LOUISVILLE, Ky. - On a dank and chilly morning that seemed to yield few hints that the 131st Kentucky Derby is just around the corner, Afleet Alex was the hottest thing going when he glided through a five-furlong breeze in a bullet 59 seconds Tuesday at Churchill Downs.

It was just another manic Monday on the road to the Kentucky Derby.

The training regimen of top Kentucky Derby candidate Afleet Alex is unlike that of most horses in North America.

And so are the results.

High Fly and Noble Causeway have been on parallel paths for a little more than two months, with on Feb. 5 and March 5 before their one-two finish in the Florida Derby on April 2. So it was only appropriate that the two colts, who are at Churchill Downs preparing for the Kentucky Derby on May 7, would work minutes apart Friday morning in what is likely to be their penultimate drill for the Derby.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - The back door is open. Now all Rockport Harbor has to do is come barging through.

As the most obvious candidate to advance to the 131st Kentucky Derby, Rockport Harbor will be a solid favorite to successfully employ the so-called backdoor route to Churchill Downs when he faces seven other 3-year-olds Saturday in the $325,000 at Keeneland.

Bob Baffert has had a decade-long love affair with the Kentucky Derby. Saturday will be Baffert's last chance to keep that romance going for this year.

Baffert will run Sort It Out in Saturday's $325,000 at Keeneland, hoping the New York-bred can revert to the form that brought him to Baffert's barn in the first place. Sort It Out would need nothing less than a victory to assure himself a spot in the Churchill Downs starting gate on May 7.

He has the same trainer, the same jockey, even an owner who is a car dealer from the Philadelphia area. The similarities between Smarty Jones and Rockport Harbor were obvious. And after winning all four of his starts last year, Rockport Harbor looked like he also had the talent to follow in the footsteps of Smarty Jones.

Jeremy Rose, who rode Afleet Alex to his runaway victory on Saturday in the Arkansas Derby, will retain the mount for the May 7 Kentucky Derby, according to a note posted on the horse's official website, www.afleetalex.com, Tuesday afternoon. The news was confirmed by J.J. Graci, a spokesman for the Cash Is King syndicate, which owns Afleet Alex.

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. - Powerful victories by Afleet Alex in the Arkansas Derby and Bandini in the on Saturday helped further define the leading contenders for the May 7 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, but with less than three weeks until Derby Day, there are still more than 20 horses pointing for the 131st running of America's greatest horse race.

Blues and Royals, the runaway winner of last month's United Arab Emirates Derby, is suffering from a low-grade respiratory infection and has been taken out of consideration for the Kentucky Derby, it was announced Monday on the website of his owner, Godolphin Racing.

Blues and Royals won the UAE Derby by 12 lengths in his only start this year.