AP News, May 3rd, 2007
If O.J. Simpson picked it, here's how the Kentucky Derby would end: Tiago at the wire.
"I'm just loving Kentucky this week," Simpson said on a rainy Thursday morning on the backstretch. "It's just a great time."
Simpson made his fourth straight trip to Churchill Downs since being acquitted of murder charges in the June 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman. Simpson made several visits in the 1970s and said he used to think about owning a Derby horse.
"I used to be in the horse business a little bit with (billionaire horse owner) Wayne Hughes," said Simpson, who chatted while he checked out Philadelphia-bred Hard Spun. "We had some horses together back in California."
Simpson, a former Heisman Trophy winner, said he was friends with Tiago jockey Mike Smith, and that the horse's bloodlines make him a favorite pick for the NFL Hall of Famer. Tiago is the half brother of Giacomo, the 2005 longshot winner.
"I'm kind of going with him right now, even though I like Hard Spun," Simpson said. "He's been training well."
Simpson, whose book "If I Did It" was canceled last year, might run into a familiar face when he's at Saturday's race: Queen Elizabeth II.
OK, the two have never really met. But Simpson played Officer Nordberg in the "The Naked Gun" movie that featured a plot to assassinate the queen at a California Angels baseball game. The plot was foiled by dimwitted police detective Lieutenant Frank Drebin, played by actor Leslie Nielsen.
"We kind of treated her bad in "The Naked Gun." I think she'll be treated a little better here," Simpson said, laughing. "I think I better avoid her."
The real queen will attend the Kentucky Derby and a state dinner with President Bush on this week's trip to the United States.
"I don't expect a lot of us are going to see her," Simpson said. "I think she's going to be well insulated."
