“Derby Fever” sounds cute, but it is a sickness that overtakes the horse-racing world every year in February and sticks around until we all slur through “My Old Kentucky Home” on that first Saturday in May. Only farmers should be thinking about May while there’s still snow in the forecast, but gamblers, horsemen, and turf hacks are fixated on the Kentucky Derby from the moment that the little 3-year-olds debut. Over the next couple of months, we’ll winnow a diffuse field of young, promising horses down to the ones who might get it done.

The Kentucky Derby future pool opened yesterday, and you can bet it until Sunday. There are 24 bets to be made at OTBs and out at Aqueduct; 23 horses have been picked by a “three member committee of racing analysts and handicappers” and the final slot represents a bet that a horse other than those listed will win. Naturally, that’s the best bet in this profoundly silly pool, and it’s the favorite. The second favorite is Declans Moon, a champion as a 2-year-old that won’t run a race as a 3-year-old until March.

You can get some mighty long odds on some pretty good horses in the futures pool, but to mix gambling metaphors, it’s a crapshoot. Take Fusaichi Samurai, a $4.5 million colt that had won one race, an allowance. He would have probably been the favorite in the pool, but he pulled a muscle and it looks like he’ll miss the Triple Crown entirely.

That should stand as a warning. We don’t know anything about these horses as 3-year-olds, their reputations are virtually without substance, and there’s a pretty good shot that they won’t even make it to the Derby. It’s like that first day of college: Look to your right, look to your left, one of you won’t graduate.

Of course, that’s exactly why we watch the Derby prep races, which have been slowly starting and are stepping up a notch this weekend. Foremost among the great stakes races around the country is Sunday’s Grade II,$150,000 San Vicente Stakes at Santa Anita, in which Consolidator and Roman Ruler make their 3-year-old debuts.

Consolidator has won two of his seven races. His most impressive run was in last year’s Lane’s End Breeders Futurity at Keeneland, which he took by 2 lengths under some strong handling. Last out, he finished a flopped fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He’s been working well, including a bullet workout at 5 furlongs – fastest of 44 horses at the distance – last Sunday.

Roman Ruler has won three of his five starts. As one of the Fusaichi Pegasus babies hitting the track just now, a lot is expected of him – certainly more than the no-show running he put forth coming in fifth in last year’s BC Juvie.

Both of these horses are on the Derby trail, and it will be nice to see what they can do after a winter of bulking up.

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An impressive group will also show up in New Orleans on Saturday for the Grade III, $150,000 Risen Star Stakes at Fair Grounds. Four 3-year-olds that are blipping on everyone’s radar will be going to the gate: Buzzards Bay, Rush Bay, Storm Surge, and Harlington.

Buzzards Bay won a maiden special weight last year at Calder, then headed out to the West Coast. He came in fourth in a Hollywood Park allowance race and made his stakes debut in the January 15 Golden Gate Derby. It was an absurdly short-fielded race – three horses went to the gate – but he ran well, grabbing the early lead under pressure and repelling a late charge from the Sharp Writer to hang on by a nose.

In Rush Bay’s first outing, back in September at Arlington Park, he took a while to get going, but rallied for the show. Then he took a trip five wide after some trouble on the first turn in a Maiden Special Weight at Keeneland last October. But he was knocking on the door, and the next time out he scored his maiden with a good run at a Churchill Downs Maiden Special Weight last Halloween. The nice thing, Derby wise, was that he won it at Churchill going a 1 1/16, which is a twoturn race. His connections bumped him up into stakes company in the Kentucky Jockey Club last November. Despite crowding, he passed a tiring field and got up to second.

Storm Surge is an experienced runner who has lost to some of the best of his generation, including Afleet Alex and Lunarpal, but still has five victories under his belt. He was up the track, sixth behind Rush Bay, at the Kentucky Jockey Club. Since then, he’s notched two straight wins, including the Grade III LeComte at the Fair Grounds on January 15. His times have been pretty slow, and this is a deeper field than he’s accustomed to facing. Then again, Jockey Robby Albarado believes the horse is improving and can run much faster than he has thus far.

The heavy favorite at the Fair Grounds on Saturday is bound to be the lightly raced Harlington. The $2.8 million Todd Pletcher-trained colt has only started twice, and he took both, winning over a mile at Aqueduct before going to Florida for a victory over a 1 1/8. Clearly seen as the big horse in the barn, he’s been nurtured and babied. This is his first stakes race, but Pletcher is already talking Derby.

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Out at Aqueduct, Galloping Grocer goes to the gate in Saturday’s $75,000, 1 1/16-mile Whirlaway Stakes. He won his first three races easily then earned a triple-digit Beyer figure last out, when he was handed his only defeat gamely chasing undefeated Rockport Harbor.

This weekend, Galloping Grocer will have to beat Sort it Out, who has demonstrated a liking for the route with three victories and a place at 1 1/16. Last out on January 16, he opened up 6 1/2 lengths on the inner track at Aqueduct.

European 3-year-old Middle Earth will make his American debut in the Whirlaway, after which he’ll stick around in Nick Zito’s barn.