Wyeth wishes upon her 2nd-hand Rags

LOUISVILLE – Nineteen Derby dreams will be dashed on Saturday, but one will ride on.

Could it be the Kentucky Derby fantasy of Phyllis Wyeth and Union Rags, the colt she bred at her Point Lookout Farm in Wilmington, Del.?

Back in 2010, the 71-year-old Wyeth sold Union Rags as a yearling for $145,000.

Soon after the sale, she began dreaming that he would develop into a stakes winner and wanted him back. She purchased him for $390,000 at the 2011 Fasig-tipton Florida Sale for 2-year-olds in training.

“I said, ‘I don’t care, he’s coming back,’ ” recalled Wyeth, who’s been wheelchair-bound since 2001 due to a degenerative condition linked to a 1962 car crash in which she suffered a broken neck. “I really did have that dream. I said, ‘How could I have sold him?’ That was a big mistake.”

Union Rags gave Wyeth her first Grade I victory last year in the Champagne Stakes. Earlier this year he won the Fountain of Youth Stakes by four lengths before finishing a troubled third in the March 31 Florida Derby.

“It would probably be the time of her life,” Union Rags trainer Michael Matz said of Wyeth possibly winning the Derby. “She told me the other day when she got off the plane to come down here, she cried. She’s a real trouper and I think she would enjoy it just like anyone else would.”

Then there is the Derby dream of trainer Hamilton Smith and jockey Sheldon Russell. The two are taking Done Talking to their first Derby.

Done Talking was stricken with colitis but it was caught quickly.

“We caught it just as he developed it and took him to New Bolton (Equine Clinic) within hours,” said the 67-year-old Smith. “Had we not noticed it and gotten him the proper care, he may not have made it overnight.”

Russell, a 24-year-old jockey born in Louisiana and raised in England, went to the Derby museum to learn of the race’s history.

“We were watching the replays of the last 10 years or so and taking it all in,” Russell said. “I was watching the race of Mine That Bird in the Derby and he reminds me of him (Done Talking),” said Russell. “There’s hope that it can be done.”

Mine That Bird returned $103.20 in upsetting the 2009 Derby at 50-1, the same odds Done Talking received on the morning line.

n Rosie Naprvanik became the first female jockey to win the Kentucky Oaks when she guided Believe You Can ($29.60) to an upset in Friday’s $1 million race.

n Jockey Robbie Albarado was arrested and charged with fourth-degree assault/domestic violence, according to Louisville police. He was charged with a similar offense last year that was reduced to a lesser count.