by Steve Bailey

Trainer James Kasparoff may go into a full-blown panic attack once it finally sinks in that he will be saddling a horse in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1).

The 34-year-old West Covina, California, native is not sure that his Sunshine Millions Dash Stakes winner, Bob Black Jack, can win the 1 1/4-mile first leg of the Triple Crown.

But for a guy who from the age of five began going to Santa Anita Park with his father and older brother, Tim, just working for a few days in the shadow of the famed Twin Spires is enough to cause an elevated heart rate.

“I can tell you how stoked I am to be here,” said Kasparoff, who trains the Stormy Jack colt for his brother and Jeff Harmon. “The fact that I have a chance to get my name on the trophy with Hall of Fame trainers and legendary horses … I mean, how many people even get that chance?”

Kasparoff took out his training license in 2000 following apprenticeships with trainers Frank Veiga, Mark Molina, Don Pierce, and Willard Proctor. Prior to going out his own, he worked as a foreman for Proctor and as a member of the gate crew at Santa Anita Park as an assistant starter.

He also spent time as a satellite coordinator for Television Games Network, doing voice-overs for weekday races when there was no anchor coverage.

“I did a ton of voice-overs, including the [2001] Indiana Derby that Orientate won,” he said. “But I was trying to train one or two horses at the time and it just wasn’t working. Honestly, I was bored out of my mind. I wanted to be back out at the racetrack full time.”

Kasparoff found Bob Black Jack, a $4,500 yearling purchase at the 2006 Barretts January mixed sale, and convinced his brother and Harmon to pony up $25,000 to buy him privately.

The colt won the California Breeders Champion Stakes as a two-year-old—giving Kasparoff his first career stakes winner—and earlier this year set a track racord for six furlongs in the Sunshine Millions Dash Stakes at Santa Anita, covering the distance in a blistering 1:06.53.

Bob Black Jack subsequently ran third to Georgie Boy and Gayego in the 11/16-mile San Felipe Stakes (G2) and second to Colonel John in the 1 1/8-mile Santa Anita Derby (G1), giving Kasparoff the confidence the horse would be able to get the 1 1/4 miles of the Derby.

Kasparoff has a total of five horses in his barn—of which Bob Black Jack is the obvious star—and knows the long odds at which he has arrived at Churchill Downs.

“Come on, you’ve got all these trainers with huge barns and owners with tons of money and great horses, and a lot of them didn’t make it here,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. If we could get up and just hit the board and have our horse make it out of the race okay, that would be a win as far as I’m concerned.

“I think it’s really going to hit me when we walk over to saddle the horse and I hear the people singing ‘My Old Kentucky Home.’ It’s going to be emotional and I hope I don’t crawl out of my skin. I’m just going to try to enjoy the heck out of it.”

Steve Bailey is deputy news editor of Thoroughbred Times