Kentucky Derby dream a lot about luck and superstition
The Dream becomes reality Saturday
at 6:24 p.m. at Churchill Downs.
The 19 three-year-olds who will go to the post for the 140th Kentucky Derby reflect four years of planning, at least as many of anticipation and hope.
Of the 23,150 registered thoroughbreds born in North America in 2011, these are the select few that are fast enough, healthy enough and lucky enough to make it into the starting gate of America's most treasured horse race.
Steve Coburn had a dream before his $8,000 mare Love the Chase had her first foal, the father being a California stallion whose stud fee was $2,500.
Coburn told anyone who would listen that the baby - the first horse he and Perry Martin had bred - would be a chestnut with a blaze and four white socks.
The foal, later named California Chrome, not only fulfilled that dream but now is the heavy 5-2 favorite for the Kentucky Derby, coming in off a four race win streak capped by victory in the Santa Anita Derby.
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We'll soon find out if another Coburn prediction bears out, that California Chrome will win the 1 ¼-mile classic, which will be played out before more than 150,000 and an international broadcast audience on what should be a sun-soaked afternoon with temperatures in the low 70s.
'I saw this baby twice: once in a dream and the day after he was born,' Coburn said. 'I told my wife, 'This horse is going to be something special. I can just feel it.' You know how you get that solid, inner feeling in your chest? And it wasn't gas or anything. I told her, 'No matter what it takes, we're going to do what we have to do to make sure this colt goes where he needs to go.' And he hasn't proven us wrong.'
The belief that they'll someday buck the odds and land The Big Horse keeps horse people going a hard and testing industry.
Saturday is why Spendthrift Farm paid $360,000 to buy Medal Count as a yearling and Louisville furniture dealer Dan Dougherty paid $25,000 at the same Keeneland sale for Ride On Curlin and later turned down more than $1 million for that colt.
Shortly before Ride On Curlin was bought, trainer 'Bronco' Billy Gowan, Dougherty and the owner's son Tim went to lunch, the bill coming to $30.33. Ride On Curlin's number in the sale was 3,033. Tracy Gowan, the trainer's wife, sees it as a sign they were supposed to have the colt.
Not that Billy Gowan is superstitious, the trainer of a three-horse stable quipping, 'No, it's bad luck to be superstitious.'
Lunch tab aside, Tracy Gowan says the one thing she is doing is praying to her late mother-in-law, Kay.
'I'm going to wear Mama Kay's necklace,' she said. 'She'd be so proud. She saw us struggle, when we couldn't get stalls and this and that. To see where we are today, I just wish she could be with us.'
This Derby indeed is a field of dreams.
Jack Wolf, part of a bumper crop of Louisville owners in the race, dreamt that his Starlight Racing's Louisiana Derby runner-up Intense Holiday would get post 8. That colt got post 16, but a horse Starlight and Louisville's Skychai Racing bought Monday, the Mike Maker-trained General a Rod, landed the No. 8.
Intense Holiday is one of four Derby horses trained by Todd Pletcher, the others being Arkansas Derby winner Danza, Spiral winner We Miss Artie and Tampa Bay Derby runner-up Vinceremos.
These days, there's a lot of knocking on the white wood barns on the Churchill Downs backside. Some take other precautions. Just in case, you know, there's something to not putting a hat on a bed.
Bob Baffert, seeking a fourth Kentucky Derby with Sunland Derby winner Chitu, strives to avoid jinxes. Even so, he had to scratch Santa Anita Derby runner-up Hoppertunity, the Derby's second choice in the morning line, Thursday with a foot problem.
'Don't put a hat on the bed,' Baffert said. 'Fifty dollar bills, I won't touch them. I won't walk under a ladder. Black cats crossing in front of you is a killer.
'Black cats are like 10 and 0 with me. When we came here with (beaten 2001 Derby favorite) Point Given, a black cat ran across the track that morning. When Real Quiet was going for the Triple Crown in the Belmont, I was driving down the road going to the hotel and a black cat ran across. I stopped and thought for a second, 'Do I back up and go all the way around, or do I keep going?' I should have turned around.'
Still, said Baffert, 'I'm not into omens. Basically your horse ought to be training pretty good. That's the best omen.'
When his owners came up two months ago with ballcaps embroidered with Kentucky Derby and California Chrome, trainer Art Sherman gave them away.
'I said, 'I can't put that on,'' he recalled. 'I said, 'The only time I'll put on a Kentucky Derby hat is when I'm here.'... I wasn't going to put on no hat that said I was already there.'
Once Curlin beat Derby winner Street Sense in the 2007 Preakness to give trainer Steve Asmussen his first Triple Crown race victory, he wore the same tan suit pretty much the rest of the two-time Horse of the Year's career.
'After that, heck yeah, I was going to wear it,' said Asmussen, who will saddle multiple stakes-winner Tapiture in this Derby. '.... They say it's sacrilegious to be superstitious, but I don't want to go against anything. Or test it. Growing up in a barn: peanuts in the shedrow, shipping with a broom, a hat on the bed. In my family, growing up, there was something about haircuts.'
So eight days before the Derby, he vowed of his hair, 'It will not be cut between now and then. Just little things around the barn and stuff that you'd love to think keep the racing gods on your side, not wanting to offend them.'
Jennie Rees also writes for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal
Gary Stevens' voice got husky, his eyes glistening when asked if he did anything to try to enhance his luck in the Derby.
'I believe in Derby destiny,' the Hall of Fame jockey said a week before trying to win a fourth Derby, this time aboard Candy Boy, 'and the winner of this year's Derby was picked a long time ago.'
Jennie Rees breaks down the Run for the Roses.
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