Here’s my final toteboard on the 135th Kentucky Derby:

WINNER – The American racing public. Everybody agrees the sport needs heroes. If Mine That Bird, a gelding, proves that his Derby form was no fluke, he’ll be a factor on the national scene as a 4-year-old and maybe even at 5.

LOSER – The Kentucky breeding industry. Breeders hate it when geldings win major races.

WINNER – Calvin Borel did more than pull off the Oaks-Derby double for the seventh time in history. He had the greatest Derby weekend of any jockey ever. On Friday, he rode Rachel Alexandra to a 20 ¼-length victory in the Oaks, which more than doubled the previous record for longest winning margin. On Saturday, he delivered one of the greatest winning moves in Derby history about the second-highest-priced winner ever. None of the all-time greats – Sande, Arcaro, Shoemaker, you name it – ever had a better Derby weekend.

LOSER – Trainer Todd Pletcher ran his winless record for Derby starters to 0-for-24. He had to be pleased with Join in The Dance, who led after a mile before fading to a respectable sixth. But Dunkirk, who went off as the $5.20 to $1 third choice, never was in the hunt and lumbered home 11th. Advice finished 13th, which was about where he figured to be. Here’s some Advice to owners for future reference: Don’t name a horse after a World War II disaster for the good guys.

WINNER – The Las Vegas future books, who clean up everytime a longshot wins. The books got a lot of play on I Want Revenge, who was scratched on Saturday morning; Friesan Fire, who finished next-to-last as the $3.80-to-$1 favorite; Pioneerof the Nile, who finished second; and the aforementioned Dunkirk. They get to keep all the money. I’ll be interested to see how much money was bet on Mine That Bird in the future books, but it couldn’t have been much.

LOSER – Everybody who bet in the Derby Future pool operated by Churchill Downs. Mine That Bird wasn’t even one of the 23 individual betting interests. As a member of “all others,” which always goes off at a low price, he paid $5.80 in Pool 1, $11.80 in Pool 2, and $36.80 in Pool 3. Those who bet on him at the track, of course, collected $103.20 for every $2 win bet.

WINNER – The hunch bettors who always play No. 8 because it’s their favorite number; who always bet on Borel; and who played Rachel Alexandra with the entire Derby field in the Oaks-Derby double. It was impossible to bet Mine That Bird off his past performances.

LOSERS – The professional handicappers who live and die by the Beyer figures or any other figures.  It wasn’t so bad that they missed on the winner because he didn’t compute on any system known to mankind. But they completely underestimated Pioneerof The Nile, who looked like the winner until Borel made his breath-taking move along the rail. Although Pioneerof The Nile had won four straight stakes races in California, including the Santa Anita Derby, the “experts” insisted that his speed figures indicated he wasn’t fast enough to win. Today they look pretty silly.

WINNER – New Churchill Downs track announcer  (they’re calling him the track “commentator” in the program) Mark Johnson, who made a flawless call in his first Derby. Nevertheless, I don’t think Johnson’s British accent and chatty style suits Churchill Downs the way that, say, Chic Anderson did. Personally, I’d like to see Mike Battaglia back in the announcer’s stand.

More Winners and Losers after the Jump…

LOSER – NBC’s Tom Durkin, the best in the business, didn’t pick up Borel’s quick move along the rail until Mine That Bird was on the lead inside the 16th pole. It was a rare gaffe by the normally reliable Durkin, proving again that calling thoroughbred races is the most challenging announcing job of all.

WINNER – The suits who market thoroughbred racing. Mine That Bird should become the poster pony for the argument that a Derby winner can come from anywhere. The first time he went through an auction ring, he sold for $9,200. That’s within the means of small investors.  In addition, the marketing folks can use the astronomical Derby payoffs to prove that you don’t need to visit a casino or buy a lottery ticket to win a lot of money for a small investment. It’s good promotional material, but the game has never been good about knowing how to market its assets.

LOSER – The Godolphin Stable of racing’s wealthiest and most stubborn patron, Sheik Mohammed Rashid al Maktoum. One of the sheik’s ideas for attracting attention and tourists to his country was to institute a Kentucky Derby prep race that he called the United Arab Emitres Derby. He hoped to use the UAE Derby to prove that you can win the Kentucky Derby without prepping in the U.S. So far, however, he has been gloriously wrong.  This year his Regal Ransom upset his Desert Party in the UAE Derby, but both were nowhere in the Kentucky Derby, Regal Ransom finishing eighth and Desert Party 14th.

WINNER – Although he finished only 10th in the Derby with General Quarters, Tom McCarthy always will be a hero to everybody who loves the idea of a one-horse stable having the chance to win the biggest prize in the sport.  His victory in the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland was so unlikely that it was asking too much of fate for him to also win the Derby. But don’t think the racing gods were asleep on Saturday. They just decided to smile on the other great human-interest story in the race – the one about the ignored gelding from New Mexico who once sold for $9,200, was transported to Kentucky on a van driven by his trainer, and was dismissed at 50-to-1 odds.

LOSER –  Anybody who pays Paris Hilton or any other “celebrity” to come to the Derby. That’s just pathetic, not to mention tacky. I think it’s time for the state legislature to pass some laws regarding celebrities. First, in order to qualify, they must be known by at least 60 per cent of the legislature (that would eliminate all rappers and TV sitcom actors). Second, if they come two years in a row, they must buy at least one Kentucky-bred horse in order to be invited back a third time. I’m sick of these C-List celebrity moochers who come in every year and take everything they can grab without ever giving anything back.

WINNER – Trainer Bob Baffert, for the classy way he handled the disappointment of finishing second. Baffert thought he had his fourth Derby winner until he saw Borel sneaking through on the rail with Mine That Bird. Afterward, stunned though he was, Baffert graciously credited Borel and the winners. “Those cowboys from New Mexico came in here and they had the best horse,” Baffert said.

LOSER – Anybody who comes up to you and says, “You mean you didn’t have the winner? Too bad you didn’t talk to me. I was all over it. I can’t believe you didn’t bet anything on that horse.” If such an individual were to become a victim of assault-and-battery, no judge in Louisville would convict the accused.