Flatter: Counting down Kentucky Derby 1-hit wonders
Clint Longley. Right Said Fred. “Freaks and Geeks.”
What do they have in common?
Jeremy Lin. Soft Cell. Ylvis.
That Andy Warhol line about 15 minutes? Yeah. That would be them. Life’s one-hit wonders.
We have them in horse racing, too, except Warhol owes most of them about 13 minutes apiece.
I see you now sipping the coffee or something more adult than that. Trying to use one hand on the keypad. Thinking about whether to click over to that story about one of the big races Saturday. Except there are not that many. Not this week.
This is a list of our game’s flashes of brilliance. And I know what you are thinking. That this was inspired by Rich Strike. Except he cannot fall into that category. Since he is not retired yet, he might have another big moment or two in him. Maybe.
“There’s a whole lot of them that win the Derby and don’t win again,” said trainer Eric Reed, who hopes to give Rich Strike as many as five more chances for a winning encore to last year’s 80-1 tour de force at Churchill Downs.
So with that incomplete grade still out there, here is a subjective list of the top 10 one-hit wonders who finished first in the Kentucky Derby and never won again.
10. Go for Gin. Who knows if he even would have had this 1994 triumph if not for a sloppy track that was unkind to 2-1 favorite Holy Bull? Go for Gin was a three-time stakes winner before that spring. Among his last 12 starts, he won the Derby, finished second in the Preakness, Belmont and four other races and was third once. Training for the 1995 Met Mile, Go for Gin tore a tendon at Belmont Park and was retired on the spot. Trainer Nick Zito has not won a Derby since that wet spring day nearly 29 years ago. After his stud career, Go for Gin was pensioned to Kentucky Horse Park, where he died last March.
9. Pink Star. On a track made bottomless by rain, the longest shot on the board in 1907 closed from last place, made up 8 1/2 lengths to take a late lead and eventually won by two. After that 15-1 triumph, Pink Star was diagnosed with an infection that left him with a permanent defect that made it impossible for him to breathe normally. The following year he was retired, gelded and put to work as a plow horse living out his days on the farm of owner-breeder J. Hal Woodford.
8. Grindstone. It used to be that horses were bred to race. Now they are raced to breed. If there was a fork in that road, it might have been reached six days after Grindstone gave trainer D. Wayne Lukas his sixth win in the Derby. That was in 1996, when he was diagnosed with a chip in his right knee. Time might have allowed him to heal and race again, but an impending stallion career in Oregon would not. He stood for $2,500. Modest, yes, but the pendulum had begun to swing. Grindstone spent the rest of his life in the Pacific Northwest before he died last spring.
7. Super Saver. Who forgot that Super Saver never hit the board again after that 2010 victory? He really should not have been the one who got trainer Todd Pletcher off his 0-for-24 Derby schneid. Eskendereya would have been the favorite had he not developed a swollen leg the week before the race. Then it rained, and Super Saver thrived in those conditions, having broken his maiden by seven lengths in the slop at Belmont Park eight months earlier. Coming back in the Preakness, Haskell (G1) and Travers (G1), he never was closer than 4 3/4 lengths in those losses. Retirement followed that fall, when bruises were found in all four of Super Saver’s cannon bones. Now an accomplished stallion who sired Letruska and Runhappy, he stands at a stud farm in Turkey.
6. Manuel. This was a year best forgotten in Derby history. Nearly two weeks before the 1899 race, Louisville Jockey Club founder Meriweather Lewis Clark Jr. killed himself. He reputedly overextended himself with stock-market debts and did not want to live a penniless life. Manuel, who got hurt in his last prep when he jumped over a rail, recovered in time to win the Derby, the race Clark created 24 years earlier. It was the last winning ride in a U.S. classic for jockey Fred Taral, a future trainer who posthumously became a charter member of the Hall of Fame. As for Manuel, he got hurt again when he stepped in a rut while training for another start at Churchill Downs. He never raced again.
5. Always Dreaming. One could say Pletcher’s second Derby victor was a two-hit wonder since we went from the allowance ranks to finish first in Grade 1 races twice in a five-week span of 2017. He became the first horse in 84 years to go winless as a 2-year-old before scoring in America’s biggest race. After finishing first in the Florida and Kentucky derbies, Always Dreaming followed Super Saver’s lead by finishing eighth in the Preakness. Four losses followed during the next year before he was retired to stud at WinStar, where he stands for $10,000.
4. Behave Yourself. A friend of Wyatt Earp who gambled a gold-mining bonanza into a casino fortune, Edward Riley was confident his horse would win the 1921 Derby. It just was not supposed to be this horse. His better prospect was Black Servant, who was outdueled to the finish by his less-respected stablemate. Legend has it that Black Servant was distracted when a spectator threw a hat onto the track. It was Behave Yourself’s only win in 11 starts as a 3-year-old. After being retired, Riley gave him away to become a sire of polo ponies. Eventually, Behave Yourself would serve in the U.S. Army cavalry until he died in 1937.
3. Mine That Bird. His rail-hugging, 50-1 surprise in the slop in 2009 was part of Calvin Borel’s 3-for-4 Derby run. For him that was worth a place in the Hall of Fame. For the other connections, all from New Mexico, the little gelding’s one day in May did not exactly put them on the A list. Not that trainer Chip Woolley and owners Leonard Blach and Mark Allen were completely without any more thrills. Often forgotten in Mine That Bird’s 0-for-9 record after the Derby was how he came within a length of beating eventual horse of the year Rachel Alexandra in the Preakness. Now 17, he lives on Allen’s ranch in Roswell, N.M.
2. Brokers Tip. If a horse is going to win only one race, then let it be in the Kentucky Derby. Brokers Tip’s career record was 1-for-14. Yes, a maiden won America’s biggest race in 1933. Remember hearing about that one Derby when the jockeys brawled while they were dueling in the stretch? This was it. Brokers Tip won thanks in large measure to Don Meade’s skill in outkicking and outwhipping Head Play’s rider Herb Fisher. Lacking immediate evidence of a foul, stewards let the result stand, but Meade and Fisher were hit with one-month suspensions. Brokers Tip was owned by the same Edward Riley who had Behave Yourself. Eventually the horse was sold and then donated to UC Davis, where he was used for veterinary instruction before and after he died 70 years ago. He still is the only Derby winner who never finished first in any other race.
1. Dancer’s Image. How about a no-hit wonder? Phenylbutazone, now commonly known as bute and even more commonly used these days, was illegal in 1968. After he won the Derby that year, Dancer’s Image tested positive for the drug, and Forward Pass was promoted to the victory in the only such disqualification in what was then the 98-year history of the race. Owner Peter Fuller spent four years and who knows how much in legal fees to fight the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission’s decision, but he lost. Dancer’s Image raced only once more time, finishing third to Forward Pass in the 1968 Preakness before being disqualified again, this time for the more garden-variety sin of interference. By the time his exclamation point had been stripped permanently from his record, Dancer’s Image was a stallion who eventually stood in Ireland, France and finally Japan, where he died in 1992. Fuller lived until 2012 and still had the Derby trophy, something he said he never was asked to return.
Rich Strike has plenty of time to stay off this list. But what is the old line about being better to have won then lost than never to have won at all? Actually, that is not really how it goes.
Maybe someone can ask Chris Rea, Joe Charbonneau or cast of “My So-Called Life.”