Mike Pegram once named a horse after himself – Lookin At Lucky – but you wouldn’t know it by checking the man’s record in the Santa Anita Derby.

Five times in the last 20 years Pegram has approached the Santa Anita Derby with a live round in the chamber for trainer Bob Baffert and five times he has fired a blank, most recently this time around when his classy McKinzie came up with an injury less than a week before Saturday’s running of the million-dollar event.

Saturday’s two major Kentucky Derby preps – the Florida Derby at Gulfstream and the UAE Derby half a world away in Dubai – did exactly what anyone would want from any critical Derby prep. They each moved the Derby “ball” forward in a big way, and brought the overall Derby picture into much sharper focus. The only difference between them is they employed different methods to achieve similar goals.

With all the somber pomp and careful language of a royal proclamation, trainer Chris Waller announced this week that the ownership of the Australian superstar Winx, a winner of 24 straight races, has chosen not to send their 7-year-old mare to England for a race at the prestigious Royal Ascot meet in June.

“Winx has nothing to prove to anyone,” wrote Waller. “She is and always will be regarded as a legend of the turf and it is champions like her that make up the fabric of this great sport.”

The news isn’t exactly man bites dog, or the sun rising in the west, but the appearance of a horse trained by Chad Brown beyond the borders of North America is unusual enough to take note.

It happened in Qatar last month, when Brown sent Money Multiplier to finish third in the $1 million Emir’s Trophy, and it will happen again Saturday in Dubai, where Economic Model runs in the $1 million Godolphin Mile on the World Cup undercard.

Not every Kentucky Derby prep can be as compelling as the San Felipe battle between McKinzie and Bolt d’Oro, or the Rebel dominated by Magnum Moon, so we’ll get to Saturday’s Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds in a moment.

First, let’s discuss the two winners of Saturday stakes who might well have the biggest impact as this season rolls on – Good Samaritan, who was much the best in the New Orleans Handicap on the Louisiana Derby card, and Selcourt, the powerful winner of Santa Anita’s Santa Monica.

Johnny Barbra, Aqueduct, Oct. 13, 1940. Herbert Blackner, Sportsman’s Park, Feb. 7, 1944. Roy Fiocchi, Delaware Park, June 16, 1945. George Woolf, Santa Anita Park, Jan. 4, 1946.

This is how I began a column written in September 1999, in the melancholy wake of the death of the young jockey Jose Carlos Gonzalez at Fairplex Park. At that point in time, there had been 141 riding fatalities recorded at North American racetracks and codified by the Jockeys’ Guild.

Winx, the Australian internet phenomenon who doubles as a racehorse, runs again Saturday in search of her 24th straight win at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse just west of Sydney, the nation’s capital.

Rosehill’s most famous race is the Golden Slipper for 2-year-olds, a definitive event created in 1957 by Rosehill director George Ryder. On Saturday, Winx will try to win her third George Ryder Stakes, one of five Group 1 events for all comers on the Rosehill calendar.

Professional football players are physically impaired by the time they reach their early 30s. Basketball, baseball, and tennis players might last a bit longer, but usually it isn’t pretty, while pro golfers can be competitive, if not consistent, at the highest levels into their 40s.

Then there are jockeys. No professional sport is populated with more viable players who have passed half a century. The most famous among them make news with regularity, with stories invariably highlighting their age.

Most people who have even a casual acquaintance with Kentucky Derby history know that the last horse to win the Derby without having raced at 2 was Apollo in 1882.

But that 136-year streak is under a serious double-barreled threat this year. One gunning to end this run is Justify, the brilliant Southern California-based colt who debuted Feb. 18 and was most impressive winning an allowance at Santa Anita last week to make it two triple-digit Beyer Speed Figure scores in as many starts.

In the face of a Puritan ethic that sanctified the seventh day of the week and kept politicians at bay, racetracks once fought long and hard to legalize Sunday racing. Florida waited until 1986 to add Sunday racing to its calendar. New York, apparently more progressive, made the practice legal in 1973, except for Sundays named Palm and Easter, although Palm Sunday racing was eventually okayed. One year later, California followed suit and celebrated by running both the 1974 Santa Anita Handicap and Santa Anita Derby on Sundays. Lightning, it should be noted, did not strike.