Just when things are getting rolling and spring is in the air, the Kentucky Derby prep season is coming to a close. A few last-chance races still lie ahead, but Saturday’s Grade I, $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland and the Grade II, $1 million Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park are the last major stops on the Derby trail. We couldn’t ask for a better conclusion.

Keeneland, that wonderful private school setting, is perhaps the horsiest track on earth. Whereas that first Saturday of May at Churchill Downs is big, public, and extravagant, a Saturday at Keeneland is low-key, bucolic, and elegant.

Dead in the middle of the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, Keeneland began as the crazy project of Jack Keene. It was his farm, and over 16 years he quarried stone and built until he went broke. In the 1930s, a consortium of Lexington folks searching for a replacement for the crumbling and crowded Lexington Association purchased it.

The Blue Grass has sent 22 winners to the circle in Louisville. It is the Derby prep race, and this year will be no exception. The seven horses going to the gate on Saturday are all dreaming big, and even the long shots are good.

The big question mark going in is Sun King. Nick Zito’s horse was the favorite in the Kentucky Derby Future Pools until Bellamy Road (another Zito-trained horse) knocked it out of the park last week in the Wood. But Zito has had Sun King on a very easy schedule. He won his first race as a 3-year-old at Gulfstream on February 26 in a 1-mile allowance race. Next out, he breezed through the March 19 Tampa Bay Derby, a race that another turf writer referred to as a public workout for Sun King. This Saturday will not be so easy.

Bobby Frankel-trained High Limit will be next to him, popping out of the fifth slot as the morning line favorite at 9-5 (just a bump shorter than Sun King’s 2-1). High Limit has never seen the back of a horse in three career starts, racking up a 22 1 / 2 -length margin of victory in those gate-to-wire victories. The move to Frankel’s barn (he was previously trained by Anthony Dutrow) seems to have done him well – unless it was the layoff from October of last year until his 3-year-old debut romp in the Louisiana Derby March 12. There’s heavy speed in this race. If High Limit is going to take it, he’ll probably have to rate through the early pace.

Bandini, starting in slot 7, came on wonderfully in the March 5 Fountain of Youth. It wasn’t enough to catch High Fly, but it was enough to make him look pretty good. If he can pick up where he left off, he’ll be in very good shape.

The final of the four heavy-action chalk horses in this race – any of which you can make a real case for – is Consolidator. Last out, he won the March 19 San Felipe by 6 1/2 lengths. Rounding out the field are Mr. Sword, Closing Argument, and Spanish Chestnut; the latter is set for redemption after being off the board for the first time ever in the March 26 Lane’s End Stakes at Turfway Park.

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There are big questions on the table out at Oaklawn, too. First among them is whether or not Afleet Alex is the real thing. He crumpled like a used tissue last out in the March 19 Rebel Stakes, and he came out of that race with a lung infection. It was the first time he’d finished off the board, and his reputation flopped. At his best, he’s a more mature horse than most of these, and has demonstrated an ability to get up into the money from a couple of different types of races. But he has not shown that he can win around two turns. He’s won five races in his eight starts, and all of them were short.

Todd Pletcher’s B-Team horse, Flower Alley, is going to the gate again to see if he can prove that his victory in the March 26 Lane’s End was not a fluke. He’s the one with the freaky running style: Up in the race, fade back, come again. It’s a trick that won him his last two races.

Look out for Greater Good, too. He’s on the outside, which should suit him. He doesn’t need the front. The way he wore down Rockport Harbor on the stretch to win the March 19 Rebel Stakes indicates that he might like the extra 1/16 .

For the next three weeks, we’ll be talking Derby. Next stop: Louisville. And a lot of the horses on that train are going to show themselves Saturday. Stir up some juleps, good luck.