He’s got a lovely wife and two young sons, and a professional career that has brought him the last two Eclipse Awards as champion jockey, a couple of Breeders’ Cup victories, and, this past week, the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award. What Ramon Dominguez doesn’t have, yet, is a win in a Triple Crown race. Not the Kentucky Derby, nor the Preakness, nor the Belmont.

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Hansen, last year’s 2-year-old champion, drew post 12 in a field of 13 3-year-olds entered to run in Saturday’s Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct.

The 13 entries are believed to be the largest for a single running of the Gotham, which was first run in 1953. The race was split three times, the last being in 1983. In 1994, there was a 12-horse field and Irgun won the race from post 11.

Mike Maker, the trainer of Hansen, admitted that post 12 was a concern but added “what can you do?”

WHO’S HOT

This is precisely the time of year when the importance of first-level, two-turn allowances for 3-year-olds becomes magnified, most notably at a major track such as Fair Grounds. A proverbial jump off the television screen tends to earn an up-high mention in the “up-and-coming” or “sleeper” category for the Kentucky Derby, just below the confirmed candidates.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Six new horses are in the lineup of 23 separately listed wagering interests in Pool 2 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager, which opens its three-day run Friday at noon Eastern.

Mark Valeski nearly aced his stakes and two-turn debut Saturday in the Risen Star, losing by a nose to El Padrino, but to trainer Larry Jones, that performance could wind up being a mere point of departure.

“I really do think he can improve,” Jones said Tuesday. “I do know when he was ready to go over to race Saturday, I looked at him and I thought, ‘Boy you’re still fat!’ In my opinion this race will tighten him up. I don’t think he’s peaked by any means.”

Algorithms will have surgery for a fractured splint bone in his right front leg and will miss the Triple Crown, trainer Todd Pletcher and co-owner Jack Wolf said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.

The news ended a whirlwind 48-hour period for Algorithms, who on Sunday was scheduled to run in the Fountain of Youth Stakes but was scratched that morning from the race because of a problem with the splint. Subsequent radiographs revealed the extent of the damage.

Ever So Lucky has been anything but lucky this winter for trainer Jonathan Sheppard. Ever So Lucky was forced to miss the Grade 2 Hutcheson due to a combination of several days of wet weather that disrupted his training and a little gash on his right foot, and now he’s suffered a second minor setback, a bruise on his left foot, Sheppard revealed Sunday.

Sheppard’s current goal for Ever So Lucky is the seven-furlong, Grade 3 Swale on March 10.

The likelihood of a small field for the Grade 1, $1 million Florida Derby on March 31, plus the chance to keep jockey Ramon Dominguez on Alpha, has trainer Kiaran McLaughlin pondering the Florida Derby for Alpha, who still has the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 7 as a potential final Kentucky Derby prep, too.

McLaughlin said the victory by Union Rags in the Fountain of Youth Stakes on Sunday might help keep the field size small for the Florida Derby. But McLaughlin also is looking down the line at a possible conflict for the Wood with Dominguez.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Algorithms will not be one of the 23 separately listed 3-year-olds in Pool 2 of the Kentucky Derby Future Wager, even though the colt has not been definitively ruled out of contention for the 138th Derby on May 5. Pool 2 opens Friday at tracks and wagering outlets throughout North America for the usual three-day run.