum Security or the elevated runner-up Country House, the Preakness will be without the Derby “winner” for the first time since the victorious Grindstone woke up the morning after the 1996 Churchill classic with a broken knee. Before that, trainer Eddie Gregson famously said no thanks to the two-week turn-around for Gato del Sol in 1982. Prior to Tomy Lee, the benchmark for Preakness shunning came in 1951 when the first eight Derby finishers passed on the soft-shell crab. Going five deep to find the best Derby finisher to run in this year’s Preakness may not be such a bad idea, especially since that horse is Improbable, the Derby favorite. Any other resemblance to that traumatic excuse for America’s Most Famous Horse Race offered two weeks ago is thankfully slight. This Preakness can be meant for healing, even though the news that Saez was hit with a 15-day suspension poured salt in the wound. “I didn’t think it was his fault, but after looking at it a few times it did look like he pointed his horse out at little coming into the stretch,” said Boland, channeling his inner steward. “It was an awful tough decision for those stewards, though. I wouldn’t have liked to have been in their position. I think I would have found a way not to take it down. I’m guessing they were looking for every way, but they couldn’t.” Besides his plaque in the Hall of Fame, Boland has a place in history as one of only two apprentice jockeys to win the Kentucky Derby, which he did in 1950 aboard Middleground for King Ranch. And while Boland took just about every other major event on the East Coast, including the 1966 Belmont Stakes aboard Amberoid, he could do no better than second, third, fourth, and fifth in four Preakness tries. His memory of Middleground’s Preakness still stings. “Going into the first turn I was about a half-length off a horse called Mr. Trouble, with Steve Brooks, and the sonofabitch bolted,” Boland said. “Hill Prince got through and opened up four or five lengths. I got within a couple lengths of Hill Prince at the three-eighths pole, but that took too much out of him. He should have won.” As for the 1959 Derby, Boland never regretted taking his shot with the stewards. He might have been ahead of his time, but he knew he was bucking precedent. “In 1950, when I went there I was only a kid,” Boland said. “The stewards called us in before the race – and this is God’s honest truth – the one man said, ‘We will not take a number down in the Derby. But if you cause any trouble, we’ll give you a year.’ ”