NEWS
An unconventional path to glory: The 2006 Kentucky Derby
Posted: Monday, January 29, 2007 2:57 PM
BARBARO WINS THE 2006 KENTUCKY DERBY
Photo by Z
by Tom Law
THE 2006 edition of the Kentucky Derby (G1) may very well be remembered as an event jam-packed with enough heart-tugging storylines to fill a book that would captivate not only the general reader but also the most impassioned and grizzled racing people.
Accounts of men who overcame physical disabilities, stories about colts whose owners died in the midst of their Triple Crown bids, and even the tale of a man who was a real-life hero and shined on the Olympic stage for the United States converged on May 6 at Churchill Downs for America’s most famous race.
The real story of the 132nd edition of the Derby is a yarn that has every right to be one of legend, about a colt who continued to prove his skeptics wrong with a thorough thrashing of one of the deepest and most talented fields assembled for the Kentucky Derby in recent years.
The main character in this story is Barbaro and on racing’s grandest stage, in front of the second-largest Derby crowd ever (157,536) and a worldwide audience, he delivered a performance so brilliant that it stunned not only his opposition but also his very own connections.
Barbaro, a Kentucky-bred colt by Dynaformer bred and owned by Roy and Gretchen Jackson’s Lael Stables, rolled to a 6 1/2-length victory over 30-to-1 longshot Bluegrass Cat in the $2,213,200 Kentucky Derby to stay undefeated in six career starts. Jockey Edgar Prado picked up his first Derby win and third career classic victory as Barbaro completed the 11⁄4-mile trip on a fast track in 2:01.36 to become just the sixth undefeated winner of the Derby, joining such notables as 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew and 2004 Derby hero Smarty Jones.
The story of Barbaro’s Derby win is as unconventional as it was dominant.
The Kentucky Derby was Barbaro’s second race in 13 weeks and his first since a game victory in the Florida Derby (G1) on April 1 at Gulfstream Park. The win was also a perfect postscript to a plan drawn up and executed to perfection by trainer Michael Matz, who not only carried the American flag at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta but won a silver medal in that year’s show-¬jumping competition.
“What can I say? Everybody saw it, so they know what he did,” said Matz, who is the fourth consecutive trainer to win the Derby in his first attempt. “He’s just trained so well since he came from Florida. We’ve never missed anything in his training, never wavered one bit from our plan that my assistant [Peter Brette] and I wanted to do for this horse. It looks like we made the right plan.”
The plan to get Barbaro to the Derby as fresh as possible started like so many others for scores of ¬talented colts with Triple Crown aspirations, during his two-year-old campaign, albeit with a bit of a twist. The twist was that Barbaro not only came into his three-year-old campaign having never faced top-flight juvenile competition in places like New York, Kentucky, and California, but he also had never competed on dirt.
Matz and Brette outlined a plan heading into Barbaro’s three-year-old campaign that would utilize the Tropical Park Derby (G3) on turf at Calder Race Course and two other judiciously spaced prep races on dirt at Gulfstream Park to get to the Kentucky Derby.
After a win in the Tropical Park Derby on January 1, Matz planned to use Gulfstream’s Holy Bull Stakes (G3) on February 4 and the Florida Derby two months later as the final steppingstones to the Triple Crown.
The fact that Barbaro would not race for five weeks after the Florida Derby was a hot-
button issue in the weeks and days leading up to the Kentucky Derby, almost to the point where reporters asked about that break more than Matz’s heroism when he saved several children in a 1989 commercial airplane crash in Sioux City, Iowa, that killed 111 of the 296 passengers.
Matz admitted that his training style with Barbaro was unorthodox but routinely disputed the notion that the Derby could not be won off a five-week layoff even though no horse had done so since Needles in 1956.
“Every horseman I’ve talked to ... the only people that have made a big deal about it has been the press,” Matz said. “And I don’t know where it’s coming from, so to me personally it’s sort of a moot point.
“Two weeks obviously, for any horse, is probably coming back quick, let alone win the Kentucky Derby,” Matz said. “So that was the reason to give him eight weeks off [before the Florida Derby], to try to have a fresh horse. It looks like we did it. We’re going to bring him back, hopefully if everything goes well, in two weeks [for the Preakness Stakes (G1) on May 20]. If we’ve made a mistake, we’ll know it in two weeks.”
Mistake free
Barbaro did not suffer any setbacks in his training during his time at Matz’s winter base at Palm ¬Meadows Training Center, then at Keeneland Race Course for the Lexington track’s spring meeting, and during the final eight days before the Derby at Churchill.
Matz breezed Barbaro twice during the five weeks, a five-furlong move in 1:01.40 at Keeneland and a visually impressive half-mile in :46 a week before the Kentucky Derby at Churchill. Brette, a former champion jockey in Dubai, was aboard for the workouts and steered Barbaro clear of a loose horse on the track during that final move.
“When he came back up to Kentucky, he just did really, really well,” Matz said. “He grazed on that good green grass and I think after he got up here, I said to Roy and Gretchen when they saw him, ‘I think this horse has grown a bit.’ He’s a real strong horse now. And he just turned three last Saturday [April 29]; he’s a late foal, so he’s got a right to get bigger and stronger.”
Barbaro’s final serious workout for the Derby came on an extremely busy morning at Churchill, when a dozen contenders turned in official workouts. Once those final moves were recorded, along with a handful of others in the succeeding days, a strong field assembled for the Derby after a rather formful spring yielded top contenders from all corners of the country.
Brother Derek, the winner of the Santa Anita Derby (G1) who was seeking to provide a storybook ending for paralyzed trainer Dan Hendricks, led a strong contingent from California that included the Bob Baffert-trained trio of Wood Memorial Stakes (G1) winner Bob and John, Blue Grass Stakes (G1) winner Sinister Minister, and Santa Anita Derby runner-up Point Determined. The last of that trio would race in the familiar yellow and green colors of Beverly Lewis and her late husband, Bob Lewis, one of the game’s most popular and spirited owners who died in mid-February.
Arkansas Derby (G2) winner Lawyer Ron also would race in the colors of an owner who died in the midst of the Triple Crown prep season. Racing for the estate of James T. Hines Jr., who died in a swimming pool accident in his Owensboro, Kentucky, home shortly before the Southwest Stakes, Lawyer Ron came into the Derby riding a six-race win streak. Maryland-based Illinois Derby (G2) winner Sweetnorthernsaint, who picked up the “wise-guy horse” moniker in the days leading up to the Derby, would be the bettor’s choice at 5.50-to-1 when the gates for the 132nd Derby were sprung on a sun-splashed spring day.
Nearly all the competitors agreed that the pace would be hotly contested in the Derby, with confirmed speedsters such as Sinister Minister, Sharp Humor, and Keyed Entry expected to vie for the lead ahead of a large group of contenders with a stalking style that included A. P. ¬Warrior, Barbaro, Brother Derek, Bob and John, Lawyer Ron, Sweetnorthernsaint, and Point Determined.
Speed zone
Horsemen from that large group were in agreement that the ideal position for their charges would be in the second or third flight behind the early speed. The consensus was that Sinister Minister would be on the lead and tracked by several of those stalking contenders. Both guesses were incorrect.
Keyed Entry and jockey Patrick Valenzuela seized the early initiative from Sinister Minister, taking the field past the stands and around the first turn through quick but honest fractions of :22.63 and :46.07 for the first half-mile.
Barbaro stumbled slightly from the eighth starting position when the gate opened, but he righted himself immediately, and Prado settled him nicely behind Keyed Entry, Sinister Minister, and Sharp Humor, with fellow undefeated stablemate and Coolmore Lexington Stakes (G2) winner Showing Up to his immediate inside and Sweetnorthernsaint a little farther back on the rail.
Partially because of Prado’s guidance and partially due to his own athleticism, Barbaro was in the same running position he had assumed during victories in the slop in the Holy Bull and again in the Florida Derby. Meanwhile, Brother Derek was shuffled back to ninth after breaking from the 18th post position and was wide after a half-mile. Lawyer Ron, Point Determined, and Bob and John were not in the race at that point and would not factor in the outcome.
“It was very comfortable,” Prado said of the trip up the backstretch. “On the backside I picked another hole and put him in the clear. He was doing everything so easy that I felt even better on the backside. Every step of the way he was running so easy, with the long hold, and I ¬wasn’t even concerned about the horse in the front.”
Prado remained in the third path off the rail entering the far turn and past Keyed Entry’s six-furlong split of 1:10.88. Just as Sinister Minister overtook a tiring Keyed Entry, Barbaro pounced to the lead approaching the quarter pole and was in front by three lengths after a mile in 1:37.02. Barbaro found yet another gear approaching the eighth pole and poured it on late, leaving the field in tatters and reaching out for ground with the same vigor he showed in his morning gallops all week at Churchill.
Barbaro never felt the sting of Prado’s whip in the stretch and ran his final quarter in :24.34 to cruise under the wire well clear.
“Like I said, I wasn’t concerned,” said Prado, who won his first Breeders’ Cup races last year and was winless in six prior Derby mounts. “My horse was doing everything so easily. It was just a matter of time when I can turn him loose, and you saw what happened when I did.”
Surplus of superlatives
Prado, who dedicated the victory to his late mother, Zenaida, brought Barbaro back to a raucous ovation that grew nearly deafening in front of the Twin Spires before heading to the winner’s circle. One of the first to greet and congratulate Matz on the walk to the winner’s circle was Barclay Tagg, who saddled Showing Up for Lael Stables and was the trainer of 2003 Derby winner Funny Cide.
“That’s a fabulous horse,” Tagg said. “I saw him playing in the paddock when he was a yearling, and you could tell he was going to be special then.”
WinStar Farm’s Bluegrass Cat, winner of the Remsen Stakes (G2) as a two-year-old but a disappointment in his previous two starts before the Derby, turned in a strong finish to be second, two lengths in front of the late-running Steppenwolfer. Jazil closed from last to ¬finish in a dead heat for fourth with Brother Derek, the morning-line ¬favorite who was sent off as the 7.70-to-1 third choice behind Sweetnorthernsaint and 6.10-to-1 Barbaro.
“Barbaro, man, he’s an amazing horse,” said Steppenwolfer’s jockey, Robby Albarado.
“We ran fourth against a very good horse, a future star, or maybe a now star,” said Kiaran McLaughlin, who trains Jazil for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum’s Shadwell Farm. A day after the Derby, McLaughlin said Barbaro has the tools to possibly sweep the Triple Crown. “Because of his pedigree and the way he trains, the way he works, and runs. A mile and a half [in the Belmont Stakes (G1)] is not a problem for him. He might even like it more than a mile and an eighth or a mile and a quarter. Winning the Triple Crown is tough to do, but it seems well within his grasp.”
Showing Up finished sixth and Sweetnorthernsaint was seventh after making a strong run in which he advanced to third while running on the inside around the far turn under Kent Desormeaux.
“I would have liked to have done better, but he finished seventh in one of the tougher Derbys we have had in quite a while,” said Sweetnorthernsaint’s trainer, Michael Trombetta. “I can’t be anything but proud of this horse. We can do better than this if we get the right kind of trip. There is room for us to be a spoiler. I am optimistic. If he’s healthy and he’s well, there is no reason to back off now. If we were way, way, way back, it would be a different story. I thought I had a chance at the turn at least to get a significant piece of it. I don’t think he did poorly.”
Baffert was seeking his fourth Derby victory, but the best finish of his three starters was Point Determined in ninth. Sinister Minister finished 16th and Bob and John finished 17th.
“Sinister Minister got cooked on the lead, Point Determined didn’t run his race, [and] Bob and John had a really rough trip and didn’t get to do his thing,” Baffert said. “We weren’t going to beat the winner. He was awesome. I was hoping he was a turf horse.”
Multidimensional
Barbaro is a product of the same Lael Stables breeding program that produced George Washington, an Irish-bred Danehill colt who won the Two Thousand Guineas (Eng-G1) at Newmarket about eight hours before the Kentucky Derby.
Unlike George Washington, who was sold for $2,050,335 by the Jacksons at the 2004 Tattersalls October yearling sale, Barbaro was kept to race in the couple’s blue, white, and lime-green colors. Substantial offers were made for Barbaro during his two-year-old season and early in his three-year-old campaign, but Gretchen Jackson said the colt was never for sale.
“This is a breeder’s dream as well as a racer’s dream,” Gretchen Jackson said. “He always gave the impression that he was going to be a nice horse. That means a lot of things to a lot of people.”
Barbaro also seemed to be destined for a career spent running primarily on turf after starting off with an 81⁄2-length maiden win going a mile in 1:35.87 in early October at Delaware Park. He followed that score with an eight-length win in the Laurel Futurity prior to his Tropical Park Derby win.
“It’s always in the back of your mind to wonder if you could have a horse to run in the Kentucky Derby,” Matz said. “When you have a nice two-year-old go out, you might say, ‘Man, I hope I have a Derby horse.’ If you wouldn’t think like that, you wouldn’t have any ambition. But I guess it’s easy to say, ‘I’ve got a Derby horse.’ But now I can say it.”
Matz can seemingly say plenty about his accomplishments in the equine world, now highlighted by a Kentucky Derby victory, a silver medal in the Olympics, berths on three Olympic teams, five Pan American Games gold medals, and numerous show horse rider of the year titles.
One title that Matz is reluctant to discuss and even more hesitant to claim is hero. Matz, 55, earned that unofficial honor when he survived the crash of United Airlines Flight 232 from Denver to Chicago in July 1989.
Matz was traveling home from a working vacation in Hawaii with his then girlfriend who became his wife, Dorothy, when the plane lost its hydraulics, crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, and burst into a fireball. Matz helped pull three children, Jody, Melissa, and Travis Roth, from the plane before going back to rescue more passengers.
The Roths attended the Derby and met with Matz briefly in the stable area the day of the race. Matz talked about the crash during his daily press conferences, but for the most part the blue-eyed trainer who gives off an aura of being unflappable and extremely cool under pressure preferred to discuss other things during Derby week, leaving out a big chapter of his life’s story that is destined to become part of the fabric that makes up the history of the Kentucky Derby.
When asked about the colorful experiences in his life, from carrying the flag at the closing ceremonies of the Atlanta Games, to winning the silver medal, to winning the Kentucky Derby, Matz chose his words carefully and focused on the positives.
“They are all different, but they are all very exciting,” Matz said. “So you know, this has to be one of the highlights in my training career. Carrying the flag was a highlight in my jumping career. So they both are very good feelings.”
Originally printed in the May 13, 2006 issue of Thoroughbred Times
Tom Law is managing editor of Thoroughbred Times
