Silver Charm came out of the West today and outdueled Captain Bodgit by the length of his gray head to win the 123d Kentucky Derby in a photo finish for Bob Baffert, the white-haired trainer who lost the Derby by a nose in a photo finish one year ago.

Baffert, who thought for a few fleeting moments last year that his star runner Cavonnier had snatched the Derby from Grindstone, had no such torment this time, at least not after they flew past the finish line. Silver Charm, a son of Silver Buck bred in Florida and raced in California, fought a tingling match down the homestrech but prevailed over the favored Captain Bodgit, the pride of the East and the winner of the Florida Derby and the Wood Memorial en route to Louisville.

It was a race filled with form that held up. It was run on a cloudy and chilly afternoon before a crowd of 141,981 at Churchill Downs, the fourth-largest crowd ever at the Derby.

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