The Derby is so wide open they might want to consider installing special slot machines at Churchill Downs. Winning players would know how to bet the race if a horse's picture showed up three across, sort of like Lucky 7's. But then, who but Hermis can distinguish between the pictures of horses? So maybe it's all blind luck this time.

Maybe it is every time.

Just ask Jim Squires. Better still, read Jim Squires.

He had this horse Monarchos. Now he has this book "Horse of a Different Color."

The former editor of the Chicago Tribune has a farm called "Two Bucks." For a long, long time the name worked also as an understanding of where his portfolio was headed.

His wife wanted to move to New Mexico. But eventually she would be moved to hop on board a ride lasting a mile and a quarter. The journey to that gate is much longer.

It starts with the mating of two animals. The others have the high priced animals. Jim Squires had a mare named Regal Band that he'd purchased for $14,000.

Squires takes the reader through something of a tutorial on how the breeding and bidding game works. It's his lament that it seems to be working to the benefit of those with the most money. A handful of horsemen are buying up everything in sight, increasing their chances of bringing Triple Crown talent into their barns. This has benefits for the entire industry (a rising tide lifts all boats) but it's rough sometimes on those whose farms are named Two Bucks and to all those scraping up change to get by.

But once in a while (like last year) the smaller farm hits it big.

It's not that Jim Squires didn't know his horses. It's more that he knew he was running short on time to prove it. He liked what he saw in Regal Band's bloodlines. He liked it even more that the bigger barns didn't see the same thing that day at auction. The joining together of Regal Band and Maria's Mon would change his life and that of all others whose paths crossed Monarchos.

Point Given was the next Secretariat, just as Fusaichi Pegasus had been the year before. But it was Monarchos who got to the line first on May's first Saturday last year. Jim Squires had done the breeding. And eventually he'd get to do the math. He knew it took two to make a quality race horse. Now he's experienced how it takes one win -- one Kentucky Derby win just two minutes in length -- to make an impact lasting a lifetime.