LOUISVILLE – Only three of the 36 fillies who’ve run in the Kentucky Derby over the last 124 years have won, but that’s not stopping two more from bucking the odds this year in their first try against colts.

Three Ring, owned by Calvin Klein CEO Barry Schwartz and trained by Eddie Plesa, took aim at the Derby after winning the Bonnie Miss Stakes March 16 by 61/4 lengths.

Yesterday, owner John Mabee and trainer Bob Baffert also decided to enter Excellent Meeting, who’s earned $1.2 million in winning seven of 11 starts.

No horse won the Derby in the last half-century without a race at 11/8 miles, and neither filly has raced longer than 1 1/16 miles. The task is even tougher for Three Ring, who’s trying to become the first Derby winner since 1956 with more than four weeks since a final prep. That doesn’t faze Plesa.

“She is the kind of horse that runs good fresh,” he said. “She didn’t need a race between and we feel she’ll be 110 percent.”

The notion of running Three Ring in the Derby dates back to her 143/4-length triumph in the Davona Dale February 21.

“The boys had run the Fountain of Youth just before that,” Plesa said, “and with the Ragozin numbers (the ‘sheets’ that figure a horse’s speed), hers were far superior. But the sheets didn’t dictate (running in the Derby). They’re just a tool. She has everything going for her. Talent. Personality. Ability. Intelligence.

“If there were no sheets, we’d still think she could compete with the boys. From the time we won the Bonnie Miss I’ve been watching all the 3-year-olds. We were waiting to see if something jumped out and took control, and it doesn’t seem that way. It’s a wide-open race.

“It’s difficult to run fillies against colts because it doesn’t happen often,” said Plesa. “It’s unknown territory, so people are skeptical. But I don’t think of her as a filly. I think of her as a race horse. And the Kentucky Derby is the premier race in the world. That’s why we’re here.”

Unlike Plesa, Baffert thought long and hard about running Excellent Meeting – who’ll be part of the favored entry in the Derby coupled with Santa Anita Derby winner General Challenge – in tomorrow’s Kentucky Oaks against her stablemate, Silverbulletday. She still may opt for that spot.

“The mile-and-a-quarter is grueling,” Baffert noted. “But she earned her way into the Derby. She’s good enough to win it.”

Baffert toyed with the idea of running Silverbulletday in the Derby. But her owner Mike Pegram pointed out, “You’ve got to pick your fights and I like to have an advantage. I don’t see an advantage in the Derby with the big field of 20 horses.”

Trainer D. Wayne Lukas has run four fillies in the Derby, finishing eighth with Life’s Magic and 19th with Althea in 1984, winning in ’88 with Winning Colors and running 16th in ’95 with Serena’s Song.

“The thing that was different the year we won it is, first of all, we had a very imposing physical specimen,” he said. “The other thing was, she had won the Santa Anita Derby against colts by nine lengths.

“You have to look at this objectively and say ‘does this filly have a realistic chance of beating these horses?’ The other thing is the style, and Three Ring has the style of laying in the top third of the field. I don’t think they can come from way out of it and run down colts in the stretch.

“Her numbers are excellent. [But] when you get caught up in a Rag number, you’re not getting nearly the pressure you are with fillies you are with colts. You couldn’t pour money on me to bet on Baffert’s filly in against colts because of the pressure factor.”

Trainer Leroy Jolley, who saddled Genuine Risk to win the Derby in 1980, said, “It’s obvious these fillies are high-class performers and you can see how anybody would be tempted to run them.”

But, he pointed out, “Genuine Risk ran a mile-and-an-eighth as a 2-year-old winning the Demoiselle and she’d been against colts, finishing third in the Wood Memorial. Leading up to the race everything went right for her and went wrong for a number of others.

‘Winning the Derby is a tall order for any filly,” he said. “It’s tough for a colt.”