The week after the Kentucky Derby is usually one of the great watersheds of the horse racing year. After a long and unpredictable Derby trail, all those precocious colts suddenly seem to have grown up, and the rest of the summer starts shaping up as a series of exciting, yet sensible 3-year-old races. This year, though, it feels like we’re moving toward a season of lotteries.

After a hysterical cavalry charge in last Saturday’s Kentucky Derby ended with 50-1 long shot Giacomo out front, randomness is in the air. Just ask Chris Hertzog, one of seven bettors who ended up with an $864,253.50 payout on his $1 Derby superfecta ticket.

Hertzog came to the winning combination by purchasing $100 worth of randomly generated, quick-pick tickets at Turf Paradise in Phoenix, Arizona. Then he lost the ticket.

Along with the management of Turf Paradise and several friends, Hertzog searched frantically through bags of trash, thinking he had thrown away the bet slip. It wasn’t until Sunday that the mutual clerk who had sold Hertzog the tickets realized that a couple of them had been left on her machine, including the $864,253.50 slip of paper.

“I never knew I had so many emotions,” Hertzog, a 39-year-old fireman, said in a press release issued by Turf Paradise. “I couldn’t believe I lost this once in a lifetime payday. It’s unbelievable that it was found.”

Chaos is in the air, but we must soldier on, attempting to find order and method where there is apparently none. A week from the Preakness, it’s worth asking which horses will be running in the second leg of the Triple Crown.

Bellamy Road, the much-touted Derby favorite owned by George Steinbrenner, won’t be there. After finishing seventh at Churchill Downs, Bellamy is off to the horse hospital with a ligament tear known as a popped splint, which transfers weight from the splint bone to the cannon bone. The hemorrhage pops out in a bubble, and given time, the affected area will calcify, basically welding the splint bone to the cannon.

Dr. Larry Bramlage of Rood & Riddle equine hospital is an equine orthopedic surgeon, and perhaps the world’s foremost expert on the subject.

“It’s easy to treat,” he told me yesterday. “Only in a rare kind [of popped splint] do they develop a proclivity. Four to six weeks, they’re ready to compete again.”

“He’s a champion,” Edward Sexton, who runs Steinbrenner’s Kinsman Farm, said of Bellamy Road. “He’ll be back, bigger, better, and bolder.”

Also on the mend is Bandini, who has been shipped to Ashford Stud, near Versailles, Ky., for surgery. The colt fell steadily backwards to finish 19th in the Derby, and it was discovered after the race that Bandini had chipped his right front ankle. Trainer Todd Pletcher told the Daily Racing Form that they were hoping the horse would return for the fall campaign.

Next on the list of horses coming out of the Derby less than perfect is Wilko. The Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner bled during the Derby, a common occurrence whereby the horse’s respiratory system is stressed by the exertion of racing. Lasix is typically thought to treat bleeding, and Wilko’s trainer Craig Dollase has indicated that they’ll continue on to Baltimore.

High Limit received a gash on his right hindquarter in the melee at Churchill Downs, and went on to finish last. But trainer Bobby Frankel thinks he’ll be in shape for the Preakness.

Some horses are headed to the Preakness without the baggage of injury or excuse. Afleet Alex remains the most reliable colt of this Triple Crown season. He ran his race in the Derby, settling off the pace and then beginning to close in on the lead until he got up into contention in the stretch. He just didn’t have it to get up to the front, despite the crawling fractions with which the race was finished. Still, it’s a feat to have performed at all, and trainer Tim Ritchey is wise to continue his maiden voyage through the Triple Crown races. He’ll be taking with him Alex’s Lemonade Stand, which raised almost $11,000 for children’s cancer research on Derby day. A portion of Afleet Alex’s purse was donated as well.

Second-place Derby finisher Closing Argument, who went off at 72-1, is also headed to the Preakness, as is Greeley’s Galaxy. And Derby winner Giacomo is going to attempt to prove his victory was not a fluke.

We’ll see some new horses in the gate, as well, which makes sense. If a 50-1 long shot that had won only one previous race can take the roses with a Beyer figure of 100, then surely the gate at the Preakness should be full.

One can only imagine that Hal’s Image’s connections have this in mind. Hal’s Image has had 16 career starts, and he’s won just two of them. Two races ago, he finished second in an April 8 optional claiming race at Aqueduct. Some horses in that race are for sale at $75,000, which is not exactly Triple Crown company.

Golden Man, meanwhile, has won four of his 11 starts, but has never run in a stakes race. Nonetheless, one of his owners, Sandy Goldfarb, called Pimlico on Wednesday to say that the $100,000 supplement would be paid to put Golden Man in the gate. Golden Man has one start for trainer Richard Dutrow Jr. since being claimed at Gulfstream in January, a second-place finish in front of Coin Silver in an April 2 Allowance race.

Another new face will be Malibu Moonshine, who won the only significant prep race for the Preakness that is not considered part of the Derby Trail, taking the April 23 Federico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico. Scrappy T is coming off of a game victory in the April 30 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct and is on his way to Baltimore, as well.

If the racing world still made sense, I would feel confident saying that Afleet Alex will eat this field for lunch, and that his only competition will come from one of the seemingly overrated horses coming out of trainer Nick Zito’s barn. But this kind of handicapping no longer holds water. This year, even the red board talk indicates that we might as well throw darts.