AFLEET ALEX MAY BE THE WISE CHOICE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing 

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Let's make it clear from the top that all Bellamy Road has to do is repeat his last race and he'll be crowned as the most brilliant Kentucky Derby winner since the 1970s, a big threat to sweep the Triple Crown, and a shoo-in for Horse of the Year.

Now, let's talk about why, despite all that, another horse is the way to bet on Saturday.

It's not as simple as it might appear for Bellamy Road, the George Steinbrenner-owned colt who won New York's Wood Memorial by 17 1/2 lengths and earned the highest Beyer speed figure for a 3-year-old coming into the Kentucky Derby in the decade and a half those numbers have been published.

Take it from D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Fame trainer who's here with long-shot Going Wild.

``The Wood is hard (to) evaluate,'' Lukas said Thursday morning at his Churchill Downs barn around the bend from where Nick Zito tends to Bellamy Road. ``Nobody showed up (and ran his race), including my horse. When a horse gets no competition, he gets bolder and bolder as he goes around, and he can run the race of his life. On Saturday, with 20 horses, that's unlikely to happen.

``It's like a kid who plays against Bowling Green and hits 9 of 11 3-pointers, and everybody says, `What a shooter!'' said Lukas, the former high-school basketball coach. ``Then he plays North Carolina and gets a hand in his face and he's not the same.

``If he does what he did in the Wood, we'll bronze him and put him in the infield - and we'll put George next to him.''

Lukas' skepticism is well-founded and not unique.

Across the road from Lukas' barn, Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, who's here with High Limit, noted that Bellamy Road's huge improvement in speed figures from his March 12 allowance-level romp to his April 9 Wood victory points to the risk of what readers of the Ragozin sheets ratings call a ``bounce.''

Whether you say it Lukas' way, that Bellamy Road won't get the early lead as easily against Saturday's tougher opponents, or Frankel's way, that Bellamy Road may have left his best race at Aqueduct, it adds up to the same thing.

Bellamy Road simply bullied his six opponents from start to finish in the Wood and was able to display every last length of his talent in only his second start as a 3-year-old.

Chances are he'll come back to earth.

The pick of this column is the one horse in the Kentucky Derby who cannot be accused of being a one-time wonder or too lightly seasoned to handle the rigors of the Derby's 1 1/4 miles.

Afleet Alex had an impressive prep-race victory too, running away by eight lengths in the Arkansas Derby to show he's recovered from the lung infection that made a mess of his Rebel Stakes.

Unlike Bellamy Road, he did it in a race that included other Kentucky Derby runners, Flower Alley finishing second, Andromeda's Hero third, Greater Good fifth.

And unlike Bellamy Road, he was adding to an already solid resume, nine starts and six victories including a win in the Sanford Stakes last July and seconds in the Champagne and Breeders' Cup Juvenile.

Afleet Alex doesn't have a performance as brilliant as Bellamy Road's Wood. But he's more likely to keep improving.

You want a seasoned horse?

The Florida-bred colt by Northern Afleet out of Maggy Hawk had to be bottle-fed at birth because his dam couldn't produce milk. As a result, Afleet Alex bonded with people unusually early.

He's also the rare racehorse who goes through two-a-day drills like a football team, going out to the track twice a morning. Thursday, Afleet Alex had a two-mile jog at 6 a.m. and a 1 1/2-mile jog alongside a stable pony at 8:30.

``After the Breeders' Cup (in which Afleet Alex was second to Wilko), we gave him a break, and he was out walking two or three times a day,'' trainer Tim Ritchey said. ``He was very happy being out of his barn. We mapped out a plan specifically for this horse.''

Having raced in front of huge crowds at Saratoga, at Lone Star for the Breeders' Cup and at Oaklawn Park for the Arkansas Derby, he has been undisturbed by the crowds that trail him to and from the track, a coolness that should help him Saturday in front of a Churchill Downs crowd expected to number 140,000-plus.

Bellamy Road might be a more thrilling winner. Afleet Alex is a more likely one.

A lot of people at Churchill Downs say this is an unusually strong Derby, presumably because they're wowed by the runaway wins in prep races by Bellamy Road, Afleet Alex and Bandini (six lengths clear in the Blue Grass) and because contention runs deep.

I'm not ready to say it's even as strong a Derby as the 2004 running. Last year, six horses came into the Derby with two or more graded- stakes-caliber victories and two or more 100-plus Beyer speed figures in stakes races; they finished 1-2-3-4-5-7 in the Derby. This year, only two horses come in having met those standards; they are Afleet Alex and High Fly.

With an imaginary $100 to bet, I'd put $40 to win on Afleet Alex, and I'd play trifectas with Afleet Alex on top and Bandini, High Fly, High Limit, Noble Causeway, Bandini and Don't Get Mad in the second and third spots ($30 in $1 combinations), and Afleet Alex to run second with the same horses first and third (another $30).

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Photo:

Afleet Alex, with jockey Jeremy Rose, rounds the turn during a morning workout at Churchill Downs in preparation for Saturday's Kentucky Derby. Afleet Alex appears to have recovered well from a past lung infection.

Ed Reinke/Associated Press

Box:

OUT OF THE GATE

BY KEVIN MODESTI