Derby time!

 It's Kentucky Derby day down in Louisville, and also here at the Blob, which is not where you come to hear horsey terms like "breezing," "walking the shedrow" and "fetlock." And don't even come at me with "withers."

The only withers the Blob knows about is the late Bill Withers. Ain't no sunshine now that he's gone, God rest his soul.

That said, the Blob loves the Derby, as it also says every year. It loves the Frank Lloyd Wright hats on the women and the top hats on the men and the Kentucky Colonels, who always make the Blob hungry for one of  Harlan Sanders' Myocardial Infarction Value Meals. It loves that Dan Fogelberg song about roses. It loves the twin spires ('cause there's two of  'em), and the moment, every year, when My Friend Flicka balks at entering the starting gate.

My Friend Flicka: "Wait, I gotta go in THERE? Whoa. This was not part of the deal, dude."

That sort of thing.

In any case, the Blob loves everything about the Derby except the mint julep part, as I also say every year. This is because mint juleps look like antifreeze and taste like cough syrup. There might be a more wretched mixed drink on the planet, but it probably involves actual antifreeze.

Other than that ... well, again, this is not where you come to get expert analysis on how to bet your exacta. I will say, however, that most of the touts who do know about exactas and the like think Medina Spirit, a 15-1 shot trained by that guy with the white hair -- Buffet, Bracket, something like that -- is the astute pick to win. 

This is because it starts out of the No. 8 hole, which apparently is quite the primo hole. The post-time favorite, undefeated Essential Quality, drew the dreaded No. 1 post position. There's also a horse named Hot Rod Charlie and another horse named Known Agenda and another horse named Rock Your World, and two horses named for booze, Midnight Bourbon and Bourbonic.

I can't imagine how you'd go wrong betting on horses with "Bourbon" in their names in Kentucky -- even if Midnight Bourbon's a 20-1 shot and Bourbonic is 30-1 and starting from the 20th and last post position.

But what hell. I say drop a bundle on both. 

Or perhaps you could go the way the Blob tends to go, which is to drop a bundle on a horse that probably has a great shot to finish 15th or so. This year, that would  be Soup and Sandwich, which some horse guys think is a terrible horse name but which the Blob sort of likes for that very reason. 

Now, Soup and Sandwich is a 30-1 shot, and it's coming out of the 19 hole, right next to Bourbonic in the outer reaches of the galaxy. On top of that, he's a gray horse, and faithful Blob reader(s) know the Blob's position on gray horses.

Which is, they are frequently Alpo. So Soup and Sandwich -- who has a stablemate named, yes, Chips and Salsa -- likely has zero chance to win.

The Blob doesn't care. It's only money, right? So I'm putting the whole enchilada on Soup and Sandwich.

All two bucks of it.