LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Lion Heart spent only a few hours at Churchill Downs on Monday, getting familiar with the surroundings and putting in a strong workout over the track. Trainer Patrick Biancone can only hope things go as well Saturday when he brings Lion Heart back for the 130th Kentucky Derby.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Jason Orman and Mark Hennig can empathize with Tom Petty. The waiting is the hardest part.

Orman, the trainer of Rock Hard Ten, and Hennig, who trains Eddington, are on the outside looking in at this year's Kentucky Derby. Each wants to run his colt in Saturday's 130th Derby at Churchill Downs, but both could be denied spots because of insufficient earnings in graded stakes races.

Track: Fast
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 55

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky - The sun finally shined bright over this old Kentucky home on Monday morning, a delightful and welcomed change following several days of rain. So too was the fast racetrack which greeted the five Kentucky Derby hopefuls who worked, a group that included likely Derby favorite THE CLIFF'S EDGE. As usual the majority of the action took place following the renovation break with only QUINTONS GOLD RUSH working early, very early, shortly after the track opened for business at 5:15 a.m.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Rain was a four-letter word around Churchill Downs during training hours on Sunday. Especially to the four trainers who had works scheduled for their Kentucky Derby hopefuls on an absolutely miserable morning.

Light rain that fell when the racetrack opened for training at 5:15 a.m. turned to torrential downpours an hour later and a sloppy/fast track became heavier and slower as the morning progressed up until the renovation break. The surface quickened a bit after being floated by the maintenance crew during the break.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Ernie Paragallo bluffed. Rock Hard Ten folded, at least temporarily. Sinister G folded, for good. St Averil called. And Smarty Jones raised the stakes. Seven days out from the 130th Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs on Saturday became the newest site of the World Poker Tour.

On a day filled with intrigue and subterfuge, Song of the Sword secured a spot in the Derby field when Sinister G officially was dropped from consideration. But Paragallo, the owner of Song of the Sword, might have cost Rock Hard Ten a spot in the race with his cunning.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The racetrack is open for training for more than four hours every morning. But as is so often the case in the days leading up to a major race like the Kentucky Derby, most of the important action takes place within a span of less than 10 minutes following the renovation break.

On Saturday morning, Sinister G's trainer, John Toscano Jr., said the horse would not run in the Kentucky Derby because he is still ailing from a respiratory infection.

"It would be insanity to run if he's not 100 percent," Toscano said.

Sinister G, who finished 10th in his last start in the Wood Memorial on April 10, was sick after the race and treated with antibiotics. He was taken off antibiotics after several days of treatment, but was put back on them again last Thursday when he began coughing.

NORTH EAST, Md. - Michael Dickinson is a celebrity in England, where his training exploits have landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records and afforded him audiences with Prince Charles and Her Majesty the Queen.

In just four years of training steeplechase runners, Dickinson was the champion trainer three times, won 12 races in one day, and - the most impressive of all his accomplishments - saddled the first five finishers of the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Kentucky Derby of steeplechase racing.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - If April showers bring May flowers there ought to be roses aplenty on May 1, because Churchill Downs has been saturated for three days by a steady, soaking rain that forced a number of trainers to adjust the schedules of their Kentucky Derby contenders on Friday.

Nine days before the 2000 Kentucky Derby, a camera crew for Television Games Network captured that year's Derby favorite, Fusaichi Pegasus, gleefully tossing his exercise rider to the ground at 6:30 a.m. on Churchill Downs's main track.