Rise and shine, it's go-for-the-Triple-Crown-on-two-different-horses time! At least, it will be in a few hours.

The star of the race won't be Mine That Bird — despite his transforming into a diva over night, evidenced by this snapshot — but his jockey, Calvin Borel, who's riding for the first Triple Crown since 1979. And that's why you should root for the 5-foot-4, 116-pound Cajun. He's the story here, people, not the damn horse he's riding. Remember?

*****

Good Saturday morning. Keep the tips coming nice and steady today and we just might get through the first part of the weekend.

As you may have noticed from his incomprehensible post-race interviews, Borel is from the South. Louisiana, specifically, where tiny, podunk "bush tracks" provide the gritty foundation for horse racing in America. Borel learned to ride as a toddler and not in some grassy pasture with a cowboy leading his horse by a rope. He was racing thoroughbreds down double-wide dirt tracks with no turns at 8 years old—for $4 a race, 17 races a day. (And sometimes he would race against a chicken, for some reason.) But then the nanny state had to go and ruin all that.

No other region in the continental U.S. offered kids as young as 8 the opportunity to learn the balance and subtle artistry it takes to ride a reckless, 1,200-pound animal. Riding racehorses is sort of like skydiving-there's only one way to learn how to do it.

And if you could do it on a bush tracks, sometimes with your bare feet in the stirrups, sometimes on a horse's bare back, surely you could do it on a sanctioned track with an ambulance following behind....

Veteran horsemen say the end of the bush track, and rules requiring all jockeys to be at least 16, are major reasons the sport is dominated by jockeys from the Caribbean and South and Central America, where informal racing still allows children to ride.

"It's like kids and basketball in the inner city," said Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. "The riders from Puerto Rico and Mexico and those places, they still grow up with horses all around them."

Actually, it's not like that at all, but point taken. Latin riders are dominating our good 'ol American boys and there ain't no turning back. Those crazy Puerto Ricans ride horses everywhere and how is little Johnny supposed to compete with that when his helicopter parents are constantly trying to protect little Snowflake from broken collarbones and horseshoes to the face?

It also probably doesn't help the jockey industry that 20% of our youth population is morbidly obese.

Hardly a star student, Mr. Borel dropped out of school after eighth grade. ("It was pretty clear I wasn't going to be no doctor or no lawyer," he said.)

Look at what those fat bastards are missing out on!

The Racetrack Education of Jockey Calvin Borel [Wall Street Journal]

The owners of three year-old filly Rachel Alexandra are indicating that their horse will race this Saturday at Pimlico with Derby winning jockey Calvin Borel in the saddle. This leaves Mine That Bird, Derby winning horse and an early favorite for next weekend, without his jockey.

According to Mine That Bird's trainer Chip Woolley Jr., Borel is still his jockey but will replace him if needed.

I know, I know. But it's a slow news day and I have to keep you guys entertained with something. Besides, this post gives me a good excuse to run this classic video again:

It was an honest mistake, one you can chalk up to Durkin, like most Americans watching, dismissing Mine That Bird once he lumbered out of the gate, was dead last for the first leg, and disappeared up until the last frenzied moments. For those who think that jockeys have no part in how a horse performs, on this version of the race, with a shadow-iso on Mine That Bird, you can see how expertly Calvin Borrel navigated the horse in and out of the pack to get to the rail.

Unfortunately, this also isolates how Durkin botched the final leg. I'm sure who's ever calling the Preakness will keep a closer eye on him.

This video was put together by Gawker video guru/genius/Godsend Mike Byhoff.

Tough Day For Durkin (second graf) [NYT]

Borel, who was also victorious yesterday in the Kentucky Oaks, was understandably excited after coming off the rail to torch the field by over 6 lengths. From a layman's perspective it certainly looked like a masterful job by Borel, who weaved through traffic seemingly at will en route to the lead. Pioneerof The Nile placed while Musket Man finished third. Last place belonged to Flying Private, who will now be forced to box Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Reuters image via Yahoo!