For all the hand-wringing of the trainers and the owners, for all the theorizing among the hacks and the handicappers, it must be said that where a horse landed last night in the draw to decide the post positions in the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby is much less important than what he does after the gates clang open.

A horse can win the derby the way Street Sense did last year from any spot in the gate. Street Sense relaxed, dropped back as far as 19th while all the other horses smashed into one another chasing the pace-setting Hard Spun. He started picking off horses coming into the far turn, made some excellent moves under Calvin Borel, and won it on the stretch.

Post position can be immediately irrelevant, as it was when Barbaro stumbled out of the 8 hole and dropped to his knees. It looked like Edgar Prado was lucky to stay on the horse at all, but it didn’t seem to phase Barbaro. He pulled himself together and was immediately bumped. You don’t get a worse break than that. Yet he still drew off on the stretch and opened up the largest margin of victory since 1946.

Giacomo was squeezed in between horses coming out of the 10 hole, forced to run five wide and trapped behind a wall of horses, before Mike Smith threaded the needle and got him to the wire in 2005.

It’s true that no winners in the 133 runnings have started from slot no. 17 or 19, but then again, there have only been 15 Kentucky Derbies with 20 or more entries — in 1898 there were only four! — so the stat isn’t quite as damning as it is made out to be.

Whatever advantage or disadvantage one seems to have, in other words, is immaterial when the bell rings and the horses hit the track. If your horse is going to lose the Derby, he will find a way to lose it. If he’s going to win, I don’t care if he has to start among the drunken, shirtless college students in the infield, when they come onto the stretch, he’ll have it.

Which is not at all to say that the post position, and the post position draw, have nothing to do with the Derby. The morning line odds are set during the post position draw, and we have bets to make, after all. Cool Coal Man at 20-1? Put me down.

This year, we were strung along by the connections of Eight Belles, wondering until the last whether or not the talented filly would even run for the roses.

She’s in.

“It could be good or bad. If it all works, they are going to say I’m smart,” trainer Larry Jones said. “If it don’t, they are going to say that dumb cowboy finally did goof it up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you’re not in ’em, you can’t win ’em.”

One must love the sentiment, even if it seems in direct opposition to the hemming and hawing that has been going on in the Eight Belles camp about whether or not she’d run in the Kentucky Oaks or the Derby. If she’d gotten a bad spot, they said, she’d have scratched out of the Derby and run with the fillies in the Oaks, which, although not against the rules, would have been a pretty smug maneuver. There were many applicants to the Derby post, and the field would have dropped to 19 had she scratched, since there is no waiting list.

I am very glad to see her in the race.

With nine lifetime starts, she is the most experienced runner in the gate, which would mean less if she hadn’t won every start she’d made this year, opening up a total margin of victory north of 30 lengths in her four races since January.

Larry Jones spoke to D. Wayne Lukas, who won the Derby with the filly Winning Colors in 1988. Lukas told him that her most important attribute was her size. Jones says Eight Belles, like Winning Colors, is as big as the boys, and matches up with them structurally.

Look at Eight Belles in her races against fillies, and it’s clear: She is bigger and broader than the competition. When she turns it on, usually at the close of the backstretch, she seems to jump.

At the start of the Fantasy, run at Oaklawn Park on April 6, it seems as if the race would be a poor prep for the derby. There were only four horses in it, after all, and the opening fractions weren’t exactly punishing. (They won’t be all that punishing on Saturday, either, although all three speed horses are next to each other all the way on the outside — a recipe for some sort of madness as they try to cut off the entire field to get in front by the time they hit the turn.)

As it unfolded, however, a different picture came to light. Alina, the pacesetter that day, had a lot left. She changed leads on the stretch and pulled away as Eight Belles ranged up on her after making the turn three paths wide. The soft early fractions were on Alina’s side, for sure, so it was up to Eight Belles to catch her. And catch her she did. Eight Belles was tough, she would not take no for an answer.

In the Honeybee, her March 16 start, Ramon Dominguez hand rode her to victory as the race call cried that she was a superstar in the making.

In the Martha Washington on February 17, she was picking off horses, getting into position on the backstretch, when she exploded on the turn. She blew by the field, coming around on the outside, and she hit the wire 13 1/2 lengths in the lead. The call: “A champion in the making!”

To watch this filly run the path that got her to the derby is to watch some of the most thrilling racing run all year. It’s hard to go up against the boys. She still has a lot to overcome, but it’s great that she’s in, and she just might win.

mwatman@nysun.com