Calvin Borel celebrates after riding Mine That Bird to victory in the 135th Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Mine That Bird stood regally, his ears pricked, his gaze fixed on the rows of clicking cameras.
Then the 50-1 upset winner of the Kentucky Derby put his head down and began munching on grass, leaving his human handlers still in shock about his stunning 6 3/4-length victory a day earlier.
“It’s hard to believe we come in here and actually won this thing,” bareback rider-turned-trainer Bennie Woolley Jr. said Sunday. “Right now it’s a little overwhelming.”
As proof, Mine That Bird wore a cream blanket with embroidered red roses proclaiming him as the Derby winner.
Whether he moves on to run in the 1 3/16-mile Preakness on May 16 will be decided in the next couple days, Woolley said.
“The Preakness tends to be a little more speed-biased and I don’t know that that’s going to fit our horse all that well,” he said.
If Mine That Bird skips the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, he’ll be pointed toward the Belmont Stakes in June. Woolley believes the grueling 1 1/2-mile “Test of the Champion” would suit the gelding, whose father Birdstone won the 2004 Belmont.
The Derby winner hasn’t bypassed the Preakness since 1996, when Grindstone was injured between the two races and retired. The Derby winner has followed up by winning the Preakness seven times in the last 12 years.
Mark Allen wants to see the horse he and Leonard Blach purchased for $400,000 before last year’s Breeders’ Cup run in Baltimore.
“If this horse is doing good, you bet we’ll run, but he’s going to have to tell us,” he said. “The horse will tell us. We don’t owe nobody nothing.”