LOUISVILLE, Ky. – D. Wayne Lukas has trained four winners of the Kentucky Derby, and three of his former assistants have horses in this year’s Kentucky Derby. Now they can have a reunion in the saddling paddock on Saturday afternoon, because on Tuesday morning, Lukas got the word he so desperately craved for days, that enough horses above Optimizer on the graded earnings list had come out to allow him in.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Rousing Sermon worked five furlongs in 1:00.13 at Churchill Downs on Tuesday, the only potential Kentucky Derby starter to work over a racetrack upgraded from good to fast following the renovation break.

Shivananda Parbhoo has not exactly followed a conventional path to the Kentucky Derby. He bought his colt Trinniberg almost by accident. He employs his 72-year-old father as his trainer. He decided to run Trinniberg at Churchill Downs on Saturday even though the speedster has never raced as far as a mile and appears unprepared for the Derby's demanding 1 1/4-mile distance.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The field is in the home stretch as far as Kentucky Derby workouts are concerned. Five more prospective Derby runners turned in their final major preps on Monday, including Santa Anita Derby runner-up Creative Cause and Mark Valeski, a horse who has yet to be confirmed a definite Derby starter by his trainer, Larry Jones.

Union Rags also made his first appearance since his spectacular workout 48 hours earlier, jogging a mile and visiting the paddock shortly after 7 a.m.[bc_video_id:250400:]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Evidently there exists, at some obscure black market or on a forgotten dusty shelf of an ancient pharmacy, an antidote to the illness that strikes the Thoroughbred world each spring – Derby Fever. And the Joneses, former Kentucky governor Brereton and trainer Larry, have procured a dose of it.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This is a hot Derby, and the temperature is getting turned up. The field for the 138th Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs is deep and strong, more than the maximum of 20 want to run, it’s a seller’s market for tickets, and the weather is heating up, with a predicted high temperature of 90 degrees for race day.

Each day during Derby Week, Steven Crist will answer a Kentucky Derby Handicapping Question of the Day. Crist will select questions from Facebook, Twitter, his blog, or the comments on this answer page to tackle on DRF.com Monday through Friday.

A partnership of nearly 20 years will reach its zenith on Saturday when Creative Cause runs in the Kentucky Derby for trainer Mike Harrington and owner Heinz Steinmann, both of whom will have their first Derby starter.

“He’s been the greatest man in the world to me,” said Harrington, 71, who first met Steinmann, 80, a ski-resort developer, in the early 1990s. “He gave me $700,000 to go buy a Derby starter. I came home with three horses. How many owners give you a blank check and say, ‘Good luck?’ ”

Trainer Michael Matz was a happy man while standing in his shed row late Monday morning, long after his Union Rags had completed an easy one mile jog and visited the paddock in his first day back to the track since turning in an eye-catching workout at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Chip Woolley has a rooting interest in the Kentucky Derby this year in Take Change Indy, with Calvin Borel riding for trainer Pat Byrne, but that’s not his pick. Woolley, who gave Borel a leg up when Mine That Bird upset the Derby at 50-1 in 2009, arrived here Sunday from New Mexico to “relax and enjoy” all the festivities of Derby week.