It would be easy to paint Saturday's $1 million Florida Derby as Round Two in a budding rivalry between Upstart and Itsaknockout.

They met for the first time in the $400,000 Fountain of Youth when Upstart crossed the wire first by 2 ¾ lengths over Itsaknockout in the Grade 2 stakes. But before the "official" sign was posted on the toteboard, the Gulfstream stewards disqualified the 4-5 favorite and placed him second for bumping with the on-coming Itsaknockout in the stretch of the Feb. 21 stakes.

Though Itsaknockout was declared the winner, there was no shortage of dissenting opinions, including one from Rick Violette, the trainer of Upstart.

"Bad call," Violette said after the race. "I really think it didn't alter the outcome. Just the stewards did."

On Saturday, Upstart and the Todd Pletcher-trained Itsaknockout will square off again at Gulfstream. Upstart was the heavy favorite the first time they clashed, but the Fountain of Youth opened the door for doubt to sneak in. Yes, Upstart reached the finish line first, but would Itsaknockout have prevailed without the incident in the stretch? It's food for thought and the match to light a lively debate, but Violette wants no part of bulletin board material. He knows the Grade 1 stakes is above all a highly important test for owner Ralph M. Evans' 3-year-old as opposed to another round in a grudge match.

"It's never personal for me," Violette said. "We have to get Upstart over there in the best possible condition, hope the rider gives him the best ride possible, and that we get there first. If Itsaknockout is second, fine. If he's fifth, fine. There are other horses out there you have to beat. It's rarely a two-horse race. It's not a vendetta and it's not a rivalry, yet. I could get cocky and say it's only a rivalry when he beats me on the up-and-up without the stewards, but I'm not doing that."

For Violette and other trainers with a top Kentucky Derby prospect, races like the Florida Derby are indeed much more than a measuring stick for a pair of rivals. As satisfying as it might be to defeat a formidable foe in one of them, they are indeed preps for the biggest prize of all, the Kentucky Derby. Yet they also carry a major significance in their own right, explaining why Violette is placing far more emphasis on the Florida Derby than the Fountain of Youth -- where Upstart was clocked in a slow but deceptive 1:46.28 for a mile-and-a-sixteenth over a slow, tiring surface.

"It's a balancing act. This is a Grade 1 for a million dollars we're approaching on Saturday. It's a serious race," Violette said. "It's a lot of money, and a bird in hand in the racing business is worth an awful lot. Tomorrow is promised to nobody. The best laid plans end with 'Boss, can you come see this?' So we're ready for this race and trying to have our cake and eat it too: getting him ready while not prepping him for his best race of all-time."

Third in last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the New York State-bred began his 3-year-old campaign with a sensational effort, winning the Holy Bull at Gulfstream. Off such a powerful showing, Violette feared his horse might regress in his next start so he eased back on the ridgling's training.

"He ran well in the Holy Bull off a good work a week before the race and I intentionally did not do that in Fountain of Youth to save some juice in the lemon," Violette said. "I undertrained him for that race, figuring we were supposed to regress off that top effort in the Holy Bull and we accomplished what we set out to do. I thought we could regress and win the race, unfortunately there was a difference of opinion on that after the race."

This time, after the controversial turn of events in the Fountain of Youth and the added stakes in Saturday's race, Violette is leaving little to chance. Based on a solid 59.40 seconds workout on Saturday, Upstart appears to be coming into the mile and an eighth Florida Derby in sharp form -- with some room for continued growth between now and the May 2 Kentucky Derby.

"We've wound him up a little tighter this time," Violette said. "He galloped at a two-minute lick on Wednesday and then the breeze on Saturday. It was exactly what we wanted. He worked fast and finished fast on Saturday. The last eighth was in 11-4/5 [seconds] and he didn't look like he was going that fast. He did it easily. Hopefully we can move forward off the Fountain of Youth - maybe not to his best race ever but pretty close to it. This way we can move forward again heading to Kentucky."

In the Fountain of Youth, Upstart was fifth in the field of eight in the early stages and got first-run on Itsaknockout, who was fourth after the opening half-mile and made one sustained run turning for home.

In the Florida Derby, Upstart, ranked fourth in the latest ESPN Top 10 3-year-old poll, will tackle an undefeated duo in ninth-ranked Itsaknockout and his stablemate, Materiality, among others. At nine furlongs, it's a half-furlong longer than the Fountain of Youth, and Violette says there's no guarantee that Upstart will get first jump on Itsaknockout or anyone else. He says his horse is tractable enough to run either on the lead or at the back of the pack, a quality that could definitely come in handy down the road at Churchill Downs with top candidates like American Pharoah and Dortmund possessing plenty of early speed.

"I think he can do anything. He can be a one-run horse. He can give a long, half-mile run. He can be on the lead or he can be right behind the speed," Violette said. "It's valuable to have that ability, especially in races like the Kentucky Derby."

As part of the Championship phase of the Road to the Kentucky Derby series, the Florida Derby is worth 100-40-20-10 points in descending order to the top four finishers and the first two across the finish line -- barring a disqualification -- will be virtually guaranteed of a spot in the starting gate for the Run for the Roses. With 36 points already, Upstart should be able to run in the Kentucky Derby regardless of how he fares on Saturday, but Violette says he has little interest in a grueling mile and a quarter test off a subpar effort in Florida.

"I don't want to run poorly in the Florida Derby and then cross my fingers that we'll rebound in the Kentucky Derby," Violette said. "It's not that you can't rebound. Horses have done it. But there are a lot of roads to Rome and there are different roads to Louisville as well."

There are also lucrative options beyond the Triple Crown that seem well-suited for a durable, consistent runner like Upstart.

"There's also racing after the Derby and historically it looks like the horses that have done well in the major summer and fall races are the horses who have run fairly regularly," Violette said. "The horses with one and two starts, with big gaps between starts, they do not seem to be able to take the intensity and the stress of the Triple Crown trail. That's why I wanted three starts after the Breeders' Cup and he seems to be thriving on it. He's a really happy horse and hopefully we made the right decision."

The Florida Derby could erase any doubts about that plan. Who knows? It might even create a lively rivalry between two leading Kentucky Derby candidates -- provided there's no interference on the racetrack or from the stewards' booth.