Derby Days

If he is the future of horse racing, he is oblivious to it. The little brother of Barbaro is just kicking around at a Lexington farm. He's just 13 days old, un-named and unaware of all of this.

At the Kentucky Derby, it's been a year since Barbaro's triumphant win. Barbaro was the horse who captured the imagination of an entire country with his success — and later with his struggles.

Four months after his death, race fans have their hearts and wallets open again — wagering, and looking for something, some horse, to believe in.

Will Curlin be the favorite? He's only raced twice in his career. Or Storm in May, who is blind in one eye?

Then, there's Pletcher's Platoon. One man will saddle five of the 20 horses that will race Saturday: Todd Pletcher.

Does having five guarantee success?

"Not at all," Pletcher said. "Not at all. No matter how many eyes a trainer has in there, there's only one winner."

If Pletcher is playing the odds, Jamie Sanders is trying to defy them. She is a Kentucky girl who told her guidance counselor she wanted to train a horse for the Derby.

"My counselor put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'look, that's great to have that dream. Come back to reality,'" she said.

Only 12 women have trained a Derby horse in more than 130 years. Sanders will be "lucky" number 13, with a horse called Teuflesberg.

But it's not an easy name to pronounce. People call him anything from Toy-fles-burg to Tofoe-burg to Toy-burg to Toothless-burg.

Maybe it was the name that scared away other buyers. No one wanted him. No one but Sanders and her fiancé.

"The hammer went down at $9,000 and we looked at each other like, 'is that right?'" Sanders says. "And it was."

And so the $9,000 horse will race million-dollar thoroughbreds this Saturday and that's not even the best part. Recently, Jamie was offered $3 million for Teuflesberg.

Turns out, she didn't just have the smarts to buy him, she had the good sense not to sell him – and see her dream to the finish line.