LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 50-1 shot showed up at Churchill Downs in a trailer hitched to his trainer’s Ford pickup, after a 21-hour drive from a little racetrack in New Mexico.
In his last race at that same hardscrabble track, Mine That Bird came in fourth.
That’s all part of Kentucky Derby lore now, after jockey Calvin Borel, famous for his rides along the rail at Churchill Downs, pulled it off again Saturday, winning the Run for the Roses for the second time in three years.
As Mine That Bird shot through a hole and bolted to the lead before the final furlong, few in the crowd of 153,563 even knew which horse it was.
The second-longest shot to win in Derby history paid $103.20 for a $2 win bet.
But leaving his odds and his tale behind, Mine That Bird decimated the 135th Derby field. He won by 6 3/4 lengths over Pioneerof the Nile, traveling the 1 1/4-mile course in 2 minutes and 2.66 seconds.
Friesan Fire left the starting gate as the 7-2 favorite but hurt himself right out of that gate. He got as close as sixth, but faded to 18th in the 19-horse field. That field was one short after morning-line favorite I Want Revenge scratched.
“He hurt himself right out of the gate and grabbed a quarter,” Friesen Fire trainer Larry Jones said later, referring to an injury where the back of the left front hoof was nicked by the horse stepping on himself.
Although the injury is not considered serious, Jones said, “He’s bleeding. If you see blood on the track, it’s his.”
Borel, who won the 2007 Derby by riding Street Sense up the rail, said Mine That Bird, a gelding, is so small, the horse just skipped along the sloppy track, and his size helped him squeeze through the holes he had to get through.
After being bumped out of the gate, Borel took Mine That Bird to the back of the 19-horse field, taking him to his favorite spot, the place that gave him his nickname, Bo-Rail. Once at the rail, the horse only left it once, to pass Atomic Rain.
It was a terrific scene in the winner’s circle, full of cowboy hats and string ties, plus an exultant Borel, and nobody exults like Borel.
Mine That Bird’s trainer, Chip Woolley, a former bareback rodeo rider, was there on crutches.
“I just laid a motorcycle down and broke a leg,” he said.
This wasn’t even the best horse Borel rode in the last 24 hours.
The day before, he was on Rachel Alexandra, a fantastic filly who won the Kentucky Oaks by 20 1/4 lengths. Borel had said the filly was better than Street Sense and nobody doubts it.
Mine That Bird actually has a pedigree.
He’s a son of Birdstone, who famously came from behind in the 2004 Belmont Stakes to deny Smarty Jones the Triple Crown. Mine That Bird’s grandsire, Grindstone, won the 1996 Derby. He didn’t come cheap. His owners bought him for $400,000.
“There was no haggling,” said one of the owners, Mark Allen, who operated Double Eagle Ranch in Roswell, N.M. “They wanted $400,000. We paid it.”
It didn’t bother them that the horse was a gelding.
“We were looking for a race horse, not a stallion,” Allen said.
Despite his fourth-place finish in the unheralded Sunland Derby in his last start on March 29, Mine That Bird gained most of his graded-stakes earnings by winning the Grade III Grey Stakes at Woodbine outside Toronto last October. His first five races were at Woodbine, and he was named Canada’s champion 2-year-old.
After being sold to Allen and a co-owner, Leonard Blach, a veterinarian in Roswell who has a public breeding farm named Buena Suerte Equine. Good luck, indeed.
Before the race, the trip had gotten more publicity than the horse.
“They make out that we hauled this horse in a ’67 GMC, but actually we got a super nice van . . . it’s a super nice rig,” Woolley said, not wanting to pay the $50,000 for a flight.
They had a layover at Lone Star Park, a racetrack outside Dallas, getting a night’s sleep and a morning gallop in before continuing on to Kentucky.
Since nothing about this race played to form, there are 23 holders of a $1 superfecta ticket. They picked the top four finishers in order for a $278,502.20 payoff.
It was a payoff worthy of the day.
“New Mexico kicked our butt,” Woolley said, referring to Mine That Bird’s last Derby prep. “And we come here and win.”
