ROAD TO DERBY NOT A PARTY FOR SMARTY COOL COLT BECOMES CONTENDER AFTER OVERCOMING TRAGEDY, ADVERSITY.

Byline: Kevin Modesti Staff Writer

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - There is a murder behind one of the contenders in Saturday's Kentucky Derby. There is a man's battle with chronic illness. There is the horse's fractured skull.

And if that weren't enough drama for a 3-year-old, there is a dark thread of thoroughbred-industry snobbery.

In other words, it is not for lack of challenges that Smarty Jones and his team arrive at the 130th Kentucky Derby with a perfect record in a six-start career that has taken them from Philadelphia to Arkansas to the big time, giving the horse a chance to be the first unbeaten to win America's greatest race since Seattle Slew in 1977.

Holding the whole enterprise together is an easygoing trainer who counts his blessings.

Out of a tragic situation, John Servis said Tuesday morning outside Smarty Jones' Churchill Downs barn, ``I was fortunate to get this horse.''

The tragedy occurred less than a year after popular Philadelphia Park trainer Bob Camac arranged the mating of the sire Elusive Quality and the dam Ill Get Along that would produce a colt that breeders Roy and Patricia Chapman named Smarty Jones.

On the morning of Dec. 6, 2001, neighbors of Camacs' Pennsylvania farmhouse heard shots and called police. Camac, 60, and his wife Maryann were found on the back porch, dead of shotgun wounds. Charged with murder was Maryann's son, Russell, whom the Camacs had sued and accused of forgery.

The Camacs' deaths so upset the Chapmans, car dealership owners who were among Camac's biggest horse owner clients, that the Pennsylvania couple prepared to get out of the sport by selling their breeding farm and most of their horses.

Among the horses they kept was the colt foaled in 2001 on Feb. 28, the birthday of Maryann Camac's mother Mildred, whose childhood nickname had been Smarty Jones.

The Chapmans sent the few remaining horses to Servis, one of Camac's friendly rivals at Philadelphia Park.

Smarty Jones didn't get to his first race before facing a test of his own. In July 2003, he was in the Philadelphia Park starting gate, being schooled in the ways of the massive contraption, when he suddenly reared and struck his head on an iron bar, causing a dozen fractures of his skull, right eye socket and nose. Though an emergency veterinarian initially feared for the colt's life, he ended up not needing surgery and was back in training in eight weeks.

Smarty Jones drew little attention when he won by 7 3/4 and 15 lengths in his first two sprints last November under journeyman jockey Stewart Elliott. But in February, Smarty Jones made Derby handicappers take notice. The race was the Southwest Stakes, a $100,000 event at Oaklawn Park without graded-stakes status. That 3/4-length victory is Smarty Jones' closest in his six races.

In March, he won by 3 1/4 lengths in the Rebel Stakes, another ungraded race at Oaklawn, and Servis set his sights on the Grade II Arkansas Derby.

Facing his stiffest competition and needing to finish first or second in the $600,000 race to have the graded-stakes earnings to qualify for the Kentucky Derby, Smarty Jones stalked the leader on a muddy track and defeated a good horse named Borrego by 1 1/2 lengths in a 1 1/8-mile clocking of 1:49 2/5 that speed-figure filberts rated one of the sharpest by a 3-year-old this season.

Unlike 13 of the 17 previous horses to come into the Kentucky Derby with perfect records, and unlike the four of those who won the Derby, he probably won't be the betting favorite. That distinction is likely to go to Blue Grass Stakes winner The Cliffs Edge, blessed with Kentucky experience and two-time Derby-winning trainer Nick Zito.

``If he was trained by Nick or Bob (Baffert) or Wayne (Lukas), and if he was ridden by (Jerry) Bailey, he'd probably be the favorite,'' said Servis. ``I want him to win the race and have everybody say, `Man, look at that horse.' ''

Fortunately, Smarty Jones is a cool colt, which should help if he ever finds out how much emotional weight he is carrying.

Roy Chapman, 78, is wheelchair-bound with emphysema and was scheduled to travel to Louisville in a van with oxygen equipment.

Servis, 45, a second-generation horseman who said he aimed for a training career from age 14, is here with his first Kentucky Derby horse.

Elliott, 39, one of the top jockeys at Philadelphia Park, will be riding in his first Kentucky Derby, trying to be the first rookie to win the race since Ron Franklin did it with Spectacular Bid in 1979.

If they win, they will share not only in the Derby champions purse of more than $800,000 but also in a $5 million bonus offered by Oaklawn Park for winning the Arkansas and Kentucky derbies.

But after the Smarty Jones teams travails, they say the money is not the point.

Servis thinks first of Bob Camac.

``I just hope,'' the trainer said, ``I can get the job done for him.''

Kevin Modesti, [phone]

kevin.modesti(at)dailynews.com

KENTUCKY DERBY

Churchill Downs, Louisville, Ky.

Saturday, 3:04 p.m.

Channel 4 coverage starts at 2 p.m.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- color) Trainer John Servis has his first Kentucky Derby horse in Smarty Jones, whom he believes deserves to be the favorite.

Ed Reinke/Associated Press

(2) Smarty Jones (pictured), winner of all six of his races, follows in the hoofprints of 17 horses who brought undefeated records into the Kentucky Derby. Thirteen went off as betting favorites, and four won the Derby.

Al Behrman/Associated Press

Box:

(1) KENTUCKY DERBY

(2) UNBEATEN, NOT UNBEATABLE