But hard to pronounce?

	Fusaichi Pegasus owner Fusao Sekiguchi paid $4 million for the Kentucky Derby winner.

In this case, yes. Somebody pays $4 million for a horse, he calls it whatever he wants. And with two legs of the Triple Crown left to run, the sooner people learn to say this - Fusaichi (foo-sah-EE-chee) Pegasus - the better.

Some never will. In the winner's circle after the Kentucky Derby, Gov. Paul Patton so mangled the few syllables he attempted that it was impossible to tell whether he was congratulating the owner, Fusao Sekiguchi, or the horse, or whether somebody handed him the lunch check for the Churchill Downs' suites.

Apparently, the name is almost as tough to type. Stories already refer to the horse as "Fu," not unlike Shaq replacing Shaquille. But easier still might be calling the colt "champ." A handful of rival trainers already have. ,p> "That's a Triple Crown horse right there," Jenine Sahadi said.

Her horse, The Deputy, went off as the second favorite and came home 14th. A few barns over, last year's 2-year-old champion, Anees, was recuperating from a mud-catching 13th-place finish. His trainer, Alex Hassinger, said simply, "If you ask me, he's a Triple Crown winner."

Trainers are skeptical by nature, but Fusaichi Pegasus left precious little wiggle room. The best ones don't just win, they punish opponents and sometimes, even the grounds they play across. Tiger Woods did it a few years ago when he went lower than anybody ever had at Augusta to win the Masters in his pro debut. Fusaichi Pegasus almost matched that Saturday.

In one swift, sure surge, the colt made the 18 contenders around him look like wallpaper. The move came midway down the home stretch, with the thoroughbreds seven-wide across the track like some four-legged version of NASCAR. Jockey Kent Desormeaux asked the big brown colt for a little gas; three strides later, the only question was who would win the "B" flight.

Fusaichi Pegasus drove to the finish line under a hand ride. Desormeaux tapped him three times looking for position at the top of the stretch, then never touched him with the whip again. Secretariat came home the same way - asked, not told.

Fusaichi Pegasus will have to be just as willing two weeks from now, when the Preakness goes off in Baltimore, then three weeks after that at the Belmont in New York.

The last Triple Crown winner was Affirmed in 1978, and the drought since has yielded an interesting TV ratings curve. The audience for the Derby, in recent years about 8 million viewers, is halved by the time the Preakness rolls around. Barring a Preakness victory by the Derby winner, it is halved again by the time the Belmont rolls around.

Three years in a row, racing has had a chance to keep the audience rolling along. Last year, D. Wayne Lukas had a shot to win the Triple with Charismatic. The two years before that, Bob Baffert finished second in the Belmont with Silver Charm (1997) and Real Quiet (1998).

Fusaichi Pegasus has a louder buzz going than any of them. That may explain why on the backstretch Sunday morning, only the Lukas and Baffert camps dared to talk about ending it.

"When he's good, he's good," Lukas said. "I'm hoping he's not good every day."

That was what the skeptics hoped going in - Fusaichi Pegasus would act up and overshadow all that talent. He's thrown riders in workouts, balked going into the starting gate and stopped strides after the finish line because something caught his eye.

None of it made a difference. The only member of his party who seemed less concerned about his temperament than the horse was his owner.

Sekiguchi, 64, is a software magnate disguised as a rock star. After the race, beneath a shaded overhang, he leaned on a polished cane and surveyed a crowd of reporters through gilt-edged sunglasses. He pulled at a full, black ponytail and recalled how, at the end of World War II, the occupying U.S. troops befriended a 10-year-old boy and told him stories about America. One of his favorites was the Kentucky Derby. Now Sekiguchi had experienced it himself, viewed it from a perspective that precious few ever see.

The last two jewels of thoroughbred racing were still a glimmer somewhere in the distance. After he bought the horse, Sekiguchi used his name, Fusao, attached "ichi" - which means No. 1 in Japanese - and gave it to the horse. But a more revealing gesture was the name he put behind that, Pegasus, the name of the winged horse who flew to Mount Olympus and wound up residing among the gods.