I think back to all the groggy Derby week mornings eating bananas, stale muffins and fake yogurt at the free breakfast offered at whatever hotel we paid through the nose to stay at – and I remember focusing on the television screen near the buffet line showing the local weather forecast. There were lots of years when we laughed at the approaching storm and comforted ourselves with the notion Churchill’s track superintendent (now retired) Butch Lehr would work his magic and make the running surfaces fair and fine.

I’m not there this year. I won’t even see it live on TV. I found out Wednesday night I’m working Saturday afternoon into night. I’ll miss the Derby party in Queens. I’ll miss Marc’s juleps. But I don’t miss the anxiety over the Louisville weather forecast which shows a cone of moisture pushing up from the south and cold air from the west threatening to soak and chill the crowd of 150-thousand that shows up for this one.

I like Orb to win the race. I like Orb in large part because I like his trainer Shug McGaughey. Unlike all but a few trainers, Shug doesn’t bring a horse to the Derby for the thrill of it. Orb can certainly win the race. He’s a big guy who can get the Derby distance and by all accounts he’s feeling good and ready. He’s listed as the program favorite in the race. You’ll get 11 or 12 dollars back on a two dollar win wager if he gets the job done. His only major knock is a tendency to get excited and distracted during the half-hour or so prior to a race. This aspect of his personality is a concern given the level of hyperactive commotion in the saddling paddock and then during the Derby parade to the gate.

The wet track shouldn’t bother him although we don’t know for sure because he’s never raced on a surface labeled anything other than “fast.” Churchill’s dirt track can become tiring when it turns to mud. My pal Marc believes smaller, compact animals like Mine That Bird (‘09’s winner) have an advantage in the muck because they can better “skip and glide” over it rather than big, long-striding horses who tend to get stuck in it.

Though that theory is sound, I haven’t moved off my Orb pick. I’ll play him to win and in an exacta box with Lines of Battle.

-With twenty horses running in the Derby, those reporting on the event have had plenty of storylines to explore. The mainstream media’s best moment in the run-up to the race came during the 60 Minutes profile of jockey Rosie Napravnik. The piece aired last Sunday night. Rosie’s struggle to gain success as one of the sport’s few female jockeys is a great story. Her wit is sharp and her love of the game is well articulated. The best part of the segment came when narrator Bob Simon asked Rosie about her ability to communicate with the horses she rides. This part of the interview appeared to have been shot in Rosie’s home. She told Simon she uses various types of noises to convey certain types of instructions. One such noise is a smooching sound, which Rosie says prompts the animal to “spurt forward.” When Simon asked Rosie to simulate this noise, she had a hilarious deadpan response. “I’m not gonna make the noise on 60 Minutes. I have limits.”

-The Times was the only major daily newspaper that failed to send a reporter to Pittsburgh to cover the first Islanders playoff game in six years. That decision is consistent with the Grey Lady sports department’s questionable policy of ignoring a hockey team on the brink of moving to Brooklyn. Thursday’s Times print edition carried a few paragraphs of AP wire copy of the Isles’ game one loss to the Pens while dedicating a full-length feature on the same page to the backup goalie for the Minnesota Wild.