It began last November when few people were watching. With the focus of the racing world at that time on the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, Kendrick Carmouche went on a hot streak, winning nine races over three days at Aqueduct.

Sure, he took advantage of the absence of the big-name riders such as Irad Ortiz Jr, Jose Ortiz, Luis Saez, and Joel Rosario. But when those guys returned, Carmouche did not stop winning. He capped a terrific Aqueduct fall meet by winning the Cigar Mile, his first career Grade 1 victory. He won the meet riding title.

ARCADIA, Calif. – This year’s Kentucky Derby is not trainer John Sadler’s first rodeo, only his best. As in, best chance.

Rock Your World, the undefeated Santa Anita Derby winner, marks Sadler’s first Kentucky Derby runner in seven years. Four of his previous starters finished off the board, and the California native has not been back since 2014.

“I’ve learned you don’t go back without a contender. You want to go back with a good shot,” Sadler said. “I wouldn’t be going just for the trip. I’m going with a better horse.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Essential Quality was assigned post 14 in a full gate of 20 3-year-olds set to race Saturday in the 147th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

Essential Quality will have Luis Saez aboard as the 2-1 morning-line favorite for the 1 1/4-mile race. The undefeated Godolphin homebred colt will be looking to become just the third 2-year-old champion in more than 40 years to win the Derby, following Street Sense (2007) and Nyquist (2016).

LOUISVILLE, Ky – The last of the heavy lifting as far as the 2021 Kentucky Derby is concerned took place Monday on two fronts, including here at Churchill Downs where Midnight Bourbon turned in a little more serious work than expected during the special Derby/Oaks training session, which began at 7:30 a.m. The second of the Derby works on Monday came at Parx Racing, where Brooklyn Strong worked five furlongs earlier in the morning.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The cameras and tape recorders were waiting, and Bob Baffert was ready. His last horse scheduled to train Monday morning, Charlatan, returned from the track, clomped back into the shed row, and Baffert framed himself in front of the cameras, setting a backdrop of six plaques hung on the barn wall bearing the names of the Kentucky Derby winners he has trained.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – “The Kentucky Derby is a more difficult race to win than I first believed,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum mused to ESPN in 2001.

The ruler of Dubai, whose Godolphin operation has won many of the major events the world over and has earned multiple Eclipse Awards in the U.S., couldn’t have known how right he was. Two decades later, he is still looking for his first Kentucky Derby win, despite the amount of effort and resources committed to the goal. Godolphin has sent 11 horses to the Derby since 1999, with none finishing in the top three.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Justify did it in 2018. So, too, did Big Brown a decade before him. They’re among just three horses who have worn Kentucky Derby roses following only three prior starts, with the legendary filly Regret being the first to do it way back in 1915.

When the Phipps family decided to sell all their yearling colts at the 2019 Keeneland September auction, it wasn’t because they were intending to leave the business they had been involved in for nearly a century.

The decision to sell came three years after Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps had passed and his children Daisy Phipps-Pulito and Ogden Phipps were certainly planning to keep the stable going.

“This was just one of the ways we can sort of spread our risk a little bit,” Phipps-Pulito said.

This Saturday, after a one-year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Kentucky Derby will be held on its traditional date. Tens of thousands of rowdy fans will once again gather under the famed twin spires of Churchill Downs in Louisville to celebrate the first Saturday in May and the rough-and-tumble 1 1/4-mile race that is synonymous with it.

But don’t call it “normal.”

Almost normal, maybe.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – On his march to becoming Thoroughbred racing’s all-time winningest trainer – a goal he will likely achieve this fall – the one race that has eluded Steve Asmussen is the Kentucky Derby.

Asmussen, whose 9,299 victories through Sunday put him within 146 of Dale Baird’s all-time record, is winless with 21 starters over 14 Derbies. Saturday, Asmussen will take another crack at the coveted prize when he sends out Super Stock, the Arkansas Derby winner, and Midnight Bourbon, the Louisiana Derby runner-up, in the 146th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.