As we’ve seen recently at Aqueduct, and expect to see more of in the coming weeks, horses shipping up from Florida – like Furlough, who paid $30.20 winning the Distaff Breeders’ Cup Handicap March 13, and Best of Luck, winner of an allowance race Saturday at 4-1 – are dangerous this time of year.

The reason is simple. When the New York trainers went south for the winter, they brought their best horses with them. The competition at Gulfstream Park, especially at the higher class levels, was tougher than it was here the last couple months. So when a horse races at Aqueduct for the first time after running in Florida, it’s almost an automatic class drop.

There are five horses on today’s card who fit this Miami-to-Ozone Park angle.

In the first race Marisa Mia finished sixth after showing good speed in a pair of 32G maiden claimers at Gulfstream and now goes for 25G. When last seen here, Dec. 16, racing for the same tag, she set the pace and was beaten a nose. She should go wire to wire today under Rene Douglas.

In the eighth race, Flag On the Gate, Meadow Dream and Time for Tea all raced in Florida last out. Time for Tea, who finished a well-beaten third for a 25G claiming price at Hialeah in her first start back off a three-month layoff, looks in deep.

But Flag On the Gate and Meadow Dream are both coming off solid efforts in allowance sprints at Gulfstream. Box them in the exacta with Do Not Forsake Me, who is coming off a layoff for trainer Juan Serey and recently worked five furlongs in a bullet :59.2 from the gate.

In the ninth race Franklin’s Mint finished a distant fourth at Gulfstream for a 20G tag, the same level he’s racing at today. She has some late kick, stretches out from six furlongs to a mile and gets Rich Migliore. Franklin’s Mint should run them down in the stretch.

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The Kentucky Derby, now just 32 days away, dominated the conversation on a Visa Triple Crown conference call yesterday with guests Barry Schwartz, owner of the Derby-bound filly Three Ring; Dick Mandella, who recently took over the training of unbeaten Desert Hero, a starter in Saturday’s Santa Anita Derby; and Bob Baffert, whose Derby candidates include Prime Timber, General Challenge and the fillies Silverbulletday and Excellent Meeting.

Three Ring, coming off back-to-back victories at Gulfstream in the Feb. 21 Davona Dale by 14 3/4 lengths and the March 16 Bonnie Miss by 6 1/4, ”couldn’t be doing better,” said Schwartz, the CEO of Calvin Klein Inc. and New York’s leading owner last year. ”She’s going right into the Derby (without another prep) after two races at Gulfstream 23 days apart. (Trainer) Eddie (Plesa) felt that set her up perfectly. She’s at Calder right now and will ship to Churchill Downs April 22.

”It takes a pretty extraordinary filly (to win the Derby),” Schwartz admitted. ”It’s only been done three times in 124 years. But I’m not getting carried away. I’ve been here before (with Degenerate John, eighth in 1980, the year Genuine Risk won). If I didn’t think she had a chance, she’d be running in the Kentucky Oaks the day before.”

Despite Schwartz’s optimism, Three Ring has a very tall hill to climb. Not only is she a filly, but she’s never even run a mile and an eighth and will be attempting to win the Derby off a mile and a sixteenth prep with a six-week layoff before the race. Even a top colt would have a nearly impossible time winning the roses off that schedule.

”I don’t see it as a layoff, I’m looking at it as a freshening,” Schwartz said. ”(John) Velazquez (who the owner hopes will ride Three Ring in the Derby) couldn’t pull her up on the backstretch (after the Bonnie Miss). The way she galloped out, I’m thinking she could be a mile and a half horse. I know she’ll stay the distance.”

Mandella, who just returned from the Middle East after saddling Malek to finish second in the Dubai World Cup, had a chance to watch the trial race for Sheikh Mohammed’s Derby candidates, won by Worldly Manner with Aljabr second.

”I was very impressed,” he said. ”(The trial) was the real thing. The winner just sat back and won as he pleased, and the second horse was very impressive too. Anyone who doesn’t take them seriously has to reconsider.”

Baffert said he’s undecided about running one of his top fillies, Silverbulletday and Excellent Meeting, in the Derby.

”I’m pointing them for the Oaks, but a lot can change,” he said. ”You don’t know until they get down there. You have to see how they train, how the other horses are training. Right now I would say it would be Excellent Meeting. I think she can get the distance. But I think Silverbulletday can too.”

Baffert has pulled last year’s Derby-Preakness winner Real Quiet out of Saturday’s Oaklawn Handicap, complaining about the weight spread, which had Real Quiet giving three pounds to Precocity, who beat him in the New Orleans Handicap, and six pounds to Gulfstream Park Handicap winner Behrens. Instead, Real Quiet will make his next start in the Pimlico Special May 8.