Hansen could be the first white horse ever to win a Kentucky Derby

The two-year-old champion colt named Hansen will not be the favorite in the Kentucky Derby on May 5, but most eyes will unavoidably be upon him. You see, in a field of chestnuts and bays, Hansen is a brilliant white. Well, technically he's a gray, but without boring you with equine pigmentation detail, thoroughbred grays, like the great Native Dancer, turn whiter as they grow older, and Hansen is simply prematurely white -- sort of a four-legged Steve Martin. To emphasize the alabaster, his owner wanted to dye his tail blue for the Blue Grass Stakes, but the stick-in-the-mud racing officials thought that was tacky.

But as rare as white horses are -- less than eight percent -- it is amazing how they've fascinated virtually every culture. White horses are chosen to stand for good ... and for bad. One of the four horsemen of the Apolocalpyse rides a pale horse, but the unicorn -- which is invariably depicted as white -- stands for purity. Only virgins can capture unicorns. But contrariwise, in some cultures white horses represent fertility. Take your pick.

But white horses stand for power and glory, too. In the book of Revelation, not only Jesus, but all the armies of heaven will descend astride white horses. In politics, "the man on the white horse" invariably refers to the leader who is going to save us. When Peale and Trumbull famously painted George Washington with a horse, the father of our country's steed is white. For the Confederacy, Robert E. Lee's famous mount, Traveler, really was a white horse.

White horses are just as common in fiction. Pegasus is a white horse. So was the Little White Pony doll, and in Shrek, the donkey turns into a white horse. Even in nursery rhyme: "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross to see a fine lady upon a white horse." And currently in rock, Taylor Swift sings: "It's too late for you and your white horse to catch me now." Even though nobody but the infamous Peeping Tom is supposed to have seen Lady Godiva ride in the buff through the streets of Coventry, she's invariably portrayed astride a white steed. And of course after Dusty, his noble chestnut, was killed by bad guys, the Lone Ranger found a new mount. Yes!

"Hi-yo, Silver, away!"

It's amazing. For being such a small minority in the animal world, nobody pops up in so many cultures in so many places, representing so many different things, good and bad, as white horses. However, in the one hundred and thirty-seven Kentucky Derbys, seven gray colts have won, and Winning Colors, a roan with a white face, was a filly who beat the boys in 1988, but no horse so pale as ivory as Hansen has ever won.

Hansen likes to go to the front, and as they turn for home Saturday, will he still be there, on top? Here they come now, down the stretch but instead of my old Kentucky Home, this year maybe we'll hear the William Tell Overture...