Bennie Stutts, 70, is nowhere on any of those lists. He is just one of those guys that populate every backstretch in America - hard-working, showing up day after day, hoping one day to get the big horse, but never really expecting it.

Stutts had been training for 40 years when Smooth Air showed up in his barn. The colt won his first start last summer. And he's still winning this summer.

"Talking to reporters is a brand new ball game for me," Stutts said yesterday at Philadelphia Park after his horse drew post 6 for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby.

Well, it was until this year.

Smooth Air won the Hutcheson Stakes at Gulfstream Park and Stutts found himself surrounded by reporters in the winner's circle, wanting to know if the colt was being pointed for the Kentucky Derby. He was.

"At the Kentucky Derby, my wife called me the media darling," Stutts said. "I just ate up every bit of it. It was an experience that I gave up on 30 years ago. I didn't think I'd ever have a horse like this, mainly because of where I train. I've been at Calder since Day One, 1971.

"The truth is I was never offered a big job. I'm not stupid. I would have taken a big job and gone to New York or Kentucky or anywhere. I'm just very grateful and thankful to have a horse like this."

Smooth Air finished second in the Florida Derby, 5 lengths behind Big Brown. Stutts didn't look at it that way.

"At the top of the stretch, we thought he was going to win it," he said

After the race, he said: "I thought there were two races, one for Big Brown. I won the second race by 7 1/2 lengths."

Stutts was going to fly in the plane that took Smooth Air to Louisville for the Derby. When he showed up, he found out he wasn't on the manifest. So he had to get a different flight.

"I went ballistic," Stutts said. "I went from being crazy mad to cussin' to crying like a baby."

When he arrived 4 hours after the horse, ESPN met him at the airport. The ESPN crew then put him in the winner's circle at Churchill Downs for a feature and Stutts started crying all over again.

Smooth Air missed the break in the Derby, was immediately behind 17 horses and ending up finishing 11th of 20, with major traffic problems.

"Just being there was like winning the race," Stutts said.

Stutts took Smooth Air to the Ohio Derby after Kentucky and was rewarded with a decisive victory. Now this.

"It's a wonderful experience to have a little horse like this," Stutts said. "He's taken us to four different race tracks. It's the experience of a lifetime."

Smooth Air has won $575,500 in just nine races. If he wins Monday, the colt goes over $1 million.

"At the race track, there is an old expression," Stutts said. 'All it takes is one'.

"This is the one." *