The National Weather Service has not confirmed that a tornado it was tracking on radar did the damage Wednesday night or whether it was gusting straight-line winds.

But eyewitnesses playing in a Texas Hold 'em poker tournament at the track said they saw the rotation in the clouds and then saw swirling winds touch down along the backstretch and skip diagonally through the barn area, Churchill Downs spokesman John Asher said.

"Clearly in their eyes it was a tornado," he said.

No races are run on Wednesdays this time of year. But besides the poker tournament, people were watching a simulcast of races from other tracks and some workers live in apartments above the damaged barns. Still, officials had no reports of injuries to humans or horses. Some minor injuries were reported elsewhere in Louisville that was inundated by torrential rains that caused flash flooding.

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You know that racing officials must be getting desperate if they need to play up the endless alcohol available at Preakness, but there is something even sadder in The New York Times' covering a guy wearing horsey pants and calling for endless shots, as if this was a real issue that the rest of the world cared about. I'm from Maryland, and I'm not even subscribed to Kegasus' Twitter page.

If Kegasus smacks of fratboy humor and an alcohol toxicity case waiting to happen, what's to be done? Will getting rid of him/it mean that Preakness will have to find another way to appeal to teenagers; perhaps going back to those homemade Porta Potty-climbing videos of 2007?

The all-around best response for this ridiculousness comes from Maryland Delegate Pat McDonough, who oversees the Baltimore and Hartford districts that the Jockey Club falls under:

"You can’t fix stupid."

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Jockey John Velazquez guided the 3-year-old colt to the front at the quarter pole then poured it on to beat Nehro by 2 3/4 lengths. Mucho Macho Man finished third.

Dialed In went off as the 5-1 favorite but finished eighth.

The victory is the first Derby win for trainer Graham Motion and provided redemption for Velazquez, who was set to ride Uncle Mo before the horse was scratched due to a lingering stomach problem.

Velazquez replaced Robby Albarado on the winner after Albarado broke his nose earlier in the week.

Animal Kingdom went off as a 20-1 longshot in the lightly regarded field. He won the Spiral Stakes on the synthetic surface at Turfway Park on March 26, but had never before run on dirt.

He looked right at home under the twin spires.

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Pletcher could just as well have been talking about the jumbled Derby picture itself.

Looking for racing's next star to emerge at Churchill Downs on Saturday? Look elsewhere, as a series of defections over the last month have turned a race typically consisting of a "who's who" among the sport's top 3-year-olds into a race of "who's that?"

The Factor. Jaycito. To Honor and Serve. Premier Pegasus. Toby's Corner. All were considered legitimate Derby shots at some point. All will be well out of sight when the 137th edition of the Run for the Roses unfolds under the twin spires.

In their place are horses such as Watch Me Go, Shackleford and Derby Kitten. Largely unknown. Largely unproven. Their connections largely unapologetic for the position they will find themselves in when the starting gate opens at 6:24 p.m. EDT.

"There's only one Kentucky Derby," said owner Ken Ramsey, who didn't get Derby Kitten into the race until a day before entries were due. "Nobody will care how we got here if we win."

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Looking up, she saw two panicked horses dragging a carriage charging toward them.

"I could see it was two horses," said Crilly, 46, of Willow Springs, Ill., who was visiting her parents in Bellevue. "I could see they were running at full speed and they were harnessed together and I knew we were going to most certainly get hit, and as soon as it happened, everybody was crying and screaming."

Someone pulled her granddaughter to safety, but Crilly said her niece broke her wrist and lost her two front teeth. At least 22 other people were injured, some critically, and one woman was killed, police and hospital officials said.

Janet Steines of Spragueville, whose husband was driving the carriage, died Sunday evening at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City, according to the Hachmann Funeral Home in Bellevue.

The horses got spooked after they rubbed heads and one's bridle fell off, police said. They galloped for several blocks through downtown Bellevue, a town of about 2,300 residents along the Iowa-Illinois border. The wagon overturned at some point, dumping its four passengers.

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Trained by three-time Derby winner Bob Baffert and ridden by Garrett Gomez, Lookin At Lucky drew the No. 1 post -- generally considered a disadvantage because horses charging into the first turn of the 1 1-4 mile track tend to jam the inside.

Sidney's Candy, 5-1, didn't fare much better, drawing the outside No. 20 post -- making for the widest of all trips around Churchill Downs.

Twelve horses have won from the No. 1 post; the last was Ferdinand in 1986. Only two winners have come from No. 20, with Big Brown doing so two years ago.

Devil May Care is a 10-1 co-third favorite as she attempts to become the fourth filly to win the Derby. The last filly to run in the Derby, Eight Belles, finished second two years ago, but broke down after crossing the finish line and had to be euthanized.

Mike Pegram, co-owner of Lookin At Lucky, still feels, well, pretty lucky.

"If there's a horse that can overcome that spot, it's Lucky," he said. "I don't want to sound overconfident, but we got the best jockey in the country and he knows what his responsibilities are."

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Trainer Todd Pletcher said he's pulling the 3-year-old colt out of next weekend's race due swelling in his left front leg.

Eskendereya stamped himself as the horse to beat after romping to wins in the Fountain of Youth and the Wood Memorial by a combined 18 1/4 lengths.

He was scheduled to work at Churchill Downs on Sunday morning, but Pletcher opted to keep the muscular chestnut colt in the barn while sending his other Derby entries out on the track.

Pletcher said he detected something was "off" with the horse when he galloped on Saturday morning and later noticed swelling between the ankle and knee of the left front leg. It had worsened when Pletcher arrived at the barn Sunday morning and he sent owner Ahmed Zayat a text informing him of the problem.

"We were still kind of hoping for a miracle overnight and we didn't get it," Pletcher said. "It's the worst of timing."

Pletcher stressed that "the horse is not lame" and he's hoping the injury, which he likened to a sprained ankle in a human, isn't career-threatening. Eskendereya will undergo a thorough examination when the swelling subsides, but Pletcher said he'll speak to Zayat before making any decision on what to do next.

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Gone was the hour or so -- it felt like nine -- of fawning celebrity interviews by "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush. In a shocking turnaround, the subject of Saturday's horse-racing broadcast from Baltimore was horse racing.

The death of filly Eight Belles at the conclusion of the Derby has given rise to a national conversation about how thoroughbred horses are bred, trained and treated.

NBC could easily have brought in a reporter from the news side to add a little gravitas to a three-minute report on the situation, then gone right back to Bush and his "What makes you so fabulous?" grilling of this season's TV ministars and retired athletes. But the network rolled up its sleeves and devoted a half-hour to the the Eight Belles aftermath.

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Daisy and her big brother were whacking each other around a little bit so I asked her if she wanted to come sit with me and watch the horse race. Horses? She's a little girl. You bet, pop. Buster joined us a few seconds later. He was not going to be left alone to play with that toy that, moments earlier, he'd been trying to brain his sister to win exclusive rights to.

Living on TiVo time, we fast-forwarded through most of the long, long, holy smokes is it still going on long pre-race show on NBC until we got to some actual non-celebrity equine content, the horses being saddled and the riders going up in the paddock, then the post parade.

The first time Eight Belles appeared on-screen, I said, "That's a girl horse." I explained that female horses don't run in the Derby very often and why, and that there have only been a few fillies -- Buster: What's a filly -- who have won the Kentucky Derby. What's a derby.

Daisy was suddenly interested, Buster too but less so. Every time a new picture of a horse came up, Daisy said, "Is that a girl horse?" No. No, and 19 times no. There she is. There's the girl horse, with the green blanket.

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Except for Reggie Bush. The Heisman Trophy-winning tailback from USC was so spectacular that even this hat-in-hand, nose-to-the-grindstone annum couldn't dim his luster.

Maybe the sports world was chastened by the Brawl of Palace Hills in November 2004, the consequences of which were felt well into '05.

Maybe it was the prospect of playing games in the face of a wave of worldwide disasters, of tsunami aftermath and earthquake, war and, especially, Hurricane Katrina, that injected a note of humility to the proceedings and had athletes, coaches and the commentariat talking again and again about "perspective."

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They were in a regular old public men's room, not in the luxury suites or anything, but just right there in the grandstand at Arlington Park, the thoroughbred track in Chicago's northern suburbs.

If you're the kind of person who likes the old-time atmosphere of the track, smoke-stained walls, sticky floors, old men in sweat-stained shirts chomping dead cigars and frowning over the Daily Racing Form trying to decide how to bet their retirement check, Arlington Park isn't for you. If the marble floors don't turn you off, the fact that you can practically eat off them might.

The track is having a big year. This is the 75th season of racing at Arlington. This year's Kentucky Derby winner, the Illinois horse War Emblem, broke his maiden at Arlington. Over the weekend it was the site of the 20th Arlington Million, which on its inaugural running in 1981 was the first thoroughbred race with a million-dollar purse. A million bucks was a lot of money in 1981, you see. The Million, a mile and a quarter turf race, remains the track's signature event, except this year, when it will play host to the Breeders' Cup, the first time that thoroughbred racing's richest day will ever be in the Midwest.

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Here's what Baffert, the glib, white-haired trainer who had back-to-back Derby winners in 1997 and '98, told his jockey: Sit still. Baffert showed Espinoza a tape of the April 6 Illinois Derby, in which War Emblem trounced then-Derby favorite Repent. "He wanted to show me, it's going to be my first blind date because I've never seen this horse before," Espinoza said. Baffert told him the big dark brown colt likes a quiet jockey. "Just don't move until the last minute, he told me probably 100 times," Espinoza said. "Finally, I listened to him."

War Emblem, who went off at 20.5-1, broke cleanly, stepped into the lead ahead of Proud Citizen (23-1) and -- well, that was that. The most wide-open race in Kentucky Derby history, a race with a favorite who went off at a record-high price of 6-1, turned into a race with no turning points, no dramatic moments, other than the one when War Emblem began to pull away at midstretch and the 145,033 spectators realized what was happening.

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So as I wander around the barns on the back side of Churchill Downs at dawn Thursday morning, I'm not the only one who's looking for information, though I may be starting from the greatest position of ignorance. With such a wide-open field -- 20 horses, six or eight more than the maximum allowed in most races in America -- and no colt having established himself as dominant in the prep races, reporters are looking for angles and horse players are looking for clues.

"When you have 20 horses, you never know," trainer Bob Baffert tells a gaggle of scribblers. "It mixes it all up."

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There is no single reason why this should be so, and hence virtually no way to reverse the process that is destroying horse racing in all of its forms. But if none of the other reasons existed, there's one that could very well do: This Saturday's Derby winner, regardless of who it is, will scarcely be around long enough for the public to identify with. Like most valuable racing horses these days, the winner will almost certainly be taken out of the game while in its prime and put out to stud -- or, if it should become only the third filly in Derby history to win, out to breed. In other words, instead of keeping his or her horse face out there in front of the public to be immortalized, the world's greatest racehorse will be devoting its best years to producing little copies of itself. Racing, like every other sport, needs stars, and to have stars you need familiarity. Stars spark interest and bring people put to the track, cash in hand. But nowadays all but a small percentage of regulars know the names of the top horses.

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Biography (8 p.m. Fri., A&E) has a new profile of Martha Stewart. Margot Kidder and Chad Lowe guest as a very creepy mother and son suspected of murder on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (10 p.m. Fri., NBC). Pierce Brosnan hosts Saturday Night Live (11:30 p.m. Sat., NBC), with music from Destiny's Child. Set the VCR: Hank learns that he's suffering from a rare butt-cheek condition on King of the Hill (7:30 p.m. Sun., Fox). Flanders builds a Christian theme park in his late wife's memory on The Simpsons (8 p.m. Sun., Fox). On The Sopranos (9 p.m. Sun., HBO), Paulie and Christopher have a scary time in the Pine Barrens, Meadow reconsiders Jackie Jr. and Tony's mistress erupts. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (9 p.m. Sun., ABC) begins a week-long celebrity edition; contestants include Edie Falco, Ben Stiller, Dennis Franz, Kelly Ripa and John Leguizamo. Doggett and Mulder search for a half-human, half-reptile thingie on The X-Files (9 p.m. Sun., Fox). The Practice (10 p.m. Sun., ABC) airs its 100th episode, which means it's now available for syndication. A creepy murder suspect threatens ADA Bay.

Specials

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"Go six. Go six. Run, you motherfucker," one of them, a short, middle-aged fellow with no teeth, screams at the screen. There is a sea of men around him, pawing at his shoulders. As one, then another, starts to yell, the small man jerks back and forth, his hair lifting from his scalp in greasy clumps as he violently shakes the newspaper in his hand.

"SIX. SIX. SIX. SIX."

Behind him, a group of elderly Italians slouches in a row of black leather chairs, lined up movie-theater style along a giant plate-glass window separating them from the busy street. Some watch halfheartedly, while others bury their faces in white, pocket-size books, diligently studying the fine print while the crowd swells around them, expanding like a giant lung.

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Boy Meets World (8 p.m. Fri., ABC) packs it in after seven seasons. Whatever. On the season finale of Now and Again (9 p.m. Fri., CBS), the Eggman returns, and Lisa discovers some puzzling news about the night Michael died. It's a cliffhanger episode; hopefully, this means the show is coming back in the fall. Sabrina the Teenage Witch (9 p.m. Fri., ABC) -- is she still a teenager? -- ends its run on ABC. Next fall, the show goes where all shows about young women with supernatural powers go -- the WB. Barbara Walters interviews George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, on 20/20 (10 p.m. Fri., ABC). John Goodman hosts Saturday Night Live (11:30 p.m. Sat., NBC), with music from Neil Young. On The Simpsons (8 p.m. Sun., Fox), Lisa takes tap-dancing lessons, but soon outstrips her teacher, while Bart and Milhouse play hooky from camp to terrorize the mall. Kathy Griffin guests on The X-Files (9 p.m. Sun., Fox) as twins who create a destructive energy whenever they're together.

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Darla and Eileen were friends of friends. I had never met them before.
Darla, who has had a shadowy past, is now living the good life as the former-other-woman-now-main-love of a rich good ol' boy who is embroiled in a feverish and obsessively hateful divorce. She is recently back from having "everything done" in Brazil (eyes, face lift, lipo, tits, lips and nose, seamlessly constructed by a doctor of evident cost and fame). She is a blisteringly fetching bottle blonde in a tight little suit, ablaze with a large turbo personality. She wears sunglasses with large gold medallions of the Chanel logo. Earrings of large gold Fendi medallions. Jacket buttons made of large gold YSL medallions. Pants with large gold Versace medallions sewn all over them like conchas. Hermes scarf. Vuitton luggage. In short, more endorsements than most race cars. "I had mah boyfriend Hal go pick up an 8-ball for me for the weekend -- I said, 'Honey, could you go pick up a little handbag for me at my cuzzin's house?' The coke was in the inside pocket. If he knew he was drivin' around with all those drugs, he'd be so pissed!" Her turquoise eyes go all round with mischief, her cupid's-bow mouth, which has other parts of her body injected inside of it, puckers into a naughty grin around her cocktail straw. Darla and Hal were my Kentucky Hosts for the 123rd Kentucky Derby.

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