Everyone would like it to be early May, with much better weather everywhere, baseball in full swing, and all the pieces of the Kentucky Derby puzzle fitted together. Instead, it’s early February. The weather isn’t great, at least in a lot of places. We don’t know something as basic as which teams two of baseballs brightest, youngest stars are going to play for, and the Derby puzzle pieces aren’t even all out on the table yet. Let’s keep this in mind: As much as we might like each week’s round of Derby preps to be important and revealing, they often fall short at this still very early stage of the game. And Saturday’s three Derby points races were a reminder of this. Here’s a look: Holy Bull – The field in this Gulfstream prep didn’t fail to impress merely because the result was a 29-1 shot getting the best of a 128-1 shot, with the 4-5 favorite checking in a no-excuse third. The Holy Bull was found wanting because it was a classic example of a race that totally fell apart late. That 128-1 runner-up was Everfast, whose previous best Beyer Speed Figure in six starts was a 70, whose only win came in an even slower maiden race last summer at Ellis, and who was beaten more than 51 lengths in his last stakes attempt. Everfast fell back early on the far turn as though he was in line for his third straight double-digit-length defeat and was put to an all-out drive midway through the far turn. Yet Everfast somehow still passed horses and wound up losing by only one length, which was all the evidence you needed that the Holy Bull just came apart at the seams in the late stages. Holy Bull winner Harvey Wallbanger isn’t a bad horse at all. He was a willing second in his debut at Saratoga last summer to Complexity, who looked like the real deal when he came back to win the Champagne but later looked strictly like a one-turn horse after his surrender in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Harvey Wallbanger followed with another good effort when he lost a photo to Plus Que Parfait, who came back to narrowly miss in the Kentucky Jockey Club. But even though his two most recent efforts looked okay on paper, his Beyers nosedived from a 79 and 81 to a 69 and 64, which strongly suggests there is a definite limit to what Harvey Wallbanger is capable of. I mean, Harvey Wallbanger’s Holy Bull Beyer of 85 was six and three points lower than what Soldado and the filly Violencia got for winning their career debuts on the same card. And they might be nice horses, but they were making their first starts. It is this context that makes the previously undefeated Maximus Mischief’s third in the Holy Bull especially disappointing. Yes, the early pace Maximus Mischief forced was fast, but the plain truth is that he simply did not stay the trip. I know Maximus Mischief won the nine-furlong Remsen in his previous start, but I remember there was some angst going into that race as to whether Maximus Mischief could stretch his speed to two turns. He did in the Remsen, but with a soft trip, being involved in a pace that was probably very slow, and I say “probably” because nothing about the fractions and final times that day at Aqueduct can be trusted. In any case, in a legitimate pace scenario Saturday against questionable company, Maximus Mischief just did not stay the two turns. However, he remains a talented colt full of potential, if perhaps a distance-challenged one. If Maximus Mischief were mine, he would point to shorter races, and then maybe later in the year, after he matures, he’d try some longer races again. But given his promise, it would be understandable if Maximus Mischief’s connections gave him another chance going long. Withers – On one hand, you have to hand it to Tax for prevailing in Aqueduct’s headliner. Tax, who finished third to Maximus Mischief in the Remsen in his first start for trainer Danny Gargan after being claimed for $50,000, stumbled at the start and then steadied on the rail in upper stretch when put in tight quarters. And then, when you add in a preliminary Beyer of 96, well, you could think you might really have something here. But Tax’s Withers win and his final time didn’t happen in a vacuum. Other stuff happened. For example, Not That Brady, himself a successful $50,000 claim moving into open company after winning the Damon Runyon over New York-breds, missed his break. As a result, he was rushed to take his expected spot on the front end but went four wide on the first turn in the process. Later, in the stretch, Not That Brady gave an excellent impression of a weary horse, which made sense given the effort he expended early. Not That Brady was the one who came in and put Tax in tight on the rail, and then he was overcorrected and pinballed into Our Braintrust, who himself was no cinch to appreciate the nine-furlong distance and had first-turn issues of his own, getting caught three wide. As Not That Brady and Our Braintrust continued to bounce off each other, Tax easily got through inside, and the stage was set for him to get a clear-cut victory. Instead, Not That Brady and Our Braintrust actually came back on late (or, perhaps more accurately, gave the optical illusion of doing so), and Tax was fortunate that the wire arrived when it did. That’s not exactly the hallmark of a first-level Kentucky Derby candidate, big fig or not. Robert B. Lewis – Santa Anita’s co-feature had a built-in excuse as heavy rain made for a sloppy, sealed track. And yet this may have been the most satisfying of Saturday’s three Derby points preps, as Mucho Gusto ran off to a dominating, nearly five-length score in a time quick enough for a reasonably good Beyer of 90. Moreover, this was Mucho Gusto’s third victory in four career starts and his second stakes victory (he won the Bob Hope last fall) for a trainer in Bob Baffert who certainly knows how to win major 3-year-old races. That said, the Lewis was as much, if not more, about Improbable, a colt also trained by Baffert who was not in action Saturday. Mucho Gusto’s only loss came to Improbable in the Los Alamitos Futurity, and it was a drubbing – a five-length one, to be precise. So, obviously, Mucho Gusto’s romp in the Lewis was highly flattering to Improbable, who in a Derby sense might have been Saturday’s biggest winner without ever having to leave the barn. Other Saturday notes: • If McKinzie is to be a serious player in the older dirt male division, and the door is wide open for him, he must do better than he did in the San Pasqual. McKinzie had no excuse dropping a close decision to the solid Battle of Midway, who has never been a top-of-the-division-type horse. Maybe McKinzie wasn’t at his best on the sloppy, sealed track, but that seems too convenient a reason for his uninspiring effort. • Feedback was also less than expected in Gulfstream’s Forward Gal, even if she won. Off a most impressive maiden win at first asking at Saratoga for one of the best layoff trainers in the business in Chad Brown, Feedback had to work much harder than expected, even if you felt she wasn’t primed to fire her best shot.