Who you should be rooting for

The weeks leading up to the Derby can be a very befuddling time for any racing fan.. Attempting to form early notions of who will be what price, as well as how the race will be run, and coming up with a Derby strategy are difficult things to do, especially for those of us with overactive imaginations. One either tries to distract oneself from the loudening Derby chatter with leisure activities, or one might create a blog where one pretends that other people care what one thinks. Choosing who to wager on is overwhelming enough, but we also must eventually decide what horses to pull for as fans. Nearly all racing fans, regardless of whether they bet on them or not, loved watching the relatively unknown connections of Smarty Jones and Afleet Alex score Triple Crown wins, and there's definitely that part of us which loves to see the proverbial little guy top the Sheikhs and Whitneys and Overbrooks. But there are other motivations for choosing a horse to cheer on, and to help eighty-six any extra indecision clouding your brain, I've broken down who you should root across the wire in the Derby based on what's important to you.

If you, like many of us do, want to see a Triple Crown winner, Big Brown's your guy. Not to say there are no other possible TC winners this year, because in a crop this bad, a horse only has to have a good five weeks, but from a talent standpoint, no runner appears to have the potential to dominate the others like Big Brown does. Questions abound regarding his fitness, maturity and fragility, but if he can avoid any pitfalls, he's the horse to end the now 30-year drought.

Hate polytrack? Latch on to Pyro or Cool Coal Man. It truly would drive a stake through the collective hearts of the polytrack backers for them to see a horse run ninth or tenth in a polytrack prep, work hard to convince people that the problem was the horses and not the track, then see one of said horses come back to win the freaking Derby.

Love polytrack? Adriano proving that his Lane's End wasn't a surface-induced fluke would do well for your cause.

Like the little guy? Smooth Air should do nicely. First-time Derby connections all around, a tiny homebred colt with VERY modest breeding who's getting zero attention from the populace. It's made for TV.

Think auction prices mean nothing? Go for Tomcito. By $100,000 sire Street Cry, this colt brought back a paltry $7,500 as a yearling, but has earned $154,000+ and looms a prime contender in Saturday's sexy Lexy at KEE.

Other than that, we've got your obvious ones.. Girls, and guys who like American Idol, root for Eight Belles, West Coasters convinced of East Coast bias, you have Colonel John, Gayego and Bob Black Jack, people who like plodding nags get Court Vision, etc.. Aha, see how I slipped that in there?

• In some jockey jockeying, Edgar Prado, the most recent rider of Adriano, Tale of Ekati and Monba, has chosen Adriano as his Derby mount, citing allegiance to trainer Graham Motion. Personally, I'd say the fact that he waited this long to decide doesn't auger real well for any of the three, since I'd think that if he were sufficiently wowed by any of 'em in their respective final preps, he would've committed. I'm soon gonna put together a post about "on the fence" horses, and all three of these colts were going to be included as horses I can't decide on, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like tossing them all or using them sparingly. A crappy workout or draw would seal the deal on any one for me. Ramon Dominguez, by the way, has picked up the mount on Monba.