Talamo is already wise to the ways of the Derby (Benoit Photos)

It took some time for Joe Talamo to fully absorb the 11th-hour incident that cost him a ride on the favorite in the 2009 Kentucky Derby. Chalk it up to youth, inexperience, naiveté or maturity beyond his years, but the young riding star took it in stride when I Want Revenge was scratched due to injury on the morning of the race.

"Five in the morning I get a text and it said, 'Sorry,'" recalled Talamo's agent, Scott McClellan. "I said, 'Sorry. Sorry what? What does that mean?' And then five minutes later, Joe called and said, 'Oh, I got bad news. Our horse had to scratch out of the Derby.'

"I said, 'Oh my God. I just got a text from (fellow agent) Ron Anderson that said 'Sorry.' I didn't know what it meant.'

"Joe was living at a house in Louisville that (part owner) David Lanzman rented there. Joe stayed upstairs in a bedroom and when he was coming downstairs, they told him the news."

Talamo and McClellan hope there will be no such last-minute disappointing revelations this year, starting Saturday, when Joe rides Triple Crown prospect Treasury Bill in the Grade 2 Rebel at Oaklawn Park, a steppingstone to the Run for the Roses on May 4.

The Derby is relatively old hat for McClellan, an agent for 40 years, who won it with Chris McCarron on Go for Gin in 1994 and Alysheba in 1987. Starting in the late 1990s, McClellan finished second four times in five years, with Cavonnier (McCarron, 1996), Captain Bodgit (Alex Solis, 1997), Victory Gallop (Solis, 1998) and Aptitude (Solis, 2000).

The Derby is not an afterthought for Talamo, however, especially after 2009.