Run for the Roses Day

If you bet with your heart instead of your head, the 132nd Kentucky Derby is an embarrassment of schmaltzy riches, a tear-jerker in the making at every turn.

When the annual Run for the Roses begins at 5:04 p.m. today before more than 150,000 bewitched, bedazzled and, in many cases, besotted fans at Churchill Downs, the full field of 20 thoroughbreds offers a plethora of sentimental favorites because of the people schooling them, riding them and paying for their oats.

There's Dan Hendricks, the paralyzed trainer who is saddling his first Derby horse in Brother Derek.

There's Michael Matz, another first-time trainer and former Olympic equestrian and fully certified American hero who helped rescue several passengers from the burning wreckage of a United Airlines jet that plowed into an Iowa cornfield in 1989. He is responsible for the unbeaten Barbaro.

There's Beverly Lewis, horse racing's doyenne who returns to Louisville alone, having lost her husband of 58 years to heart failure in February, before their colt Point Determined had revealed his Derby potential.

There's Lawyer Ron, named for the attorney charged with settling the estate of owner James T. Hines Jr., who also died in February, mysteriously drowning in his indoor swimming pool. Further, Lawyer Ron's trainer is the crusty Bob Holthus, 71, a man with heart problems who hasn't come close to winning in four starts.