Anyone have a good 2-year-old whose name happens to begin with the letter H? Well, you're in trouble. Don't bother showing up next year at the Kentucky Derby. Don't even nominate to the Triple Crown. Start thinking Preakness. You are not winning the Kentucky Derby. I repeat, you are not winning the Kentucky Derby. No one is powerful enough, good enough, fast enough, to overcome the dreaded H jinx.

Since Hill Gail won the 1952 Derby, it's been 51 years since a horse whose name begins with the letter H has won the Derby. Since, the hexed, harried, hassled, hesitant, hewed, hibernating group is 0-for-35, and the victims of the jinx include some pretty tough company. It has stopped Holy Bull, Honest Pleasure, Hansel, Hill Rise, Harlan's Holiday, Houston and more.

Ridiculous? Of course it is. But no more so than the Breeders' Cup Juvenile jinx, which has trainers of so many good 2-year-olds in a dither this year. Remarkably, they're buying into this hooey, and the result is that some talented juveniles are passing the race.

By now, we all know the story. No Juvenile winner has gone on to win the Kentucky Derby, a streak that goes back to the Breeders' Cup's inception in 1984. With each passing year, trainers with Kentucky Derby aspirations have grown more fearful of the so-called jinx and this year it has a group of otherwise perfectly sensible men trembling in fear.

There will be some good 2-year-olds in this year's race, but the real story is not who is running, but who isn't. Three of the most accomplished 2-year-olds in the country -- Birdstone, Ruler's Court, Silver Wagon -- are not going to start in the Juvenile, the main reason being the trainers do not want to spoil their chances of winning the Kentucky Derby. (A fourth, Eurosilver is out with minor shin problems, but probably would have passed anyway).

To be fair, the trainers of the three are concerned (I hope?) about more than the apparent jinx aspects of the race. The prevailing wisdom is that the Juvenile is too hard on a young horse and, perhaps too long, and that the resulting ordeal will beat up a horse to the point that they won't be the same six months later for the Kentucky Derby. That, the skeptics will tell you, is why no Juvenile winner has won the Derby.

There may be a shred of truth to that, but to buy into the theory requires ignoring some pretty obvious contrary facts and making judgments based on a scant amount of information.

First of all, while Juvenile winners have done poorly in the Kentucky Derby, running in the race has by no means meant disaster in the Triple Crown. Three horses who have started in the Juvenile have won the Kentucky Derby, six Juvenile starters have won the Preakness and eight have captured the Belmont. The 1995 Preakness winner Timber Country is also a Juvenile winner. Then again, isn't it too early to come to any conclusions about how the Juvenile affects horses in their 3-year-old campaigns? The race has only been run 19 times, hardly an adequate sample size. Between 1979 and 2000, a 21-year period, no favorite won the Kentucky Derby. Did that lead anyone to the preposterous conclusion that no favorite can win the race? Is there anyone out there silly enough to swallow my theory that no horse whose name begins with the letter H can win the Kentucky Derby?

It could well be that starting in 2004, Juvenile winners will capture five of the next eight Derbies. We just don't know.

If indeed Juvenile winners just can't win the Kentucky Derby it has nothing to do with hexes and probably has nothing to do with the race being too hard on the animal. The reality is that the Juvenile and the Kentucky Derby are two very different races won by different kinds of horses. Juvenile winners are typically fast, precocious horses with some speed who are ahead of the pack. The Kentucky Derby is won by horses who are developed and have the class and stamina to win at a mile and a quarter. Cuvee, the probable favorite this year, may well win the Juvenile. By Carson City and horse who developed so quickly he won a 4 _-furlong race May 2 at Churchill Downs, he doesn't stand a prayer in the Kentucky Derby. And that doesn't have anything to do with a curse or a race that was too hard on him.

The Breeders' Cup Juvenile is worth $1.5 million, $500,000, by the way, more than the Kentucky Derby, and victory in it all but assures you a 2-year-old championship. Those are powerful incentives to run, much more potent that the flimsy reasoning trainers have been giving for passing. Nick Zito (Birdstone), Ralph Ziadie (Silver Wagon) and Eoin Harty (Ruler's Court) have made a mistake.