LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Gary Contessa had Uncle Sigh stretch his legs over a muddy Churchill Downs track Wednesday, and the Withers and Gotham stakes runner-up went a half-mile for Saturday’s Kentucky Derby in a quicker-than-anticipated 52.70 seconds. Contessa said he was looking for more of a 54-second move but was elated with the way his colt moved over the surface.

“My God, his body language was great,” Contessa said. “That’s exactly what I was looking for body-language-wise, so I’m very thrilled. Let him open his lungs a little bit.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In a two-week span early in 2012, Chris Mara won a Super Bowl and saw his daughter get nominated for an Academy Award. If ever there was a time to press one’s luck, that was it.

So, Mara, senior vice president of player personnel for the New York Giants – a team owned by the Mara family – told his wife, Kathleen, that he was going to “pull the trigger” on pursuing a lifelong dream of owning racehorses. Two years later, Mara hopes that dream includes a trip to the winner’s circle in the 140th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

Derby Angles features DRF handicappers looking at individual handicapping factors and how they may play out in this year’s Kentucky Derby. The five-part series began with Dan Illman’s take on pedigree and continues with Dick Jerardi on Beyer Speed Figure Patterns, Dave Litfin’s  look at “trips,” Marcus Hersh on the impact of post position, and Brad Free’s pace projection.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Winchell family has owned racehorses for more than 50 years and has been associated with Steve Asmussen for 25 years. Over the years, the Winchells used a number of trainers, running the gamut of backgrounds and personalities, including Ron McAnally and Michael Dickinson.

The book on Gary Stevens is that he tends to like every horse he’s ever ridden, describing some of them as champions in the making while others brush perilously close to being nothing less than the second coming of Man o’ War.

This could be an occupational hazard. Riding horses like Gentlemen, Point Given, Serena’s Song, Beholder, Safely Kept, War Chant, Fantastic Light, Candy Ride, Singspiel, and Kentucky Derby winners Thunder Gulch, Silver Charm, and Winning Colors can give a rider a warped sense of perspective.

Were it not for the fact that he was the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes, Sir Barton’s name most likely would be buried in the pages of history.

But each spring, sportswriters – many of whom write about Thoroughbred racing only during this time – often bring up the name of the 1919 Horse of the Year as the first to win the coveted Triple Crown.

This year’s Kentucky Derby field is among the most regionally diverse in recent memory, with horses bred in five different states and one Canadian province likely to run.

As of Thursday, the projected 20-horse field was set to include runners bred in Kentucky, New York, California, Louisiana, Florida, and Ontario. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the last horse bred outside of Kentucky to win the race, when Pennsylvania-bred Smarty Jones took his first step toward what would become a Triple Crown near-miss in 2004.

[bc_video_id:322798:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The welcome mat was out here Tuesday morning for the three latest arrivals on the Kentucky Derby scene: the favored California Chrome, Dance With Fate, and Samraat. The one major piece of business to be completed Tuesday was a half-mile breeze by General a Rod, who made news of his own 24 hours earlier with the announcement that he’d been purchased by Skychai Racing and Starlight Stables.

Art Sherman was seeing to a few last-minute items around the barn late Sunday morning before sending California Chrome to Kentucky. He was outwardly calm, if by calm one means checking his phone every 30 seconds to see who’s calling now, or glancing furtively at the computer screen images from the closed-circuit cameras in California Chrome’s stall. He made sure the colt’s bag of horse treats were by the door, ready to ship, then picked up a bundle of clothes.

“Alan’s – can you believe that?” Sherman said. “At his age, sending laundry home for his mom. And she’ll do it, too!”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Approaching the top of the stretch in the 2011 Kentucky Derby, jockey Rajiv Maragh thought he had a chance to win the race on Mucho Macho Man. Turning for home, however, Mucho Macho Man could not match strides with Animal Kingdom and ended up finishing third.

The remainder of that year’s Triple Crown did not go well for Maragh. He finished eighth on Mucho Macho Man in the Preakness and was subsequently removed from the horse for the Belmont Stakes.