Youbet.net, Twinspires.com, Espn360.com, probably a bunch of others.
Oh, well, they’re all blocked in my area.
Thanks anyway!
Sheik Mo in da house!
Interview coming up on ESPN.
Nice win by Informed Decision (but then I also like to see foxhunting/ steeplechasing connections do well at the flat tracks!). But bummed at Kenyatta’s absence…
Hank has been on
but he won a race and I haven’t heard any mention of Bob Neumeier. Been switching between 4 channels. Lafitte jr is a terrific ‘personality’. He is pretty good at this. The coverage on NBC is gaseous. A little better on ESPN. HR is much better, but they just signed off from CD till NBC signs off.
And they say horse racing is “dead” - yesterday the Oaks was the 4th largest crowd on hand to watch the Oaks on a day that was full of threats with weather.
Today the Kentucky Derby saw an attendance figure of 153,563 which is the seventh-largest crowd in Derby history despite the sloppy conditions.
Not to mention ESPN, NBC, HRTV and TVG all carried simultainious coverage of the sport for at least 1 hour of overlap live coverage. Yeap a “dead sport” that many professional sports would die to have similar national interest and coverage with …
A rather profitable weekend for Calvin Borel with multiple races and all with that on-the-rail scraping paint style 
Is there a replay some where of this race! I know the breeders of Mine that Bird! He was actually sold for 8500… I have to see this!
Hahahah, this guy must feel a little sheepish…
Congrats to the $9,500 gelding on taking the 135th Kentucky Derby 
Winner’s share of the purse: $1,417,200
Final time: 2:02.66
Margin: 6 3/4 lengths
Though he was a $9500 baby, he was Canada’s leading 2yo last year and was sold late last season for $400,000. Compared to many in this year’s Derby (and I Want Revenge who wasnt there) this was still small potatoes, but it was his most recent purchase price.
A worthy “you wouldn’t believe it if I told you” article following Mind That Bird:
Lexington Herald-Leader 5-2-09 “John Clay: You just don’t take that horse and win”
So some foreshadowing:
Calvin Borel - who with all due respect won that race as any other jockey might not have pulled it out with Mine That Bird - was in rare form Friday and Saturday on a off track.
Friday - “Ladies Day” with the Kentucky Oaks
Watch two videos of his victories (ignoring Rachel Alexandra’s effort as she could’ve run on broken glass and won)
Race 5: Open 3 Year Olds Allowance @ purse: $50,200
Borel up on Warrior’s Reward: won
Race 7: Louisville Stakes (G2) $350,000 for fillies and mares
Borel up on Miss Isella: won
As this thread nears a close - here is the full final order
1 - Mine That Bird: Final Time 2:02.66
2 - Pioneerof The Nile
3 - Musket Man
4 - Papa Clem
5 - Chocolate Candy
6 - Summer Bird
7 - Join in the Dance
8 - Regal Ransom
9 - West Side Bernie
10 - General Quarters
11 - Dunkirk
12 - Hold Me Back
13 - Advice
14 - Desert Party
15 - Mr Hot Stuff
16 - Atomic Rain
17 - Nowhere to Hide
18 - Friesan Fire, Larry Jones: "He got hit real badly out of the gate and grabbed a quarter”
19 - Flying Private
Mine That Bird’s final Beyer Speed Figure was a 105; interestingly as cited by Andy Beyer:
Since the publication of the Beyer Speed Figures, the weakest horse to win the Derby was Giacomo, who had never earned a figure higher than 98 before he scored his 50-to-1 upset in 2005. Yet Giacomo looked like a superhorse compared to Mine That Bird, whose best lifetime figure was the 81 he recorded while losing an obscure stakes race in New Mexico.
If Mine That Bird hadn’t been in the field, then the winning speed figure for the Derby would have been 95 – Pioneerof The Nile – by far the lowest ever for a Triple Crown event.
I’ve been looking for the thread or posts about trainers disclosing what legal drugs the horses are on in prep for the derby. Only 3 trainers disclosed…can anyone enlighten me?
[QUOTE=lalahartma1;4068766]
I’ve been looking for the thread or posts about trainers disclosing what legal drugs the horses are on in prep for the derby. Only 3 trainers disclosed…can anyone enlighten me?[/QUOTE]
This is the NYT’s article - Joe Drape - April 29, 2009
No trainer/owner is compelled to openly share or disclose what their horses has been given in the past just before the Derby. Frankly if the New York Times requested the full records of a Derby entrant I suspect many clean trainer would still tell them to “pound sand” as it were.
That said performance enhancing drugs are illegal, horses are tested, and there is no reason to run the risk of getting caught. It might not happen “immediately” in some CSI-esq determination within a hour but just ask the connections of “Wait a While” in the 2008 Breeders’ Cup.
Or 1968’s Kentucky Derby, which has been the only DQ of a 1st place finisher, Dancer’s Image, due to bute being detected in the post-race urine analysis.
As cited on this thread - see post #527 - The Racing Laboratory at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine will analyze samples taken after each of 25 races over Derby weekend to assure that none of the horses had been given performance-enhancing drugs.
Lasix a/k/a Furosemide is a legal addative under Kentucky racing rules.
Thanks, Glimmerglass!
TB Times May 4, 2009 “Overnight Derby ratings highest in 17 years”
The combined efforts of NBC and Churchill Downs Inc. to angle the Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands (G1) broadcast to a wider audience apparently paid dividends.
NBC Sports reports the race segment of its broadcast registered the highest overnight rating in 17 years. During the hour of the race—6 p.m.-7 p.m. EDT on May 2—the Derby registered a 10.2 overnight rating and a share of 22.
Business Journal of Louisville May 4, 2009 “Kentucky Derby ratings highest since 1992”
That means that on average, 10.2 percent of U.S. households were watching at any given time during the broadcast and 22 percent of all televisions in use between 6 and 7 p.m. were tuned to the broadcast.
The rating was up 7 percent from last year’s 9.5/21 rating, and marks the highest overnight rating for the Kentucky Derby since 1992.
Some additional stories post-Derby
Miami Herald/Associated Press 5-5-09 “Desert Party injured, out indefinitely”
Kentucky Derby also-ran Desert Party will have surgery for a bone chip in his left front ankle and is sidelined indefinitely.
Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford says he doesn’t expect the injury to be career threatening.
The chip was discovered during a series of X-rays taken after the Derby. Crisford says he isn’t sure when the injury occurred, but that it contributed to the horse’s poor showing in the Run for the Roses.
Crisford says he’s hopeful Desert Party can return to the track during the second half of the year and continue to run in 2010 as a 4-year-old.
IWR’s racing career “possibly” over
May 5, 2009, NY Newsday, “Injury could end I Want Revenge’s career”
The injury that forced I Want Revenge out of Saturday’s Kentucky Derby could be career-threatening, a Kentucky veterinarian said Tuesday. An MRI taken Monday morning at Rood and Riddle Equine Center in Lexington, Ky., showed tears in the ligaments attached to the sesamoid bone in the 3-year-old colt’s left front ankle.
“When ligaments detach from the sesamoid, the whole ankle can unravel,” Dr. Foster Northrop told Newsday.
“This was my 18th or 19th Derby, and people lose all sense when they get that close to the race. The owners and the trainer made a brilliant decision not to run. If he had re-injured himself in the race, he would have kept running, because he’s got too much heart to quit. That could have been a disaster.”
Northrop also treated Madcap Escapade, a Grade I stakes-winner who was retired in 2005 after she suffered the same injury in a race. Bramlage diagnosed that injury after an MRI at Rood and Riddle.
The MRI on I Want Revenge revealed a problem that ultrasound tests did not show. “The injury is in a tricky area to see, and on ultrasounds that can make it hard to get a good image,” Northrop said. "The results from MRIs and CAT scans blow ultrasounds out of the water.’’ A bone scan of the ankle was scheduled for Tuesday, and Northrop said the results would be available Wednesday.
