It was a week before the Kentucky Derby and Todd Pletcher had a problem. Nobody had remembered to tack up a calendar in the Churchill Downs stall of his Florida Derby champion Always Dreaming and the horse clearly thought the race might be today. “He was ready to run on arrival” reported Pletcher, well-aware they only wrote The Big Check for a victory on the first Saturday in May. When Always Dreaming ran off with his rider Adele Bellinger one fine Kentucky morning, Pletcher switched to a stronger Nick Bush and decided to use draw reins to help keep the colt restrained. The plan worked, the horse settled down and saved his best for the afternoon of the 143rd Kentucky Derby. His best was plenty good enough. Second early to longshot State of Honor, Always Dreaming moved outside that one with five furlongs to go, shook off a brief challenge from a pair of rivals and rolled to a convincing victory. Lookin’ At Lee, a 33-1 shot who had saved ground on the rail most of the way, was second, almost three lengths back and posing no threat. Battle of Midway was a distant third, almost eight lengths behind the winner. Suffice to say, the best horse won.
Before the race, there was ample argument about who the best horse might be. Arkansas Derby winner Classic Empire, the two-year-old champion, was the morning line favorite and the assembled collection of NBC-TV savants was divided between Irish War Cry and the hot pick, McCraken, while Pletcher’s charge wound up the public choice at 4.70-1. Always Dreaming had the best Derby prep with his five-length romp in Florida but Classic Empire showed courage overcoming problems to win by an eyelash in Arkansas. Valor is fine, but in horse-racing it pays to back the horse who stays out of trouble.
At the break, Classic Empire once again found himself in the soup, bobbling out of the gate perhaps due to the muddy surface, then being slammed by McCraken. Empire’s Ocala trainer, Mark Casse, bemoaned his charge’s fate, but truth be told, his horse broke slightly to the right out of post position 14, the last hole in the regular gate, while McCracken was pushed to the left as the result of Irish War Cry’s errant break from the 17 gate. Julien Leparoux gathered his horse up and was moving well by the far turn, although fairly wide, then was bumped and carried out in mid-stretch. It is a tribute to his fortitude that Classic Empire finished fourth, missing the show position by only one length. The Flying Pie had selected him second behind Always Dreaming and we still think he’s the second-best three-year-old.
The Rest Of The Story
The surprise horse in Louisville was undoubtedly Lookin’ At Lee, who handled the muddy going well, saved ground on the rail much of the way and finished strong to be second in what was his best race by far. Lee was third in the Arkansas Derby after finishing a disappointing sixth in the Rebel Handicap. Last year, he was second in the Iroquois at Churchill Downs, second again in the Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland and fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. He doesn’t win often but has only been off the board once in his last seven starts, all stakes. Lookin’ At Lee is one of the few Derby horses who might show up for the Preakness in two weeks, most of the Louisville field having been well dispatched by the winner. Classic Empire is a possible Pimlico entry, after brief concerns about an unspecified eye issue, probably the result of flying mud. Considering the relative dearth of serious rivals, he’ll probably show up in Baltimore.
Irish War Cry, who bore in at the break and caused the resultant traffic jam for Tapwrit, McCracken and Classic Empire, ran gamely despite all kinds of trouble but his connections seem inclined to skip the Preakness. The same goes for McCraken, who escaped the first bout of jostling at the start only to be bumped and carried out in the stretch. Battle of Midway, the show horse, did well under the circumstances but does not appear to be a threat in the Preakness and may look for softer foes elsewhere. If any of the other Kentucky horses decides to run in Baltimore you’d have to wonder why.
The Wild Man Of Arabia
You probably thought they didn’t allow bucking broncos in the Kentucky Derby field, and so did we. But there he was, a-prancin’ and a-dancin’ (and a-buckin’) out of the starting gate, and no, he wasn’t your noble Stewball. His name, for some reason, was Thunder Snow, freshly arrived from the desert after his triumph in the United Arab Emirates Derby. Some observers suspected an equipment problem, like a slipping saddle, but there was nothing to be found and track veterinarians averred the horse had suffered no injuries.
Interviewed later in his stall on the Churchill backstretch, Thunder Snow complained vigorously about the track conditions. “MUD!?! There’s no MUD in UAE racing! It’s an outrage. I would have brought my overshoes if someone had told me. Do they allow do-overs?”
Thunder Snow is owned by Godolphin Racing, the concoction of Shiek Mohammed of the UAE Maktoums, the ruling family of the Emirates. The Shiek is a very smart man, just not smart enough to figure out that nobody wins the Kentucky Derby after running exclusively in Europe and the UAE. He’s now 0 for 10 and fading. He was approached after the race, however, by serious rodeo interests wondering if a career change might be in order. We’ll keep you posted.
Top This!
When it comes to hats at the Kentucky Derby, the ladies have one rule: Go Big Or Go Home. Nothing is too enormous for a Derby girl, including millinery concoctions featuring replicas of the official Derby drink, the Mint Julep, or maybe the Churchill Downs starting gate (including horses), or even the entire city of Louisville. Such extravagance puts a country girl like Chiquita Banana to shame. The track should have a kiosk selling neck braces. Women in other climes concern themselves with the proper dress but in Derbyland the dress is strictly an afterthought. It’s what’s up top that counts.
“You’d definitely feel out of place if you didn’t wear a hat,” says Jenny Pfanenstiel, the official milliner of the Kentucky Derby Museum. Out of place? You’d feel ridiculous, like a clothed person at a nude beach. Pfanenstiel, who may be the only “official milliner” extant, used to go to Louisville from her home in Chicago for six weeks every year to keep up with the demand for her creations. Eventually, she decided to move south for good, now selling hats year-round at her Forme Millinery shop to the likes of Michelle Obama, Oprah and Madonna, among others.
If Jenny prefers to stick with the sublime, Helen Overfield is willing to go with the ridiculous. Overfield, a Louisville-based entrepreneur, says she’s created hats as wide as three feet in diameter, although “I’ve worn one myself that I had to tilt sideways to get in a bathroom stall.” Helen got started by making hats for herself when her husband’s work in the bourbon industry required a lot of corporate entertaining during the Derby season. Now, she’s embellishing hundreds a year for clients around the globe. “You can’t have umbrellas at Churchill Downs because it spooks the horses,” says Overfield. “So with these hats, rain or shine, you’re all set.” But where do you put them when you get home? “I feel silly telling you this, but some women have special closets made,” says Helen. What’s so silly about that? Everybody needs a safe spot to keep their major investments.
Some Days Are Diamonds
The Kentucky Derby is both a bettor’s dream and a wagering nightmare. On the positive side, the better racehorses run truer to form than their less-talented compatriots and this race contains the cream of the crop. On most occasions, trainers are advised to personally keep in the best of company while running their horses in the worst, a suggestion which leads to a small number of horses worth considering in any given race. The Derby, on the other hand, offers infinite possibilities with many proven commodities and others rapidly improving. In Louisville, everybody is trying their hardest, nobody is taking the day off, there are giant pots of money to be made, reputations to be earned. Also, there is so much money bet on the top horses that some longshot is almost certain to rise to the occasion from a talented 20-horse field. If it’s challenging to figure out who that longshot is going to be, well, that’s a challenge most punters enjoy. There’s no lack of egotism among serious bettors.
All the gambling acumen in the world, of course, is not going to save a bettor from a terrible break from the gate, bad racing luck or a sudden downpour which turns racetrack to swamp in seconds. Jockeys seeking to save ground riding the rail are at risk of being swallowed up by the massive field, others are forced unusually wide on the turns or simply can’t get through the blockade of horseflesh in time to compete. A ruinous pace can damn the frontrunners and give the late runners a sterling opportunity; a slow pace can keep the leaders in the race and consign the stretch runners to the Land of Also-Rans. Despite one’s gambling prowess, to win big at the Derby, a man requires a ration of luck. Sometimes, he gets it. Bettors who got the top two correct turned a measly $2 into $336.20. The top three got you $8,297.20. We don’t know how many winning tickets were cashed on those but we do know there was a single one-dollar ticket which correctly picked the top four. That Superfecta bet returned a scintillating $75,974.50.
Can I take that in fives, please, my money bin is running low and I so like to burrow through it like a gopher.
That’s all, folks….
Next Week, we’re back on schedule with the regular Thursday production. All of this cataract business can lead to apoplexy, so thank God the hippies were wrong and we really don’t have a third eye. Between the unending regimen of eyedrops and the frequent post-op doctor visits, there’s barely a moment to scan the news, to check the television reports for the latest outrages, to creep back into the closet and shut off the light so the Trumper doesn’t find us. On the other hand….
