Mine That Bird, the 2009 Kentucky Derby winner, is in town for a promotional visit this week. There's a picture of him on the front page of the paper, and he seems like a polite, well-mannered horse.

  

But why should he be polite and well-mannered? He's a celebrity, worth more than certain bad-boy former boy-band members. If he wanted to act like a diva he could certainly get away with it.

Mine That Bird could demand rose petals in his porcelain water bucket. He could insist on being hand-fed green grass and a dozen palomino fillies as back-up dancers. No doubt he has staff to tend his hair and hooves, but does he get a daily rubdown with buttercream frosting? I bet even JLo hasn't asked for that one. (Yet.)

And just think about the bad behavior he could get away with: forget about biting and kicking--he could have staff do that for him. He could trample puppies if he wanted to and snack on kittens. He could have a person whose only job was to make sure that annoying birds didn't annoy him.

Sadly, Mine That Bird seems content to be a horse. Obviously he needs a better publicist. Some so-called celebrities seem to be famous merely for behaving badly and being beautiful. This horse has the looks. All he needs now is a course on how to work the media.

Remember, Birdie: there's no such thing as bad publicity.