I did not do any research prior to this race, and I had no plans to bet on it. I also didn't speak to my father about the many horses (the Derby has the most entrants out of any of the 3 triple crown races, being the first in the series), even though he used to be a semi-professional bettor of such things.
Apparently near the end of the massive pre-race coverage, the various trainers walk around the track on their way to wherever while the horse are taken to the paddocks, where the race begins. Some trainers give short interviews, and various information is given about the horses (age, racing history, odds, owners). *For all intents and purposes, trainers are more important than owners. Kind of like a general manager of a sports team, but much more hands on.
So it seems like the standard issue stuff for me at this point: You got your Bob Baffert, your previous Derby winning trainers, trainers with 3 million dollar horses, trainers with multiple horse in the race, trainers with expensive italian suits, and of course, horse brought over on jetliners from Dubai. No exaggerations here, this is horse racing.
Then I see the last trainer interviewed, some guy in jeans from New Mexico, a soft spoken man hopping on crutches because he broke his ankle in a motorcycle accident. Apparently, the dude
has one lone horse in the race, an animal which cost $9500, that he drove to Kentucky in a trailer hitched to the back of his pickup truck.
I said, "What?" This guy has a horse which costs less than 1k when they usually run at least several hundred k or 1 mil, he's got jeans and he drove his horse 21 hours with a busted ankle? "Oh, I guess I'm rooting for this guy." So the idiot interviewer asks him something along the line of "Should your horse even be here?" (I guess the horse raced his way in), and Wooley Jr (the trainer) says "Yea. He earned his way here." Promptly done with this interview as he hopped like away at full speed on crutches. Oh yeah, I definitely hoping for a guy who makes media types look even dumber to win.
His horse was 50-1 odds (tied for highest among whole field) and out of the gate, was noted more than once as being dead last in the race.
Somewhere in the middle of the race, I notice some horse way in the back speed by like 3 others so fast it looked like the opposition was going backwards. Didn't think he could win squeezed in the middle of a bunch of horses next to the rail. To say that the jockey, Calvin Borel, ran a ridiculously awesome race would be an understatement at best.
Cue 10 seconds later and the horse, Mine That Bird, was in the lead headed to an easy victory, possibly making someone feel terrible about selling it for $9500. So much of an underdog was this horse, that they didn't even get footage of the trainer until nearly 5 minutes after the race was over. Usually they have immediate reaction shots of the trainers in the stands after the race ends, jumping gleefully in some fine suit next to a trophy chick with a 5 ft wide hat on. In fact, it was the 2nd biggest upset in Kentucky Derby history.
Post race interview with Wooley Jr, the winning trainer:
Interviewer: [People] didn't even know who you were!
Wooley: Well they know me now, don't they?
Interviewer: [blah blah blah, what now?]
Wooley: Maybe now someone can talk about something besides the drive up here. (walks away)
Totally worth it. Whoever was watching Phillies vs Mets or the NBA playoffs should be ashamed of themselves.
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