LOUISVILLE — Look out, Kentucky. If you hear footsteps this week — or more accurately, the clomping of hooves — it could be from your neighbor to the north. Ohio has a horse in the Kentucky Derby. Not just any horse, but the favorite: Harlan's Holiday. This is roughly akin to an Alaskan coming to Texas to win a chili cookoff.

        “He obviously has sheer talent,” trainer Ken McPeek said of his colt. “But he also has a heart the size of the state of Ohio.”

        In 127 years, only one Ohio-bred — Wintergreen, in 1909 — has won the Derby. (That horse was born in Cincinnati.) In the last 36 years, only five horses from the Buckeye State have even run in the race.

        Harlan's Holiday, born in Medina, could strike quite a blow for the Ohio Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners group, which is promoting his Derby appearance with national ads in trade publications.

        “This really is a shot in the arm for the Ohio (breeding) program,” said River Downs publicist John Englehardt, who's on the sales and publication committees for the OTBO. “Hopefully soon the "OH' next to a horse's name at auction will be considered a credit rather than a detriment.”

        Kentucky breds have dominated the Derby, winning 96 times. The next-closest total is Florida's six winners. Seven states have produced more Derby winners than Ohio, including Tennessee (three) and New Jersey (two).

        In 1999, only 648 thoroughbreds, including Harlan's Holiday, were born in Ohio — accounting for 1.9 percent of a total North American foal crop of 33,716. Eleven states, including Kentucky (9,886), bred more.

        Ohio breeds about 1.5 million more hogs than horses.

        But Barry Berkelhammer, racing manager for owners Jack and Laurie Wolf, was birthplace-blind when he went to the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky yearling sale in July 2000.

        “We were looking to buy good horses, and he struck us as a good horse,” Berkelhammer said of Harlan's Holiday. “The fact that it said Ohio-bred on the bottom of the (sales catalog) page, we just ignored it.”

        The Wolfs, who had never before owned a horse, spent $97,000 on this one. That's well short of the record price for an Ohio-bred, the $1.15 million Unbridled Time fetched in 1999. Yet on the day Harlan's Holiday made his racing debut, the Daily Racing Form scolded the Wolfs' purchase in print.

        McPeek took the colt on a little-traveled path, running him last year in two races restricted to Ohio-breds — the Cleveland Kindergarten Stakes at Thistledown and the Hoover Stakes at River Downs. The horse won both, then followed with a victory in the Cradle Stakes at River Downs.

        “The early wins in Ohio transcended him into a horse that thrives on winning,” McPeek said.

        McPeek notes that the horse's pedigree is Kentucky. Harlan's Holiday is by the deceased Kentucky stallion Harlan, a son of Storm Cat who sired 1999 Derby runner-up Menifee. His dame is Christmas in Aiken, an Affirmed mare. Horses are considered to be bred where they are born, not where they're conceived.

        “The horse doesn't know where he was born,” Jack Wolf has quipped.

        Even so, the bandwagon fills slowly. Harlan's Holiday could well be the highest-priced Derby favorite ever, despite winning six stakes races and having earnings of $1.5 million, a record for an Ohio-bred.

        There could be two Ohio-breds in the starting gate if USS Tinosa gets to enter. That colt stands at No.21 on the graded-earnings list for Derby candidates. If any of the top 20 decide this morning not to enter, USS Tinosa gets in.

        Harlan's Holiday has breeding indexes that indicate he will improve at longer distances, beginning with the 1 1/4-mile Derby. McPeek can't wait to find out.

        “I wouldn't change spots with any (other trainer),” he said. “This horse is so good right now.”

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