LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, (Reuters) – Mine That Bird trainer Chip Woolley does not like to give too much advice to his jockeys but offered Calvin Borel a little gem on Saturday.
“All I asked him was to lay the horse back and be patient,” said Woolley. “And he did that magically.”
Borel guided Mine That Bird to the second-biggest shock in the 135 years of the Kentucky Derby, leading the 50-1 long shot — the $103.20 payout for a $2 win ticket was the largest since Donerail returned $184.90 in 1913 — to a 6-¾ length victory.
The Churchill Downs-based jockey discovered daylight along the rail and flew by 12 horses to the stunning triumph, the largest margin of victory since Assault in 1946.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Borel, who raised his fist as he crossed the finish line. “He bellied down and ran the last quarter of a mile just like a good horse.
“You’ve got to ride him to win and that’s what I do best.”
The victory was the 42-year-old Borel’s second in the Derby, the affable jockey having pulled a similar move along the rail two years ago aboard Street Sense.
Mine That Bird entered the Derby winless in two tries this year after having finished a distant 12th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile in his 2008 finale.
But the colt’s connections believed three stakes wins at Woodbine in 2008 were enough to have the Kentucky-bred gelding try his luck at America’s most famous race.
So trainer Chip Woolley made the two-day drive from New Mexico with his horse, driving the van himself. Woolley met with reporters after the race, wearing a black cowboy hat with dark sunglasses. During an era of high-profile trainers like Bob Baffert and Todd Pletcher, Woolley could have walked among the 153,000 at Churchill Downs on Saturday and barely been noticed.
“To be honest, I didn’t have any real feeling that I could win the Derby,” said the 54-year-old former bareback rodeo rider. “We wanted to be competitive.”
“I’m just really proud of the horse. He laid it on the line for me today and that’s all I could ask of him.”
