The Smarty Party heads to Baltimore on Wednesday as Smarty Jones -- a Kentucky Derby winner with a talent deeper than the Inner Harbor and a following to rival Cal Ripken’s -- ships to Pimlico racetrack, where he will attempt to keep his bid for horse racing immortality alive with a victory in Saturday’s Preakness Stakes.

A year after the movie “Seabiscuit” reminded the nation that a thoroughbred racehorse can stir powerful emotions, Smarty Jones is writing a modern-day sequel.

Like “The Biscuit,” Smarty Jones is a smallish colt who rose from obscurity to superstardom. He, too, is owned by a longtime car dealer, 77-year-old Roy Chapman, who shares with his wife, Pat, a greater passion for hay-and-oats-powered forms of locomotion.

Both horses overcame early setbacks – for Smarty it was a frightening starting gate accident that could have cost him his life or prevented him from ever racing. They also helped their owners cope with personal tragedies, in the Chapmans’ case the murder of Robert Camac, their longtime trainer who suggested the mating that produced Smarty Jones.

An intriguing supporting cast
Like Seabiscuit, Smarty Jones also has the support of an intriguing cast of humans: John Servis, a highly competent if unheralded trainer with the quiet confidence of a “Silent Tom” Smith, and Stewart Elliott, a 39-year-old journeyman jockey who, like John “Red” Pollard, hails from Canada and has spent many years laboring in horse racing’s trenches, just waiting for that special horse.

But the Smarty Jones story is starting to seem more magical than Seabiscuit’s, as it is playing out more than 20 years after sports writers began writing horse racing’s obituary rather than in the sport's heyday.

Credit part of that to Smarty Jones’ impeccable timing on and off the track. In addition to being a perfect 7-for-7 in his career, the Pennsylvania-bred colt is clipping heels with both the Seabiscuit phenomenon and last year’s inspiring Funny Cide tale.

Throw in his ready-for-the-History-Channel biography and you can start to understand why Smarty Jones is gracing the cover of last week’s Sports Illustrated – the first horse to be so honored since Sunny’s Halo in 1983.

And that phalanx of news helicopters over Interstate 95 three days after the Derby wasn’t pursuing a carjacking; that was the final leg of the colt’s triumphant return from Kentucky to his humble surroundings at Philadelphia Park.

That was no bobble-head giveaway
Nor were they giving away Smarty Jones bobble-heads last Saturday when something like 5,000 people bulled their way into Philadelphia Park at 7 a.m. The crowd was there just to watch the copper-colored colt gallop around the track.

There’s no telling how wild this party will get if Smarty perseveres in the Preakness.

It appears that as many as 10 horses will challenge Smarty in the 1 3/16^th mile Preakness, including five he conquered in the Derby on May 1. Their trainers and owners are giving it another shot in hopes that the sloppy Churchill Downs track benefited the winner and kept their horses from putting their best hooves forward.

That appears to be their main cause for optimism, as Smarty showed his usual uncanny  professionalism in dispatching 17 rivals in Kentucky, calmly stalking front-runner Lion Heart before outdueling that colt in the stretch.

Lion Heart was only beaten 2 3/4 lengths in Kentucky, hardly an insurmountable deficit to erase in the Preakness.

And two horses that had legitimate excuses in the Derby – above and beyond the sloppy racetrack – could give Smarty a run for his money on Saturday.

Imperialism, trained by 21-year-old Kristin Mulhall, was trapped on the rail approaching the stretch and had to wait for room until the field straightened for home. After jockey Kent Desormeaux swung him into the clear, the charcoal gray colt gained ground to finish third, six lengths behind the winner.

Shoeless ‘Cliff’ could rebound
The Cliff’s Edge lost both his front shoes during the running of the race and still managed to finish fifth, 12½ lengths. back There’s no way of telling how much better he might have run if he had kept his footgear on. His status was in doubt, however, after he returned from a jog Wednesday morning with a sore foot.

Smarty also has to deal with two fresh, talented rivals Saturday.

Both Rock Hard Ten and Eddington were being aimed for the Derby, but were unable to crack the starting lineup because they lacked enough graded-stakes earnings to qualify for the top 20 spots. Both are lightly raced but highly regarded, and are capable of upsetting the apple cart if they can make a moderate step forward at Pimlico.

But even with five serious rivals, the Preakness is Smarty’s to lose.

He put most doubts about his stamina to rest in the Derby, and will have to cover 1/16^th of a mile less in the 1 3/16^th-mile Preakness.

He has the ideal running style for a racehorse: plenty of speed to avoid the kind of trouble that regularly befalls those who run midpack or farther back early, but the kind of speed that can be rationed as the circumstances dictate.

Most important, he possesses the coolness of a horse that has been racing for two or three years, not just six months. A bit of dirt in his face isn’t likely to discourage or distract him from doing what he loves to do – win races.

There are, of course, no guarantees in horse racing, particularly in a year when the top 3-year-olds have been beaten with alarming regularity. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have a pointy hat and a noisemaker on hand this Saturday.

MORE FROM PREAKNESS STAKES

Big Brown rolls in Preakness; Crown in sight

Big Brown rolls in Preakness; Crown in sight Desormeaux gets another shot at Triple Crown Big Brown to stand at stud at Three Chimneys Preakness winners through the years   Add Preakness Stakes headlines to your news reader: