Last September, trainer Eric Reed was horse shopping like so many owners, trainers, and agents at the time.
Though most horsemen made their purchases at Keeneland during the 2021 September Yearling Sale, where Reed similarly bought a horse for an owner, his attention was also focused on young racehorses 70 miles away at Churchill Downs. There, on Sept. 17, he claimed for $30,000 a colt that broke his maiden on the afternoon by 17 1/4 lengths.
That blowout maiden victor is now known by even the most casual followers of horse racing, being none other than Rich Strike , winner of the May 7 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) for owner Rick Dawson's RED TR-Racing.
Reed hit a home run, but not in his sole trip to the plate, having claimed an average $10,000 horse that afternoon and losing a shake—a blind draw that takes place when more than one owner was interested in the horse—for another prospect in the same race as Rich Strike.
Rich Strike's claiming-to-riches story soon continues in the June 11 Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1) at Belmont Park after his 80-1 Derby upset.
"Dawson and Eric were the smartest guys in the room," said Chauncey Morris, executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association. "That horse only had one claim submitted on it. The rest of us are idiots.
"You can mitigate the factors in this game, but every once in a while, it surprises you and reminds you that we're all mortals. We need luck. There's no substitute for any of that."
Claiming races are contests in which horses can be claimed (purchased) out of the race for a specified price, with the original owner retaining the raceday earnings and the new owner taking possession of the horse after the race. Claiming races are a staple of everyday racing across North America. But claiming a Derby winner had never happened previously.
Derby winners Dust Commander,1970, Charismatic, 1999, and Mine That Bird, 2009, raced for claiming prices during the early parts of their careers but went unclaimed. More than 100 years ago, Derby winners Apollo, 1882, and Elwood, 1904, raced in selling races, a precursor to modern claiming races, also failing to change hands.
Not that Reed's claim or the Derby victory came entirely from nowhere. Rich Strike had been a quick-breezing horse, and the day that he was claimed and rolled to victory, he raced a mile in 1:36.84—faster than three other mile races on the afternoon, including two races for older claiming horses.
"I thought, 'Well, this might work out pretty good,'" Reed reflected after winning the Derby. "But I had no expectations like this at the time. I just thought we'd made a good claim. I guess we did."
Many owners and trainers hold out at least faint hope in acquiring a stakes winner when they purchase a horse, knowing the odds are against doing so. The goal is easier to envision with a younger, unraced horse with nothing but blue sky ahead. Less so with a claiming horse. Subpar efforts are there for all to see in the claimer's past performances.
Rich Strike also had his racing blemish, having finished last of 10, beaten 14 1/2 lengths, when he debuted last summer at Ellis Park in his one start preceding the race in which he was claimed, though it had come on turf. But a change in surface brought a change in fortune for Rich Strike and for Dawson, whose earlier horses had mainly been disappointing.
"I didn't get into this to win the Kentucky Derby, although I'm not giving the trophy back," Dawson said in the post-race news conference.
Rich Strike's Derby win, in which he earned $1.8 million, was improbable for a horse acquired in a $30,000 maiden claiming race and matched alongside horses bought for six- and seven-figure sums at public auction. A BloodHorse Marketwatch study in 2021 found that more than half of North America's grade 1 winners had been graduates of yearling sales since 2015.
Still, winning a grade 1 with a claimed horse can happen. In one example over the past 20 years, eventual Hall of Famer Lava Man racked up top-level stakes victories over numerous seasons after trainer Doug O'Neill claimed him for $50,000 at Del Mar in 2004 for owners STD Racing Stable and Jason Wood. The gelding, now a pony in the O'Neill stable, earned more than $5.2 million before his retirement from racing.
Top prospects are still claimed in California and elsewhere, such as in New York, Florida, Louisiana, and Arkansas, but claiming action in Kentucky is particularly fierce. Churchill Downs' claim report covering racing from April 30-May 28 showed 112 claims for more than $3.1 million. Shakes involving 10 or more owners for individual horses occurred on five occasions over the stretch.
Deeper fields than those seen in many other racing jurisdictions and Kentucky's rich purses encourage horsemen to be more aggressive with the placement of their horses.
An owner of a Kentucky-bred horse running for an $80,000 claiming price in a $141,000, third-level allowance optional claimer at Churchill can collect more than $160,000 if the horse wins and is claimed.
As a result, owners are often more willing to put higher-quality runners up for sale, leaving claiming horsemen getting more for their purchasing dollar.
Though most of the Kentucky Derby Day stakes winners at Churchill Downs were graduates from public auctions or homebreds with noteworthy pedigrees, Rich Strike was not alone in being the day's lone claim-to-fame story. Earlier on the Derby Day card in the sixth race, David Miller's Three Technique won the $159,800 Knicks Go Overnight Stakes Presented by L&N Federal Credit Union, less than six months after being plucked from a $40,000 claiming race by trainer Jason Cook.
It only took five or six hours for Rich Strike to surpass that accomplishment.
"You can kind of strike gold like Eric Reed and this owner did," said Ben Huffman, racing secretary at Keeneland and Churchill Downs. "It's awesome. It can happen. It is unusual, highly unusual, to claim one for $30,000 and have it become a grade 1 winner. That does not happen every day, but this story is good.
"I think it's good for smaller trainers. There's a lot of smaller barns that have gotten out recently, or are thinking about it. This gives those guys hope."
The stakes success of claiming horses from the state has extended beyond Kentucky this spring. On May 20 at Pimlico Race Course, Lady Scarlet traveled from trainer Mike Maker's Churchill Downs Trackside base to win the Miss Preakness Stakes (G3).
Last fall, her owners, Paradise Farms and David Staudacher, claimed her at Churchill Downs from a maiden claiming race for $150,000. Such high-level claiming races are infrequent and claims from them rarer still.
Unlike at an auction when an owner can have their veterinarian inspect a horse or examine its radiographs before purchase, a claiming owner has no such opportunity. Then the horse is theirs after the race, whether it runs first or last.
That is if the claim goes through. Like other states, Kentucky has a voided claim rule, in which a claimed horse is returned to the prior owner if the horse does not pass inspection by the state regulatory veterinarian. The voided claim rule discourages the passing along of a horse with physical troubles to another owner.
The voided claim rule has contributed to a drop in racetrack fatalities across North America, according to a June 2020 evaluation by Tim Parkin, professor of veterinary epidemiology at the University of Glasgow who has analyzed The Jockey Club Equine Injury Database statistics.
But reliance upon a regulatory veterinarian for a relatively quick post-race evaluation—whether in Kentucky or elsewhere—is imperfect. Voided claims occur with more frequency than some horsemen prefer, sometimes for injuries that occur during the race or for minor ailments.
Should all go well for them physically, voided-claim horses can return to competition and go on to success. Lady Scarlet's connections had a horse, Bad Beat Brian, returned to them after a voided $40,000 claim last August at Del Mar. Four months later, he won the 2021 Claiming Crown Canterbury Tom Metzen Memorial Starter Stakes at Gulfstream Park, giving Maker a record-extending 19th victory in the starter stakes series for former claimers.
Voided claims reduce the likelihood that a claiming owner will immediately take possession of a physically-troubled horse, as do other regulations initiated for horse welfare reasons. According to Marty Maline, executive director of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, even before a post-race exam, the horse's practicing veterinarian signs off on the horse's entry. The horse is inspected by a regulatory veterinarian the morning of the race, and later examined by a regulatory veterinarian when in the paddock and warming up.
"For all intents and purposes, he was a sound horse going into the race," Maline said of the typical prospect.
Such procedures leave claiming owners with more protections than five or so years ago, when a claimed horse became their property after a race, whether it won by a city block or walked gingerly back to the barn area.
The outlook for claiming horses and claiming activity has the potential to become even brighter in Kentucky in the months ahead. Flush with revenue from historical horse racing gaming, Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund bonuses for horses may extend beyond allowance and maiden races into claiming races potentially by this summer at Ellis Park, officials speculated.
The KTDF rewards top finishes from horses bred in Kentucky beyond the regular purse of the race.
"It will be exciting. It's only right," Maline said of adding KDTF runs to claiming races. "If they're Kentucky-breds, then all the Kentucky-breds should benefit from it."
Whether KTDF funds extend to all claiming races or merely those above a certain threshold is still to be finalized, Huffman and Maline said. Huffman favors placing the incentives in claiming races for a $15,000 and higher tag, while Maline and the Kentucky HBPA prefer that all claiming races receive funds.
A further change on the horizon applies to claiming rules. Frustrated by horses leaving the state after being claimed, the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission approved amendments this winter to the state's claiming rules to keep horses in the state for a longer period after changing hands through the claim box. This rule is awaiting a regulatory review process that will likely delay its implementation until late in the year.
Previously, horses could compete elsewhere after the close of entries on the final day of the meet where the horse was claimed, but the KHRC extended that period to 30 days from the meet's concluding day. Many states or individual racetracks have similar practices or "house rules," though not all have withstood court challenges.
The rule change is meant to discourage out-of-state connections claiming Kentucky horses specifically to take them elsewhere, a practice that Huffman refers to as "poaching."
Keeneland and Churchill Downs have primarily been the targets of such activity. The short duration of Keeneland's spring and fall meets previously left little restriction to where claimed horses could go next.
Another owner for whom Reed has trained, Jerry Jamgotchian, has long challenged regulators and tracks across the country in court over claiming restrictions. He previously brought a claiming lawsuit to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which ruled in late 2016 that claiming rules were "not protectionist in any meaningful way" and helped "ensure the integrity and viability of Thoroughbred racing, one of this state's most important industries." The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear the case.
The following year in September 2017, Jamgotchian won in court in Indiana against that state's claiming-rule restrictions, arguing the regulation violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.
Maker, a Kentucky resident and an active participant in the state's racing throughout the year, believes owners should have the opportunity to run their property where they wish.
"If you buy at the horses of racing age sale there at Keeneland, what are they going to do—stop the sale now because people are buying horses there and going to take them somewhere else?" he asked.
Still, he said that with purses already so high in the state—Kentucky-bred maiden special weight runners at Churchill compete for $120,000—"Why would you want to run anywhere else?"
