Commercials for the New York State Lottery feature a catchy little tune with this opening line: "If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a house, I'd buy you a house." During the postrace news conference for the Kentucky Derby, it popped into my warped but agile mind, with the word Derby substituted for house.

I would have loved to sing "I'd buy you a Derby" then to Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who paid Russell Reineman a reported $900,000 for War Emblem three weeks before The Great Race. Judging from his remarks, Salman wouldn't have found it amusing. Inheritors of great fortunes tend to get huffy when reminded that their megabucks give them a major advantage.

When a journalist suggested he had bought the Derby, Salman got a bit snippy. Have you ever met a prince who wasn't typical of the ruling class?

"Everybody buys the Derby, because you have to buy a horse or raise a horse to win the Derby," Salman said. "Spending money is not buying? Bought the Derby? If you tell me next year who is going to win it, I'll buy it again."

You tell 'em, Prince. You're entitled. Trainer Bob Baffert quickly jumped in to back his money man, saying, "Anyone who says that, they are just jealous of us . If Godolphin knew about it, they would have bought it, [just like] anybody else."

Salman chimed in with "Anybody in his right mind."

They're right, and paying 900 grand for a nearly finished product makes more sense than pouring millions into developing one nearly from scratch. After all of Baffert's Salman-owned 3-year-olds came up short or got hurt, the Thoroughbred Corp. went to Plan B.

As Salman said, "I've been breeding, I've been buying yearlings, 2-year-olds in training, horses in Argentina, everything. People say, well, we just bought him [three] weeks ago. I think it's much smarter to buy a horse [three] weeks ago and win the Kentucky Derby than raise them."

Agreed, and winning is winning, no matter how it's done. Still, no amount of logic or pragmatism can remove the sour aftertaste lingering from the 128th Kentucky Derby. Unless you were among the connections of War Emblem or bet him at 20-1, it was hard to get enthused about a race in which the first two finishers were 1-2 all the way around. It played out like a claimer for aged pacers on a half-mile harness track. Is that all there is to a Derby? This time, yeah.

Besides the shock value of a longshot, there wasn't much to get emotional about. Salman got in a dig at Sheikh Mohammed by pointing out he was the first Arab to win the Derby. Baffert won his third Derby and his seventh Triple Crown race in five years, a monumental achievement, but it's been a long time since he was the sport's beloved wise guy.

When gutsy Silver Charm gave Baffert his first Derby win in 1997, it was seen as justice for somebody who was tortured by a nose in the race the year before. That was before most of us figured out that many of Baffert's one-liners were scripted, that he played as fast and loose with the truth as any other shifty horseman, and that he often acted like a baby when he lost.

Yet you can't deny that he knows how to win the big ones, and Baffert felt no need to apologize for an unpopular victory.

"It's popular with me," he said five days later on a conference call. "People that it's not popular with were the ones who didn't pick him and didn't see what was in front of their face . I was bringing a horse that was 20-1, not 1-2. The Prince bought a horse that wasn't going to the Derby, had [knee] chips and had been on the market all winter, so he was taking a chance."

I asked Baffert about how this Derby compared to his first two wins, which he accomplished with colts who were his from the beginning. "The difference is Silver Charm was my first Derby win, and with Real Quiet, it took a long time to get him going," Baffert said. "This horse is sort of different. [Before the race], I really didn't know what I thought, but when he turned for home, it didn't feel any different than the other two.

"This is a huge win. When I won, I got all the feeling back about the Derby. I thought that I'd lost it, and with all the disappointment with General Challenge [in 1999], I thought maybe I wouldn't win the Derby again. When you win it, it brings all those feelings and great memories back."

Baffert's remarkable success has made him a target, which comes with the territory. He'd much rather be the guy on top than the long-suffering sentimental favorite. He's one of the leading trainers in the world, and the only way to stay on top is to keep winning the classics. If that means many people will resent him, so be it.

"I saw Wayne Lukas go through this a few years ago," said Baffert, whose career has paralleled that of the former idol who became his archrival. "Everybody wants to see the local guy win the Derby. But I want to win it every year. It's like a football coach not wanting to win the Super Bowl every year. If he's like that, you don't want him around.

"As long as I'm around, I'll be trying to win it. I just hope I'll have the horse to do it."

And when he doesn't, it's nice to have an owner who'll sign a big check to give him one very late in the game.