BY ROB KAISER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LOUISVILLE - Sometimes it's the track rushing up to pound on a horse's foot. Sometimes it's Tom Wildey's silver hammer. Glory, like the blues, has a beat. Saturday morning, he stood in the shadows of Barn 47, nails sticking out of his mouth, hammering a U-shaped piece of aluminum onto a colt's fragile foot.

This is not easy work. Mr. Wildey's hands are rough and lumpy, his palms thick and hard with calluses. But he has a soft spot in his heart. It's for the Kentucky Derby.

''I think every horse shoe-uh dreams of shoein' a Derby winnuh," he said in a Louisiana drawl thick as gumbo.

As Pulpit churned down the stretch Saturday afternoon, a place in history hanging in the balance, the fortunes of horse and shoer gelled for a moment in the cool of a cloudy spring evening.

Hours earlier, Mr. Wildey had tightened Pulpit's shoes. The colt hadn't outgrown the old ones, so he didn't need to be shod. Still, they had a connection, this horse and this shoer. Mr. Wildey, a shoer for 20 years, watched the Derby intently on a television in the barn. It never gets old, this race.

Many at Churchill Downs the first Saturday in May have been here before. But the years haven't hardened them.

Consider Arnold Jones, 51, of Hot Springs, Ark. He's been a groom for 35 years, and he's worked many Derby Days at Churchill Downs. But he's never stopped hoping for a Derby horse.

Then there's Charles M. Matasich.

A week might be time enough to get over a cold, and two minutes might be time enough to cure the itch for glory. But the passage of 32 years hasn't made the Derby Man any less crazy.

Mr. Matasich, 55, of Proctorville, Ohio, wears a 5-pound hat bedecked with 150 Derby pins and dozens of fake roses. On his cheeks are temporary rose tattoos, which last three days. They'll still be there this morning. Needless to say, the steel-factory worker, will embarrass his 6-year-old grandson, Zachary Matasich, when they go to church together.

As he has for the last 32 years, Mr. Matasich left his wife, Patricia, at home this weekend with some money for a Pizza Hut pizza - pepperoni, no sausage - and headed for Churchill Downs.

''There are seven wonders of the world as far as sporting events go," he said. "I've been to the Rose Bowl. The Derby is the one I love most."

It takes all kinds. Mr. Matasich, a friendly man with a snow-white beard, posed patiently in the paddock area while scores of delighted Derby-goers took his picture. He might be the most visible annual presence at the Derby. It's safe to say the least visible is Cookie, the cat in Barn 48, who stayed in hiding Saturday to avoid the cold.

Cookie the Cat has been around for 10 Derbies. The horses, they come and go. Alysheba, Winning Colors, Sunday Silence, Unbridled, Strike the Gold, Lil E. Tee, Sea Hero, Go for Gin, Thunder Gulch, Grindstone. But always there are Cookie and the Derby Man. Good thing.

Those on the periphery are who really give the Kentucky Derby its flavor. The horses just set the beat. They're the bass guitar; the Derby Man is electric.

He stood Saturday morning talking to George Holter, 61, of Prairie Village, Kan. The men wore somber expressions as they talked "about life and everything," but the hats on their heads suggested neither should take the other seriously.

Mr. Holter wore an even more outlandish hat than Mr. Matasich. His looked like the grandstand of Churchill Downs, complete with twin spires.

Way over on the backside, Mr. Wildey was shoeing a horse. He'd already taken care of Pulpit, and now all that remained was to dream.

Even after shoeing horses for 20 years, Mr. Wildey still hopes for a Derby winner.

''The Breeder's Cup is recent," he said. "But the traditional races, the Triple Crown races and especially the Derby, challenge the best 3-year-olds each year. You always hope for a horse that will get to Derby Day."

Mr. Wildey just missed the dream in 1991, when a colt named Hansel finished 10th. He had shoed Hansel days before.

Saturday afternoon, he watched as Pulpit pounded down the stretch. Watched and listened. It was a blues beat, the sound of those horses; Pulpit pulled up well short of Tom Wildey's dream, finishing fourth. But a song it was, nonetheless.

Rob Kaiser is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. His column appears regularly on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. He can be reached at 578-5584.
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