America at Large: With two days to go until the Kentucky Derby, one question seems to loom larger than all others: Will Lawyer Ron (the lawyer) sell Lawyer Ron (the horse) before the band even strikes up the first chords of My Old Kentucky Home on Saturday? Ron Bamberger doesn't exactly own Lawyer Ron, understand.

The three-year-old was bred and owned by the late James Hines, who named the colt for his longtime friend and attorney of four decades.

Ten weeks ago Hines was found dead in the swimming pool of his Owensboro (Kentucky) mansion (four days later, Lawyer Ron romped home a winner in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas), and, according to the terms of Hines's will, Bamberger became the executor of his estate.

Hines's life had been one of those rags-to-riches stories that saw him rise from meagre beginnings to preside over a multi-million-dollar tool empire.

At the time of his death, at 69, he owned not only his own company but also a fleet of private corporate jets larger than the air forces of several smaller nations. "Jim could do just about anything he wanted to do," recalled Bamberger recently, "but the one thing he could never do was run a horse in the Kentucky Derby."

Sending Lawyer Ron to the post in Jim Hines's silks on Saturday will fulfil that legacy - not that it is likely to be of much comfort to Hines - and who wouldn't want to see a horse named for himself win the Run for the Roses?

But, notes Bamberger, in his role as executor he also has a fiduciary responsibility to the estate, one that would include fetching the optimal price for Lawyer Ron, the horse.

He has been fielding offers, reportedly in the vicinity of $5 million, between workouts and interview requests as Derby week has played out on the Churchill Downs back stretch.

The morning line wouldn't be posted until after last night's post-position draw, but by most estimates Lawyer Ron figures to be the second choice at 4 to 1 in today's morning line, behind the favoured Brother Derek (3 to 1) and just ahead of Barbaro (5 to 1). Should he win, of course, the price of poker would go up considerably, but should Lawyer Ron stumble in the Derby, the price might drop accordingly, a prospect which has Lawyer Ron the attorney caught between sentiment and pragmatism.

"We are in negotiations with some people, but then we have been for the past six weeks," Bamberger told the equine industry journal The Blood-Horse two days ago. "Nobody has bought him." Yet, he might have added.

Early in the colt's career, if Hines entertained thoughts of Lawyer Ron winning a big race at all, it was probably the Breeders' Cup Turf and not the Kentucky Derby.

Everything about Lawyer Ron's pedigree suggested he had been bred to run on grass, and there he might have stayed but for a downpour at Louisiana Downs last December that forced a turf race to be moved to the dirt track. After Lawyer Ron romped home by 10-and-three-quarter lengths, trainer Bob Holtus ascribed his earlier miscasting as a grass horse to "trainer error".

"Everything changed that day," the 71-year-old Holtus recalled of the Louisiana race. "I didn't think I'd ever have a horse like this, but when we finally got him on the dirt, he's just matured into a racehorse."

Following the win in the slop in the New Orleans allowance race, Lawyer Ron won the Diamond Jo Stakes at Evangeline Downs ("Dusted overmatched foes," reported the Daily Racing Form) and then the Grade III Risen Star back at Louisiana Downs ("Powerhouse win," according to the DRF). Then it was on to Oaklawn Park, where he won Southwest and Rebel Handicaps before capturing the Arkansas Derby three weeks ago in his final prep race.

Lawyer Ron is undefeated in his last six starts over a route that has mirrored that of Smarty Jones and Afleet Alex, colts who also undertook the three Arkansas races and went on to capture two legs of the Triple Crown. Hines, ironically, never saw Lawyer Ron run in the flesh. Beset by diabetes and an assortment of debilitating ailments, he was too ill to travel and had to be content with watching videotapes of the colt's remarkable winning streak.

As Lawyer Ron began to roll past the competition, Holtus had suggested to Hines that he get himself in shape so he could at least cover the distance from the Churchill Downs owners' box to the winners' circle. That may have been why Hines was swimming laps in the pool when he suffered an apparent stroke and drowned back in February.

Lawyer Ron's career earnings now stand at $1.2 million and counting. Holtus retrospectively concedes that keeping the horse on the grass was probably a mistake, and who knows? If it hadn't rained that day in New Orleans he might still be romping on the weeds.