ESPN Horse Racing

STANTON, Del. - Jeremy Rose almost lost his chance to ride in this year's Triple Crown races. Then, he was beaten aboard Afleet Alex in the Kentucky Derby by a couple of horses he never imagined finishing near the lead.

Now the former high school wrestler believes he's ready to put Derby winner Giacomo, runner-up Closing Argument or any other horse down for the count in Saturday's Preakness Stakes. Rose is ready for Pimlico, a track where he feels at home and knows how to win.

"That's my yard now," Rose said. "I went to their backyard and now they're in my backyard. They don't ride here too often."

Rose's career bloomed in Maryland, where he won the Maryland Breeders' Cup on Preakness day at Pimlico aboard Pioneer Boy in 2003. Two years later, he's returning as one of the favorites to win the second leg of the Triple Crown.

But it was back to work riding low-grade horses last week at his home track of Delaware Park, where he was the leading rider in 2001 and earned the Eclipse Award as the nation's top apprentice.

There were a couple of banners wishing Afleet Alex luck around the park, and while Rose's missed chance at a Derby win cost him a Stewart Elliott-like rise toward instant fame, his accomplishment was rewarded by his peers on the backside.

"I've never been congratulated for third, so that's kind of neat," said Rose. "I don't think it's hit me on how big the Derby really is. They're all congratulating me like I won something. Running third in the Derby is pretty good, I guess."

Pretty good? Sure, Rose would have loved to have won the Run for the Roses (and how appropriate would that have been?), but he had no complaints after his first ride in the Derby. Neither did Afleet Alex's trainer.

"I think his ride in the Derby answers all questions," Tim Ritchey said. "There wasn't a jock living today that could have ridden a better race."

Rose tried not to let the pomp of the Kentucky Derby affect him.

"They were talking about that song, 'Old Kentucky Home,' and they said you get real emotional when it plays, but I never even heard it," he said. "They were chanting Alex's name. The only part where my hair stood up was when they started chanting Alex's name. That was pretty cool.

"The whole time warming up, they were chanting his name and screaming for him. He loved it. He just walked along with his ears up."

What Rose didn't know was that the Churchill Downs sound system lost power when the song started, and it was barely audible to anyone.

Rose has visions of returning to the Derby and not being just a one-race wonder, and insisted he had no pre-race jitters even though he was riding a horse widely expected to win.

"It's the same thing, just the hype of the Derby," Rose said. "It's still just a race."

Rose came close to watching it on television. Rose was aboard Afleet Alex for the horse's first six races, until the Philadelphia owners of the Cash Is King Stable decided a tested jockey should take the saddle for the Triple Crown trail.

"They wanted a big-name jockey, someone who had been there," he said. "I don't blame them. I would have done the same thing."

John Velazquez was brought in, but he finished last in the Rebel Stakes in March when Afleet Alex was bothered by a lung infection. When Velazquez committed to riding Bandini in the Blue Grass on the same day as the Arkansas Derby, Rose was back on Afleet Alex.

"It's part of the game. What are you going to do?" Rose said. "I was happy to get him back and it worked out in my favor."

Did it ever. Rose rode the horse to a record eight-length win in the $1 million Arkansas Derby. Even though the horse finished last without Rose, the jockey believes Afleet Alex is as smooth as a horse can be.

"I think he'll run for anybody, I really do," Rose said. "Maybe he does only run for me, but he's so easy to ride, it's hard for me to believe that."

Ritchey liked the pace that Rose set in the Derby and felt it was good enough to win at the Preakness.

"We were very pleased with the fact that our horse ran and showed up and ran an absolutely tremendous race, I thought, (a) very gutsy race," Ritchey said.

One minor problem came out of the Derby -- the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority is reviewing Rose's wearing of an ad for a gambling Web site without clearance from Churchill Downs.

Rose's agent, John "Kid" Breeden, said there likely will be a hearing before the authority.

"He wore the pants strictly because the owner asked him to," Breeden said. "It was a team decision."

Sitting in the horsemen's office at Delaware Park, Rose got a chance to watch a replay of the Kentucky Derby and point out what he believed was true all along -- that his horse never led the race.

The horses were close, but he never could catch Closing Argument or Giacomo. Rose compared the race to an Ali-Frazier fight, with the horse taking a beating but coming back for more.

Eventually, Afleet Alex -- even with Rose smacking his stirrups to the colt's ribs -- just got tired down the stretch.

"He got bounced around a little, squeezed between horses a few times, so I think that took a little out of him," Ritchey said. "I think if he could have maybe stayed on the path he was, he might have been closer. But, you know, that's all history. And we're just going to hope to build on that race."

Rose agreed that Afleet Alex just didn't have enough left.

"I hit him right, hit him left and at about the 1/16th pole I went back to the right," Rose said. "He was tired. The horse was getting leg weary."

It won't happen this time, he vowed.

"I don't expect those two to beat me again," Rose said.

Watch the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, May 21 at 5 p.m. ET on NBC

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press