Rogers guarding Triple Crown trophy

ELMONT, N.Y. - In his “day job” as senior director of communications and media services at Churchill Downs, Darren Rogers is the caretaker of some fairly coveted stuff: media passes for the Kentucky Derby.

But Rogers happily accepted a temporary role this week in guarding something far more valuable: the Triple Crown trophy that normally is housed at the Kentucky Derby Museum in Louisville, Ky.

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Rogers accompanied the sterling silver trophy on a Delta Air Lines flight Tuesday into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

“I had maybe 60 photos taken with it,” said Rogers, who made the same trip with the trophy two years ago prior to I’ll Have Another being scratched from a Triple Crown attempt in the Belmont. “[Transportation Security Administration] employees, flight attendants, pilots, a lot of other passengers. It was pretty cool.”

The three-sided trophy weighs only about five pounds. It was crafted by the famed Cartier jewelers shortly after Affirmed won the last Triple Crown in 1978. If California Chrome loses Saturday, “I’ll take it back to the museum, and we’ll wait for somebody else to earn it,” Rogers said. But if he wins, “we’ll have it engraved on all three sides, give it to the owners, and go have a new one made.”