Three Up, Three Down: Festive outfits can take sting out of Pants’ failure

It was a little past 3 p.m. Saturday, and two women hoping to get bets down on the Kentucky Derby had talked their way into the VIP section at the Sunset Station race and sports book, the place where old guys with fat cigars pore over the Daily Racing Form and circle their choices at Golden Gate Fields and Prairie Meadows and Turf Paradise and Woodbine but not Ak-Sar-Ben, which is Nebraska spelled backward with hyphens. They closed the racetrack in Omaha, the final resting place of the 1935 Triple Crown winner with the same name as the city, in 1995.

The wagering line -- one guy -- was much shorter in the VIP section than at the windows up front, and the women were wearing festive pastel dresses and bonnets, so they were allowed in. But they couldn't get down, because the guy in front must have wanted to box the entire Derby field with Mister Ed, the talking horse. It was taking him forever to make his bets.

So these women, cousins from Italy named Leeza Clark, pink bonnet, and Sophia Barger, yellow bonnet, went to the windows in front like everybody else -- save for Wilbur Post -- and eventually made $20 wagers on Pants On Fire, a descendant of the great Secretariat.

Pants On Fire would have Anna Rose "Rosie" Napravnik, a female jockey, in the irons; that seemed like reason enough to plunk down a few liras on the nose of the No. 7 horse.

Clark, pink bonnet, also said Anna was her sister's name. She pulled a picture from her wallet to show me a dated photograph of Anna, who was pretty and had flowing dark hair, the kind you see on the cover of a romance novel. Anna, she said, had taken her own life; it was all very sad and still is.

So in memory of her sister she would keep her betting slip, perhaps even fold it into a book for safekeeping, the way one does a flower from a wedding corsage. But only if Pants On Fire didn't win.

At 20-1 odds, dinner at the Sonoma Cellar would be on Anna and Rosie Napravnik, if Pants came home first.

Barger, yellow bonnet, said she has been to the races at Santa Anita and might or might not have been to the races at Del Mar near San Diego, where the surf meets the turf. "I tend to have a few cocktails, so maybe I was there and forgot," she said, and even the old guys with the fat cigars in the VIP section would have laughed at that.

The No. 7 horse ran fourth for a while, but Napravnik couldn't bring Pants home, and the cousins from Italy begin to make alternate dining plans.

Clark, pink bonnet, glanced up to the bank of televisions where Seve Ballesteros, in a tribute to the great golfer who died Saturday, was shown hacking out of the rough from his knees, Justin Verlander was working on a no-hitter and the Thunder and Grizzlies were hooping it up. She asked if I could see the score, and I told her the Thunder were up 10.

"Woo-hoo," she cackled, holding up her hand for a high-five. "I got OKC on the money line. Plus-145."

Alas, Kevin Durant, like Napravnik, couldn't bring it home.

THREE UP

■ Bryce Harper had two hits in five at-bats Saturday to raise his batting average to a team-leading .370, and on Friday he recorded his first two outfield assists. The Las Vegas phenom leads the Class-A Hagerstown (Md.) Suns in runs (20), doubles (10), home runs (7), RBIs (23), total bases (63), on-base percentage (.463), slugging percentage (.707), on-base percentage plus slugging percentage (1.169), walks (16) and autographs signed (36,714).

■ Dale Earnhardt Jr., on how he would spend Mother's Day with his mom: "I got her some gifts last week when we were at Richmond. We're just going to hang out together out by the pool and drink a couple of beers, I guess." Probably not what the Hallmark people had in mind. But another reason to like the Junebug.

■ Earnhardt Jr., upon being asked whether he expected a good result at Saturday night's Sprint Cup race in Darlington, S.C. "No, not really." If only UNLV's football coaches were that honest on national signing day.

THREE DOWN

■ Lon Kruger Twitter post: "Had productive meeting today on how to better serve and engage our past players ..." He was talking about Oklahoma's past players. Some of his past players at UNLV probably believe he could have better served them by sticking around.

■ Bobby Hurley's horse on one of the Kentucky Derby undercard races finished out of the money. Hurley owns Devil Eleven (get it?) Stables in Florida, although on his Breeders' Cup biography it says "no photo available." One can assume they must not have tried particularly hard.

■ Former UNLV standout Charley Hoffman is No. 2 on Yahoo.com's "hot fantasy golfer" list. But there's probably a better way to say Hoffman, who sports a mullet, has been making a lot of birdies.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.