Every year, industry professionals spend millions of dollars on breeding, selling, and training Thoroughbred racehorses in the hope that one day they will make it on racing's largest stage. It's a long and often arduous process, but the regally bred, the well-conformed, and the preternaturally talented can rise to the top of the ranks and reward their owners with results that justify their time and hopefully, their price tags.
But if the result of the May 7 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) at Churchill Downs reminds racing fans of anything, it's that a good horse can come from anywhere—and at any price.
RED TR-Racing's Rich Strike 's victory in Saturday's race makes the 3-year-old colt the only horse to have been claimed and went on to win the most coveted of American classics.
Plucked out of relative obscurity on only his second career start by trainer Eric Reed and owner Rick Dawson, the son of Calumet stallion Keen Ice joined the roster of his connections for a $30,000 claiming tag.
In the 148-year history of the Kentucky Derby, there are only two other known winners to have run in claiming company, though they were never claimed themselves. The first was the 1999 winner Charismatic and the second was 2009 winner Mine That Bird.
Sent out for his first start last August by breeder Calumet Farm in a maiden special weight on the turf at Ellis Park, Rich Strike did little to impress on the track and finished last in the 10-horse field after simply being outrun. Despite that dismal effort, this horse's works in the morning had captured Reed's attention as he was looking for horses for Dawson.
"Rick and I were trying to build a stable," said Reed. "He'd gone through a rough patch and he really should have gotten out of the business, but decided to give it another chance.
"What I liked about this horse was that he had had fantastic works before his first race at Ellis Park. They were works that a 2-year-old normally doesn't do and they bet him down pretty hard. But they ran him on the turf and handicapping what I saw in the horse, I thought they ran him on the turf probably because they wanted the distance more than the turf. Of course, he ran terrible.
"I saw when he was in for $30,000 (at Churchill Downs) and that he was working very good on the dirt. He had been bet in a maiden special weight—they didn’t think he was a cheap horse or they wouldn’t have run him in a maiden special weight at first pop—and they bet him. So I was taking a gamble that it was the turf that had gotten him beat."
"We’re always looking for horses that we feel could get better," said Dawson. "Rich Strike had the pedigree and as Eric said his workouts had been very impressive. I'm a Keen Ice fan so that's how we really got there."
Reed's initial suspicions about Rich Strike proved to be right when in his one-mile maiden claiming race at Churchill Downs last September, the colt blew the field away with a 17 1/4-length win. While Reed had also had his eye on another horse up for claim that day, he was out-shook and instead, it was Rich Strike who came to his barn.
It's a stroke of luck the pair will likely never forget.
