LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Although the lone horse to work on Saturday for next Saturday's Kentucky Derby is still stabled 72 miles away at Keeneland, the focus for Derby 133 began to swing to Churchill Downs, where the track opened with a Derby Trial more notable for its absences.

Both Bwana Bull and Teuflesberg scratched from the $100,000 Derby Trial in order to run in the Derby seven days later. Bwana Bull is assured of a spot in the field, but the connections of Teuflesberg will have some anxious moments over the next few days before entries are taken on Wednesday.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Steve Asmussen was standing under the shed row of his barn at Churchill Downs having a casual conversation the other morning when he suddenly grew distracted by something seemingly imperceptible.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The Kentucky Derby will be run at Churchill Downs for the 133rd time on May 5. But nearly all of the important pre-Derby activities this past week took place at Keeneland where the majority of the prospective starters will put in their final major preps through Sunday.

Trainer Doug O'Neill was in the spotlight on Friday morning, working all three of his Derby starters and his Kentucky Oaks hopeful Mistical Plan over Keeneland's fast Polytrack surface. All four worked six furlongs under cloudy skies with exercise rider Tony Romero aboard.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Doug O'Neill has never run a horse in the Kentucky Derby, but next Saturday he is scheduled to erase that drought, and in triplicate. Cobalt Blue, Great Hunter, and Liquidity are ticketed to the 133rd Derby for California's winningest trainer, and Friday at Keeneland, all three put in their final works for the Derby.

For Great Hunter, considered the best of O'Neill's group, it was his first and lone drill since he finished a troubled fifth in the Blue Grass Stakes 13 days earlier. Both Cobalt Blue and Liquidity worked here one week earlier.

There will be a lot of discussion in the next week about Curlin trying to become the first horse to win the Derby who did not race as a 2-year-old since Apollo in 1882 and the first horse to win the race with only three lifetime starts since Regret in 1915.

The last horse to try to do what Curlin is trying was Showing Up, who finished sixth in last year's Derby after winning his first three starts, including the Lexington Stakes. Barclay Tagg, the trainer of Showing Up, said talent can overcome inexperience.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Intermittent but at times heavy showers put a bit of a damper on training at both Churchill Downs and Keeneland on Thursday morning. No workouts were scheduled for any of the Kentucky Derby contenders at either venue, with about a dozen potential Derby starters still training over the Polytrack at Keeneland.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Bwana Bull, who is entered in the $100,000 Derby Trial on Saturday at Churchill Downs, may scratch from that race and is a "possibility" to run in the Kentucky Derby on May 5, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Thursday.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Xchanger, winner of the April 21 Federico Tesio Stakes, is only "20 percent" likely to run in the Kentucky Derby unless he is sold in the coming days, trainer and part-owner Mark Shuman said Thursday.

Shuman said there are several parties interested in buying the Exchange Rate colt, who has sufficient graded earnings to gain entry into a Kentucky Derby field that is likely to be oversubscribed. He said he could not predict if a deal would be finalized.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Julien Leparoux has been named to ride Sedgefield in the Kentucky Derby, trainer Darrin Miller told Churchill Downs officials Wednesday morning.

Sedgefield, one of two Derby prospects that Miller trains for Silverton Hills Farm, figures as one of the longer prices in the May 5 race, having finished fourth as the favorite in his last start, the April 6 Transylvania Stakes on the Keeneland turf course.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Funny, trainer Michael Matz was saying, what a difference a year and a horse make.

A year ago, just about everywhere Matz went all anyone wanted to know was how he could possibly be thinking Barbaro could win the Kentucky Derby off a - gasp - five-week layoff, which had not been done in 50 years.

All Barbaro did was go out and win the Derby here at Churchill Downs by 6 1/2 lengths.

Now, a year later, the success of Matz and Barbaro has made the lengthy layoffs of several contenders for this year's Derby seem not quite so questionable.