135th Kentucky Derby Winner Mine That Bird Wins First Grade 1

Posted May 2, 2009
Courtesy Horseracegame.com

Mine That Bird's victory in the 135th Kentucky Derby illustrates well, despite appearances on paper and what the experts say, that anything can happen.

Racing is a competition, and even though Mine That Bird wasn't even thought of as a serious Derby contender, he had won 4 of his career 8 starts, including some impressive stretch drives.

Mine That Bird

With the star-studded field of horses, jockeys, and trainers in the Kentucky Derby, it was refreshing to see how down to earth Mine That Bird's trainer Chip Wooley, a cowboy from New Mexico, turned out to be.

While the other well-known trainers like Bob Baffert, Todd Pletcher, D. Wayne Lukas, Larry Jones, and the Sheik's trainer Saeed bin Suroor had their horses shipped to Churchill Downs by luxury horse vans or cargo planes, and who arrive at Churchill themselves in fancy limousines, all of which costs serious money, Chip Wooley simply hitched his simple horse trailer to the back of his pickup truck and drove all the way to Louisville, Kentucky himself, a distance of over 1,500 miles!

All of the so-called experts and armchair handicappers around the country and the world, myself included, thought it was to be a totally wasted trip. However, the little gelded son of 2004 Belmont Stakes winner Birdstone (you remember Birdstone, right? He is the horse that defeated Smarty Jones in his gallant try to become the 12th Triple Crown winner in American Racing history), a horse that only cost $9,500, in contrast to the Todd Pletcher-trained Dunkirk, a horse that cost $3.7 million as a yearling, showed in his previous performances, most notably at Woodbine Race Course in Candada, that while he didn't always win his starts, he did have the capacity to win, and he had the competitive nature one always looks for in a Kentucky Derby.

He was previously owned and trained by Dave Cotey, who is more of a horse trader than an exclusive trainer of racing thoroughbreds. After Mine That Bird won the prestigious 2008 Grey Stakes, a major juvenile test in Canada, the New Mexico ownership group of Double Eagle Ranch/Bueno Suerte Equine made an offer of $400,000, which Cotey took. That landed him in the hands of trainer Chip Wooley.

Wooley was able to secure the services of the Cajun rider Calvin Borel who, you may recall, was the jockey who guided Street Sense to that memorable come from behind victory along the rail in the 2007 Kentucky Derby. Calvin's nickname is "Bo-rail" for his knack in guiding horses through tight spots along the rail to win, and the combination of the 50-1 longshot's energy, Wooley's sharp preparation of his gelding, and Borel's expert ride made history in the 135th Kentucky Derby, as he became the second longest shot in the history of the Kentucky Derby to win!