The Kentucky Derby: Seabiscuit Meets Syriana

(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Some folks think the Kentucky Derby is one of the sports world's signature events, where horses are athletes to be appreciated for their power and beauty. Others consider the so-called sport of kings ostentatious nonsense, cruel to the animals and one more occasion for the super-rich to throw their money around.

And then there are the little people—fewer and fewer as time goes by—the racetrack touts, the little old ladies and assorted winners and losers lined up at the OTB, making $2 bets and hoping to catch a break.

Each of those constituencies found something to believe in at the 2009 Kentucky Derby. This was an underhorse story of cinematic proportions: one part Syriana and two parts Seabiscuit, as the unknown gelding Mine That Bird came out of nowhere to win the Run for the Roses by eight lengths, overcoming greater odds than any horse in six decades.

Competing against Hall-of-Fame trainers, the Sultan of Dubai and horses that are catered to like Texas debutantes, Mine That Bird was the tough and tiny horse that could.

Coming out of the gate, the diminutive gelding was squeezed by two larger horses and soon pushed so far to the the rail that he could barely be seen by the 153,000 in attendance. But jockey Calvin Borel used that inside track to his advantage, hugging the rail so closely there were practically sparks between the horse and the edge and rode to victory on the soggy track.

Before the race, the only press Mine That Bird received was for his journey to Kentucky, not his prospects. The horse from Roswell, New Mexico didn't land via flying saucer. He came 1,700 miles in a trailer hitched to the back of trainer Bennie "Chip" Woolley Jr.'s forty-year-old pickup truck.

Woolley, a former bareback jockey, had driven the horse to the Derby despite having broken his leg several weeks earlier in a motorcycle accident. Wooley's crutches, black cowboy attire, and camera-unfriendly dark glasses stood in stark contrast to the ostentatiously hatted Derby crowd.

And to the media who didn't know what to make of him before the race, the laconic Woolley broke out a smile beneath his broad, black Stetson. "They'll know me now, won't they?''

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