Jockey John Velazquez on Thursday returned to the saddle for the first time in 3 1/2 weeks, finishing last aboard the slow-starting first-time starter Armelda in the fifth race at Belmont Park.

It was Velazquez's first mount since suffering a cracked rib and chipping a bone in his wrist in a spill at Aqueduct on April 7.

"I had to ride that horse all the way around there," Velazquez said by phone from Belmont. "I got some air out of it. I feel good, I feel really good."

Velazquez said he also got on three horses Thursday morning at Belmont.

The 139th Kentucky Derby seems like a race where you should take a flyer rather than pound a favorite. After a prep season that was short on dazzle and left half the field looking capable of winning the race, I think you’re supposed to try to get one of the pricier plausible entrants into the winner’s circle, and I’ve managed to talk myself into one – though I acknowledge I risk revocation of my lifetime membership in the Society of Speed Figure Believers.

Racing fans get so much information about horses in the Kentucky Derby that it’s easy to overthink it.

I’ve never felt so stupid as I did after the 2002 Derby, in which one of the entrants possessed a vastly superior Beyer Speed Figure plus a change of trainers to one of the best in the business. Such qualifications should have made him look like a standout, but I somehow ignored War Emblem and his new trainer, Bob Baffert. When he paid $43 to win, I vowed I’d never again overlook the basics if a similar situation ever arose.

[bc_video_id:291241:][bc_video_id:291242:]LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Thursday’s Kentucky Derby/Oaks training session featured two blowouts, one planned and the second not so planned, and another good morning from likely favorite Orb.

Thursday at Churchill

62 degrees, clear, fast

LOUISVILLE, Ky. − Four World War II veterans, three of whom fought during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 − better known as D-Day − will attend Saturday’s Kentucky Derby as guests of Rick Porter, the owner of the 3-year-old Normandy Invasion.

Porter said he and his assistant Victoria Keith received e-mails from more than 50 people with connections to D-Day, and they selected four to come to the race with them. The four are J.J. Witmeyer, 92; Alan Reeves, 91; Bill Wilch, 89; Ray Woods, age unknown.

Apollo gets mentioned whenever there's a Kentucky Derby contender who didn't compete as a juvenile - like Verrazano, one of this year's favorites. Apollo won the race in 1882 and remains the only Derby winner without any starts at 2.

"Some fools think he's a right smart horse, though he ain't," was the assessment of Green B. Morris, Apollo's trainer and co-owner, when asked about his Derby chances in early 1882. But Morris wagered heavily on Apollo in the Derby winter books.

The field was less than an eighth of a mile into the race when trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. knew his first Kentucky Derby experience was not going to be a memorable one.

Three Ring, one of two fillies in the 19-horse field for the 1999 Kentucky Derby, had ducked in at the break under jockey John Velazquez, bumping with Adonis, who was to her inside. A filly who preferred to be forwardly placed, Three Ring was now in midpack. She would finish last.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Victor Lebron has four young daughters, all of whom will be attending the Kentucky Derby in a very traditional way Saturday.

“I got them all their Derby hats,” said a beaming Lebron.

[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]

LOUISVILLE − For those A-listers, oligarchs, and monarchs who are sick and tired of slumming it on Millionaire’s Row, Churchill Downs finally has an answer: the Mansion, a posh new invitation-only amphitheater of excess six floors over the track’s finish line.

Gary Stevens, who will be riding in his first Kentucky Derby since 2005, said he felt a bit of déjà vu this week when visiting the NBC compound at Churchill Downs, where he has spent the last several Derby Days working as an analyst.

[2013 KENTUCKY DERBY: Get PPs, contender profiles, live updates]

“It’s a bit like when I was retired from riding, walking up to the jocks’ room . . . it kind of felt funny,” he said.