Racing struck it rich when Rich Strike won the 2022 Kentucky Derby and I don’t care if he’s a Thoroughbred, a Standardbred, or a buggy horse, if this tale doesn’t move you then I don’t think anything will.
I know that you’ve already heard the story a few times by now, but bear with me here because it deserves to be told again. What it really deserves is a Hollywood script, but a movie would probably do the actual story no more justice than I can do for it here in 900 words or less. I’m still going to try though.
The story of Rich Strike’s derby win is what horse racing has that almost no other sport does - it gives us all the chance to dream, knowing that one day we could possibly live that dream.
When Joe Nameth and his New York Jets upset the mighty Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl - a victory that many call the greatest upset in sports history - was it really that great of an upset? It was just one game between two teams that had both won their way into that event by playing excellent football. Joe Nameth was an great quarterback who had been a first overall draft pick that had won a National Championship at Alabama - where the great ‘Bear’ Bryant called him the greatest athlete he’s ever coached. So really, that’s the biggest upset ever? The Jets winning that one game is like a $30,000 claimer winning the Kentucky Derby? Yes, they were 19 ½ point underdogs at kickoff, but it wasn’t exactly a Cinderella story that the common man could appreciate. Just days before the game the rich and famous Nameth was sitting poolside, surrounded by beautiful women in bikinis, when he made his brash guarantee of victory to the press.
Of course team sports has provided other monumental upsets by more grounded individuals, like the 1980 ‘Miracle On Ice’ when the American men’s hockey team, made up of true amateurs, won Olympic gold, somehow defeating the mighty Soviet Union along the way. That story did become a movie and hockey in the U.S. is still reaping the rewards from it.
Leicester City’s 2016 Premier League Championship, after the club began the season at odds of 5000/1, can easily be argued as the biggest sporting upset of all-time, but in the case of Rich Strike at least, the story of the underdog equine athlete and the small team behind him just seems to make it all the more compelling and relatable to the average person. Here are some reasons why…
The horse: Rich Strike - He was plucked out of a $30,000 claimer last September by his current connections. He didn’t really earn his way into the derby, going winless in five starts for his new team and still sitting in 21st place in the standings (1st Also-Eligible) until the morning before the race when another horse was scratched, allowing him to draw in.
The trainer: Eric Reed - His father trained horses before him, and Reed, who has trained a stable since 1985, had only won one graded stakes in his life (the G2 Raven Run in 2009). Eric had tragically lost 23 horses to a fire in 2016 when lightning struck a barn at his Mercury Equine Center, with some of his other horses saved only because the wind was blowing in the direction that it was. Then just last year, Reed lost two of his longtime assistant trainers to cancer in a span of just three months.
The jockey: Sonny Leon - This was the FIRST graded stakes victory for the Venezuelan-born jock who had six mounts the day prior at Belterra Park in Cincinnati. Stats show that the average handle at Belterra Park in 2018 was $63,241 - just a little higher than that of Hanover Racetrack in Ontario - so Leon isn’t exactly used to the big stage. Hall Of Fame jockey and NBC Racing Analyst Jerry Bailey admitted after the race that he had to Google some of Leon’s race replays just to learn how to pronounce his name.
The owner: Rick Dawson - Admittedly only still in the game due to his great relationship with Reed, Dawson said he had become disenchanted with the industry years earlier. He wouldn’t go into detail but stated that Reed is always truthful with him and that he can always handle hearing something if it’s the truth. Dawson currently owns only two horses: Rich Strike and one that is laid up.
The groom: Jerry Dixon Jr. - I just watched a fantastic six-minute video on YouTube (scan QR Code to view) of Jerry bathing his champion afterwards (dressed in a suit and tie) while his Dad, Jerry Sr., held the horse by the head, and surrounded by ‘Team Rich Strike’ members that included the exercise rider, the trainer’s daughter, and Jerry Jr’s step-mother. Phrases that could be heard yelled in the background included “Nobody knew who we were when we got over there today”, “You’re looking at four generations [of racing] right here”, and “Get used to it Rich [the attention] you’re the big horse now.”
If you watch the video of America’s Best Racing’s on-air TV crew doing their pre-race analysis of the Kentucky Derby field, you’ll see that they spoke at length about almost every horse in the race. When they got to the last horse, #21, leaving from the dreaded post #20, all the ‘expert’ had to say was: “Rich Strike: Let’s hope the connections enjoy their day; they got to race their horse in the Kentucky Derby.”
I think it’s safe to say the connections enjoyed their day… as did every true lover of the sport.
Horse racing is the best, and you’ll never convince me otherwise.
Dan Fisher - [email protected]