Saturday’s Florida Derby, won by the Nick Zito-trained High Fly, reinforced the suspicion that this year’s Kentucky Derby may well be the fastest ever run – if they can make it all the way around the track. Like almost every other winner in this Derby prep season, High Fly was up in the race from the start, stalking the front-runner the whole way and making his move on the stretch. Imagine 20 of the best 3-year-olds following that same strategy on May 7 at Churchill Downs: It could be a mess.

At the construction site semi-operating as Gulfstream Park on Saturday, Ed Plesa’s B. B. Best, with Jorge Chavez up in the irons, set the pace. He pulled the field through some quick splits; High Fly, with Jerry Bailey up, was breathing down his neck the whole way. High Fly made his move coming onto the stretch, and Bailey rode hard to hold off Edgar Prado on Noble Causeway, another Zito horse.

Not only was this Zito’s first Florida Derby in 17 attempts, he became the first trainer to send horses across the wire in an exacta. High Fly bumped his stock in the Derby futures market through the roof, and Zito said the horse won’t run again before the Derby. Noble Causeway might race again, but he proved Saturday that he could run in stakes company, tacking on some earnings so that he’ll qualify for the gate at the Derby even if the entrants top the limit of 20.

Which brings us back to the chaotic vision of all those brilliantly quick horses going off in the Derby. Scan the Future Pool past performances, and you’ll notice that rarely do any of the top 23 horses considered to be Derby material run anywhere but in the top three all the way around the track. All of these horses like to be up in the race. What happens when 20 horses need to be up near the pace? What does the first turn look like? Will this be a train wreck with horses running eight and nine paths wide, bumping and crushing one another? Which horse would benefit from that kind of race?

One of the contenders that can see some horse in front of her is the wonderful filly Sweet Catomine. She took the Santa Anita Oaks on March 13 by running next-to-last along the backstretch. She was pulling on jockey Corey Nakatani, but he managed to keep her from making her move until the stretch turn. She roared to the front, and by the quarter-pole she had the race won.

She’s run from the back of the pack before, too. She was seventh in last October’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies before she made her move and dominated.

She takes on the boys for the first time next Saturday in the Santa Anita Derby. That race should answer one of the looming questions of the season: whether she’ll run in the Derby or simply smash the fillies in the Kentucky Oaks the day before. If she wins the Santa Anita – and only if she wins, say her owners – she’ll be considered for the Kentucky Derby.

She’ll be looking very good, too, with three graded stakes victories behind her this season. Trainer Julio Canani has called Sweet Catomine “the best filly who ever lived,” and promised that she’ll prove it. Going up against the California colts in the Santa Anita Derby – Wilko, Giacomo, Going Wild, and Consolidator likely among them – will be an important first step.

Owner Martin Wygood says the horse is not easily intimidated.

“She enjoys body contact,” he was quoted as saying in the North County Times. “In one race, she got belted at the start and she was not intimidated by the contact. I’ve never seen a filly like that. She’s just as large as the colts and she would also get a 5-pound weight allowance in the Derby.”

Noble Causeway is another horse that can run from off the pace, as he did Saturday at Gulfstream. But his was a pretty easy trip in the middle field.

If it’s Noble Causeway and Sweet Catomine picking their way through the early carnage, Noble Causeway doesn’t stand a chance. Sweet Catomine proved in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvie Fillies that she can overcome traffic, and with the dustup I’m imagining on the first turn at Churchill, that’s going to be an important talent in this year’s Run for the Roses.