Remembering Kauai King and Don Brumfield

Although I was a young boy back in the year 1966, my long-term memory recalls my father complaining to the local car mechanic that $39.95 was too much money for a complete brake job for our Pontiac car. I also remember it was the year the sports world was introduced to plastic grass known as Astroturf, which was installed as the playing surface in the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. The one-time sporting venue, which no longer exits, was once billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World. With the pistol grip handles, the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots became my first hand-held device. Or how about rolling out a large sheet of colored circles with a spinner that declared where each person's foot or hand must go. With that, families were having fun with a game called Twister. Sunday nights for me back then were spent being constantly reminded by my parents that I was sitting way to close to our black-and-white television set as we were getting ready to watch the Ed Sullivan show, followed by Bonanza, the number one rated T.V. program at the time. Ah, the age of innocence. The good old days.  

It's now 2016 and 1966 is 50 years in the rear view mirror. We live in and occupy a completely different world today from every aspect than we could ever imagine. However, despite the whirlwind of dramatic changes we've seen and been exposed to, there has always been one constant for me. No, it's not the Rolling Stones, who are still performing to sellout crowds today like they were fifty years ago, but rather, it's the Kentucky Derby being run on the first Saturday in May.

A half-century ago, on Saturday, May 7th 1966, my Dad and I watched on that old black and white television, the 92nd Kentucky Derby. A horse named Kauai King received the garland of roses after the race for his win in front-running fashion. It was the first wire-to-wire win since Swaps accomplished the feat in 1955, which incidentally was also held on May 7th of that year.

Attempting to lead all the way from start to finish in the Kentucky Derby spells disaster for many horses. But some horses have done it successfully, and one of these was Kauai King. Aboard the dark bay colt on that warm afternoon was Don Brumfield, a native Kentuckian.

With this year's Kentucky Derby also being run on the May 7th date, and coinciding with the 50-year anniversary of Kauai King winning the Run for the Roses, I contacted Brumfield and told the former rider I was doing a feature about the anniversary of the race for HRN and asked him if he would be kind enough to answer a few questions. He was a true gentleman and said he would be willing to add his personal touch to the story.

Brumfield, who was 27 years old back on Derby Day '66 had been riding for a dozen years, but was now finally getting an opportunity to ride in his first Kentucky Derby. But Brumfield was no stranger to the Churchill Downs track. As a matter of fact, he was quite adept over the surface, having raced and won there hundreds of times prior to climbing aboard his initial Derby mount.

Brumfield's plan of action was quite simple: Get the lead at the beginning, and try to go wire to wire. And get the lead he did. On a fast track with over 100,000 people looking on, Kauai King, sent off as the favorite after such injured stars as Buckpasser and Graustark missed the big event, broke from the gate to gain a narrow advantage through the initial stretch run out in the center of the track. Before the horses had reached the first turn, Kauai King had already cut over to the inside and was now comfortably in front of the pack. I questioned Brumfield if the early lead with his mount just happened to unfold that way after the gates opened, or was it the actual game plan talked about with trainer Henry Forrest before the race. "Yeah, Henry and I more or less discussed getting the lead in our pre-race strategy", he said.

As fourteen horses chased him, Kauai King burned the first quarter in :22 4/5. With no rivals challenging him, the son of Native Dancer, under Brumfield's patient handling, kept motoring along, hitting the half-mile pole in :46 1/5 and opened a three-length lead. Brumfield took his mount to the mile mark in 1:35 flat, (a then Kentucky Derby record time for one-mile), but now the lead was shrinking, prompting some people to wonder whether Kauai King might fade before the race was over. However, Brumfield wasn't one bit concerned. "At that point, he was still moving pretty easy. When we hit the top of the stretch, that's when I asked him to run," he told me.

The Maryland-bred horse with the Hawaiian name responded to his rider's command and kept on running, the crowd noise building as he did. With a quarter-mile left, here came the other horses. Along the inside, jockey Braulio Baeza was urging his mount, Stupendous, while on the outside Wood Memorial runner-up Advocator, with Johnny Sellers aboard, was making a bid. Both runners had moved up into contention from their early mid-pack positions, with the latter getting to within one-length of the leader. In addition, Blue Grass Stakes winner Abe's Hope with Bill Shoemaker up, was mounting a fierce wide rally from far back. Other opponents came at him too, and as he drove down the stretch with the finish line in his sights, Brumfield's frame of mind was "To get home first, keep the horse together and not to get too excited. If your excited on a horse, it's not a good thing."

In the end, it had all gone perfectly as Brumfield and Kauai King hit the wire first a half-length to the good in front of Advocator who finished a nose in front of late rallying third-place finisher, Blue Skyer. When I questioned Brumfield as to what his emotions were in the winner's circle during the post-race celebration, he replied, "I said, I was the happiest hillbilly hardboot."

Following his Derby victory, Kauai King returned to the state of his birth, Maryland, and won the Preakness Stakes. His quest for a Triple Crown ended with a 4th-place finish in the Belmont Stakes. A few weeks later, he was retired from racing due to an injury, and was never able to win another race, but he won the one that counted, the Kentucky Derby. Now, 50 years later Brumfield reflected back on the day and the win, by saying "It was my first Derby ride, so I never had experienced it before. To me, the opportunity just came the way it was supposed to. Now, when I think about the accomplishment, it's a pretty special honor. Not just for me, but for any rider that wins the Kentucky Derby. It puts you in the big picture."

Brumfield had several more Derby mounts, including, Our Native, who finished 3rd to Secretariat in the first two legs of the 1973 Triple Crown.

As for Kauai King, he had a mediocre career at stud, first in Maryland, then England and later Japan, where he died in 1989. Incidentally, that was the same year Brumfield hung up his riding tack for good. At the time of his retirement, Brumfield was the all-time leading rider at Churchill Downs in terms of races won (925). That mark was eventually surpassed by Pat Day. Another honor was bestowed upon Brumfield in 1996, when he was inducted into the Racing Hall of Fame.

I asked Brumfield, now 77, if he's still active in the sport, and his response didn't surprise me. "Yes, I'm currently a racing official (Association Steward) at Gulfstream Park."

1966, it was a fun time to be a kid and it was also the year that KAUAI KING and DON BRUMFIELD entered into Kentucky Derby history.