Lone Star Park leading rider Iram Diego will be reuniting with one of the best horses he has ever ridden Sunday for the track’s Grade 3, $200,000 Steve Sexton Mile. Iron Fist gave Diego a notable win in February, capturing Sam Houston’s premier dirt race for older horses, the $100,000 Maxxam Gold Cup.

Dominick Schettino will watch Saturday’s 143rd Kentucky Derby with mixed emotions.

As the original trainer and co-owner of Always Dreaming, Schettino can’t help but feel some remorse about no longer having a stake in a horse who has a very live chance to win the world’s most famous horse race.

Royal Squeeze, who won the $75,000 Jeblar last Sunday in his first start since September, was also making his first start for trainer Ralph Nicks.

“He probably spoiled me right off the bat,” Nicks said. “I like his style.”

Royal Squeeze earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 93 in the seven-furlong Jeblar, winning by 1 3/4 lengths under Tyler Gaffalione.

“Tyler rode an outstanding race,” Nicks said. “His patience – and then the turn of foot [Royal Squeeze] had – it was a big effort.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With both the Churchill Downs Racing Club and Fair Grounds Racing Club intending to run a horse in the Pat Day Mile on the Derby undercard, paddock passes will be at a premium before that race.

Each of the partnerships comprise 200 members. Gary Palmisano Jr., who helps manage both groups, said a random drawing will be held to determine which members will be allotted a paddock pass. Every ownership entity in every Derby-weekend stakes is given about a dozen paddock passes.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This is the 22nd year for the Oaks-Derby Double, the innovative two-day wager that has linked Churchill’s two major races every year since 1996. The minimum bet is $1.

The Oaks also leads off a pick-three wager (50-cent minimum) leading into the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic and the Derby. The first year for that wager was 2009. In 2016, all-sources handle was $2,537,553 on the double and $790,825 on the pick three.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Easily the biggest overlay from the Kentucky Oaks Future Wager pool held Feb. 24-26 is Miss Sky Warrior, who was dismissed at 52-1 but figures as one of the favorites Friday in the filly classic.

Another potential bargain from the Oaks futures is the mutuel field at 9-1. That group is comprised of the late-blooming Paradise Woods, who is the program favorite, plus eight more entrants (including also-eligible Summer Luck).

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – He has had about seven years to regularly practice his English, but after he speaks for a while outside his native tongue, Spanish, you can hear Antonio Sano wearying. He sprinkles in a “si” here, a “pero” there, casts for the right word, but continues on gamely, trying to describe how he came to Churchill Downs last week from Florida with a horse named Gunnevera.

It is quite a tale.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks contenders, all wearing keepsake saddle towels printed with their names, had long since cleared the Churchill Downs track last Sunday, taking the crowds with them, when an unmarked, unimposing bay filly walked to the gap in a plain yellow saddle towel bearing no identification. Her identity was only revealed by the man walking at her head – Hall of Fame trainer Neil Drysdale, a quiet, deliberate horseman who prefers to let his horses do the talking.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – There has been much wringing of hooves and gnashing of bridles this week at Churchill Downs about the state of pace in the Kentucky Derby.

The notion that Churchill Downs’s points system to determine the 20 Derby starters has shoved out many of the truly fast front-runners of Derbies past has for the most part become accepted narrative – and it definitely appears to be the case this year.

When Victor Espinoza rides Gormley in the post parade of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, he will sneak a glance at the jammed grandstand at Churchill Downs.

“The thing you see are the colors,” Espinoza recalled last weekend. “It never gets old. This is what we work for.”

There will be little time for sightseeing. Gormley will need a warm-up.

“Everybody is having fun, and I have to work,” Espinoza said with a laugh.