Mine That Bird, a 50-1 longshot picked by none of horse racing's intelligentsia, pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the 135-year history of the Kentucky Derby today, writes Ed McNamara of Newsday. The "disrespected little gelding" trailed the entire pack of 19 horses after 6 furlongs before making his move and prompting a buzz of "Who's the No. 8" among the 153,000 at Churchill Downs, writes McNamara. He won by nearly 7 lengths.
"You've got a hole, you've got a shot," said jockey Calvin Borel, who trailed by 11 lengths with a quarter-mile to go. "I didn't know he'd give me that kind of response, but I figured he was going to finish. It's not the first half-mile that counts, it's the last one." Unheralded trainer Bennie "Chip" Woolley Jr. of New Mexico drove the horse 1,700 miles to the track himself with a trailer hitched to his Ford pickup. The experts gave him no chance. "How little we know," writes McNamara.
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