LEXINGTON, KY. – This 131st Kentucky Derby field is exceptionally deep, fast, and strong. While we spill mint juleps on our shoes, try to hold on to our silly hats, and slur through the words of “My Old Kentucky Home,” we’ll be looking at a tote board with more legitimate possibilities than in any recent Derby. This will be a great race for gamblers, with a lot of quality horses going to the gate at very long odds. It will also be a great race for spectators, one that’s bound to unfold dramatically. The horse that gets under the wire will have earned it. This is not free lunch – even the fourth tier of horses here will run a credible race.

It almost seems as if we’re heading toward 1 1/4 miles of limitless possibility. Yet the more I look at the horses here, the more I run them against one other in my head, the more I envision two horses tearing down the stretch with a good amount of daylight separating them from what figures to be a mad scramble for the show money up the track.

One of these horses, Afleet Alex, is properly prepped. He’s won some races, notched some good Beyer figures, and looked good as a 2-year-old. He’s also got the feel-good story of the year wrapped up tight. It doesn’t get any sweeter than setting up a lemonade stand to raise money for cancer research, as Alex’s connections did en route to their first trip to the Derby. What’s more, this horse, the friendliest anyone has ever met, was deserted as a foal and bottle-fed by people.

Contrast that with Bellamy Road, who is owned by George Steinbrenner – no lemonade stands here. The horse is some kind of freaky machine. I look at the splits in his races, and I can’t believe it. In his March 12 debut over 1 mile at Gulfstream, he finished at 1:35 4/5. His next mile, at the April 9 Wood Memorial on the wickedly fast Aqueduct track, was a staggering 1:34 2/5. He ran another quarter-mile after that looking like he was just warming up, and wound up winning by a record-breaking 17 1/2 lengths.

It is very hard to figure out which of these two will end up with the roses, just as it is difficult to imagine a race in which neither one wins. Unfortunately, they are the chalk. I hate to go in with nothing but the favorites to tout, but Alex and Bellamy are unavoidable.

That said, this is a deep Derby. By Sunday, we might be discussing a clear pattern of improvement in Noble Causeway or Andromeda’s Hero that in retrospect should have made it obvious they were going to take it. Or it will suddenly have become vividly clear that Nick Zito had been pacing Sun King all along, and the horse was ready to fire the biggest race of his career.

Up against Bellamy Road is the fact that in the last 10 years, the Derby has been won only once by the horse that was up front at the start. That was in 2002, when War Emblem came home ahead of a slow, cautious field. The Derby is simply not won at the front of the race. And in a year with this much early, front-running speed, a horse such as Bellamy could encounter some major obstacles.

Of course, skimming all the Derby fractions in the past decade, I don’t see any that stack up to what I expect when Bellamy Road and Spanish Chestnut break out of the gate.

First, they’ll ditch Bandini. He might stay up with them briefly, but they’ll shake him, and it’ll be downhill from there for Todd Pletcher’s big horse. He doesn’t want the distance.

The two out front will tear around that first turn to make the quarter-mile in 23 seconds, with Afleet Alex tucked into a perfect spot to shadow them. Spanish Chestnut will cave in around the 3/4-mile mark.

Afleet Alex, though, will give chase, and he’ll open up another 6 lengths on the field trying to catch Bellamy. If Alex had been in the Wood, running the times he ran in the April 16 Arkansas Derby, Bellamy Road would have been ahead by 13 lengths after they’d run a mile. That gets reduced to 9 lengths over 1 1/4 mile (Bellamy ran his 1 1/4 in 1:47 flat; Alex got his in 1:48 4/5). The track at Aqueduct was very fast April 9, but was it 9 lengths faster?

Here’s where I begin to get excited: Let’s give Alex 4 lengths for the scary fast Aqueduct track. Let’s bring Road back down a couple because it’s hard to believe he can match his pace in the Wood. Give Alex another couple of lengths because he’s not coming back from a lung infection as he was in Arkansas. What have you got? A mad dash to the wire, neck and neck, by two of the fastest 3-year-olds we’re likely to see for a long time.

So who do you pick to win? It comes down to what kind of person you are. Do you think that natural talent exists? Do you believe in superheroes? Or do you think that hard work, perseverance, and overcoming obstacles are the keys to success? If the former, then bet Bellamy; if the latter, take Alex. Either way, look to make your money on the undercard, and good luck.

BEST BETS

A lot of fine horses in this Derby field were assigned very long odds in Wednesday’s morning line. Across the board, we’re seeing higher odds than we’ll ever see on a number of them: 30-1 on Don’t Get Mad, 8-1 on High Fly. Even the chalk is paying pretty well, but don’t expect that 9-2 on Afleet Alex to stand up. Bellamy Road will be fetching even money by the time he goes off, what with that 120 Beyer figure he recorded in the Wood Memorial waving a “Bet On Me” flag to all the weekenders.

A good bet is to choose which of the favorites you like. In this scenario, you can choose among Bellamy, Afleet, and Bandini, and then flip him in an exacta with a couple of the closers. The idea being that you think Bandini will be in a good position to win it, but the pace will set up the race for a closer, like Noble Causeway, Andromeda’s Hero, Wilko, or Greater Good. A $1 exacta with those four on top and Bandini on the bottom is only going to cost you five bucks, and it’ll pay a huge amount if you hit it. Go ahead and do it three times – once for each of the favorites, if you want – and you’ll still be in on the cheap side with a lot of the pot headed your way.

If the favorites fail to fire, there should still be money to make in the place and show pools. If you want to bet against the favorite, do it to place or show. These horses are at such long odds that if one of the favorites doesn’t win – if Greeley’s Galaxy takes it at 15-1, for instance, and you had Andromeda’s Hero to place at 50-1 and he made it – there will be a lot of money left in the place and show pools, and you’ll see a bit of it. Of course, if Bellamy gets under the wire at even money, you’ll only get $2.10 back, but hey, you got it back.