LEXINGTON, KY. ? The dogwood trees are blooming, and the traffic — both human and equine — is light at Nick Zito’s barn at Keeneland.

“Look at this! It’s so serene, so quiet, so nice,” the trainer said Monday. “I wish all the Derby horses were here, but you can’t do that, obviously.”

During the week before the Kentucky Derby, Zito’s barn at Churchill Downs in Louisville — where four of his five Derby hopefuls are stabled — is so busy that Zito’s crew built a fence to limit access to outsiders. But Zito is keeping one of his Derby horses, Andromeda’s Hero, at Keeneland in the days before the race.

He’s not the only trainer who decided to take advantage of the bucolic setting at the Lexington track, which finished its spring meet Friday.

Patrick Biancone has had a Derby horse each of the last three years and all have remained at Keeneland during the week before the race.

Biancone, who will saddle Spanish Chestnut in this year’s Derby, has practical reasons for staying at Keeneland. With a smaller operation than some trainers, he wants to keep his entire stable together until it’s time to move to another track.

“I like to keep them in family,” Biancone said. “I think they’re like us. They spend all the winter in California together. They come here, they’re all together. It takes two weeks to climatize, but now this is their home. I go by their stalls, and they’re home. They’re like us. They prefer to sleep at home.”

Zito wondered about the success rate of Derby horses who have stayed at Keeneland, so he did some research. Among those who have stabled in Lexington are Biancone’s Lion Heart, who was second to Smarty Jones last year, and trainer Kenny McPeek’s Tejano Run, who was second to Thunder Gulch in 1995.

Whether it’s a good idea to stay at Keeneland depends on the horse.

“What (Zito) is doing is smart,” Biancone said. “He isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket.”

In 2003, Biancone shipped Brancusi to Churchill Downs on the Thursday before the Derby, and the horse finished last. Last year, Lion Heart didn’t travel to Louisville until the morning of last year’s race.

Spanish Chestnut will follow the same schedule Lion Heart did. Biancone has no qualms about traveling on the day of the race — when he trained horses in Europe, he used a similar plan. One year, a horse he trained in France to run in the Epsom Derby in England didn’t leave until 8 a.m. the day of the race, which was run in the afternoon.

“Churchill is only an hour and 15 minutes away,” he said.