Sport: Arcaro Picks a Winner

At 4 a.m. the morning of the Kentucky Derby, thunder tumbled and the rain splashed down on Louisville in buckets. Maryland's Ed Christmas, who was training a mud-horse named Escadru, woke up and grinned. So did Texas' Ben Whitaker, whose My Request runs well on a wet track. It was still raining and the racing strip was a quagmire when Christmas bumped into Ben Whitaker at the stables and muttered slyly: "Every flag in Kentucky's flying half-mast." The heavy rain was over by breakfast.

Mud, the great equalizer, was about the only thing that might...