The most popular horse race in America, the Kentucky Derby, is just a week away. Certainly people love the wonderful accoutrements — the hats, the juleps — and there is serious history to the race, and it’s worth a lot of money. It’s also an incredibly fun race to bet on. The Derby is the handicapper’s crooked mountain peak — impossible and irresistible at the same time.

Irresistible because it’s the biggest thing going, because people watch it on television, and because the best horses from all over the country make it to the gate, and they are surrounded by horses who for one reason or another got lucky enough to squeeze in and are taking a shot at something. It’s often impossible to tell which among the field are the towering champions and which are the lucky poseurs. Which is your pony? The Big Horse? Or, the Big Flop?

It’s going to take two minutes around two turns to find out.

You can’t separate the sheep from the goats because these are young horses, they haven’t run much, and they change every day. Mostly, we expect them to get better as they grow older, but often enough a horse proves to be precocious — a dirt track prodigy that will fail to keep up as the competition comes into its own.

No matter how much you know, no matter how carefully you read, the Derby is never a lock.

Take, for instance, the strange data we now must parse to understand whether to back Tale of Ekati.

Tale of Ekati, trained by Barclay Tagg (a familiar name around the New York Circuit), homebred and owned by Charles Fipke, won the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The Wood is one of the final preps for the Kentucky Derby (and one of only two — or three, if you count the Florida Derby — Grade 1 races among those last weekends on the road to the roses). It is not only the most important prep in New York, it is one of the most important in the nation.

Tale of Ekati won it, and he beat War Pass in doing it. War Pass had turned in a bad race last time out, but still, he was key to the Derby scene. He was one of the names on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

Tale of Ekati rallied and wore down an early favorite, the 2-year-old champion of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on the stretch. Tale of Ekati must have something. He had improved — after all, War Pass was 17 1/2 lengths ahead of him when he crossed the wire in the Juvie last year. Ekati had turned the tables. Perhaps even made up for his pale performance in the Louisiana Derby.

Inner Light had pushed the pace in the Wood, as we knew he would, half a length off of War Pass. The opening fraction was 22 2/5 seconds and the second was a flat 46. War Pass still had it at six furlongs, posting a fraction of 1:11 2/5.

Nobiz Like Shobiz won the Wood last year, and when he was in control of the race at the six-furlong mark his time was only three-fifths of a second faster than the fraction set by War Pass. His final time, however, was 1.49 2/5. Tale of Ekati came home at 1.52 1/5. Almost 3 seconds slower.

So, it wasn’t a blowout. Ekati isn’t going to be slated Derby favorite for turning in the slowest Wood since 1952, but a win is a win is a win. Why showboat? Save it for later.

It was Tale of Ekati’s second start of the year. Clearly, he’d needed something when he came in sixth in Louisiana. Now, he’d gotten out in front. Another step up and he’d be getting his picture taken in Kentucky. Tagg liked the way things were going, he said that the Louisiana Derby had set him up well for the Wood. They were in a good spot.

Tagg described his horse as “tenacious, quick turn of foot, aggressive, not afraid of much.”

But of course, life on the road to the Derby is not that simple. Last Saturday, trainer Nick Zito said they’d found a small fracture in War Pass’s left front ankle.

Tale of Ekati wore down a horse with a broken ankle? That doesn’t seem nearly as impressive.

And he could only get half a length in front of him?

That’s a race that’s falling apart. Look deeper into the field, I think, look at Court Vision and Giant Moon: Giant Moon saved ground and was well held and improved himself at the end. Court Vision was outrun, shook it off, got himself together and popped up onto the board with a good rally.

Part of the reason the Derby is irresistible to handicappers is because it’s almost impossible to figure out. You can’t always tell what the story is. Stocks rise and plummet, things are, and are not, what they seem.

Tale of Ekati won the Wood, and I love to see Barclay Tagg grab a big win. I love that they are going to the Derby. Ever since he debuted there with Funny Cide in 2003, I will have a soft spot for Tagg. But I can’t back him. Maybe War Pass broke his ankle later, maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’s just another line of the past performances that we need to beware of, another ingredient that muddles, rather than clarifies the Derby.

This is what makes the Derby great. This is the data we have. What do we do with it?

mwatman@nysun.com