Hopes ride high as local colt heads to Kentucky Derby
Daunting odds don’t rattle Manfred and Penny Conrad.
So go ahead, oddsmakers. Keep pegging their Canadian-bred bay colt, State of Honor, as a 30- or 40or even 50-to-one long shot to win the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
“These are the odds, what are you going to do, right?” said Manfred on Sunday while mixing hamburgers with his wife, Penny, on their 11-hectare horse farm in Wellesley Township.
“If we can come somewhere in the middle, we would be delighted. We don’t expect to stand at the podium there for sure.”
But State of Honor, with a racing career that began at Woodbine, has looked strong the past few weeks breezing around the Derby’s hallowed track of Churchill Downs, right? He’s running as well as any horse in the field, Manfred assured. He even beat one of the favourites, Gunnevera, in his last race.
So could State of Honor become another Canadian-bred Kentucky Derby champ, like Northern Dancer in ’64 or Sunny’s Halo in ’83? Hmmm.
Did we mention State of Honor’s parents can both trace their bloodline back to Northern Dancer? Perhaps destiny is saddled up with the Conrad horse too.
“I can tell you more next Saturday after the race,” said the 71year-old Manfred, a semiretired local developer and well-known
Waterloo Region philanthropist.
Yes, the race. A two-minute, 20-horse mad dash for the storied red-rose garland. That’s where State of Honor, after clinching a derby spot with a runner-up showing on April Fool’s Day, will be next Saturday in Louisville.
The horse’s name? Penny fashioned it.
“She usually asks me for names,” Manfred said.
“And then she picks what she thinks is right.”
The horse’s mother is State Cup. The father is To Honor and Serve. Mush them together and you get State of Honor, Penny explained. There’s a piece of her in that name, too.
“My christened name is Honor Penelope,” said Penny, 70, who grew up in England. “I got a little bit of my name in there.”
Manfred, who grew up in Germany, blames — and credits — Penny for getting them into the horse-breeding business about 10 years ago when he stepped one foot into retirement.
“We only had one or two horses, then Penny said, ‘I’d like to breed some horses.’ You know how it goes,” explained Manfred, who met Penny at a dance for immigrants at Kitchener’s Concordia Club in the 1960s.
“Then you have horses and don’t want to sell them. And then you have some more horses. Before you know it, you’re really in the business.”
Manfred figures they’ve invested about $100,000 in the bay colt. They paid $25,000 to $30,000 for the original stud fee
State of Honor, who has never been to the Conrads’ Wellesley horse farm, was born and raised at Mike Carroll’s farm in Grand Valley, Ont. At the end of the first year, the horse went down to Florida to begin his training, Penny explained.
The Conrads watched all his races this past winter in Florida as he earned about $300,000. He also placed second in the Tampa Bay Derby in March.
So far, 2017 has been a big year for the 17.2-hands-high horse. “He’s a huge horse,” Penny said. “But he’s good to work with.”
And if State of Honor doesn’t stun the field on Saturday? That’ll be just fine with the Conrads, who leave for Kentucky on Tuesday with some friends in tow.
But those long odds bandied about can be annoying.
“I don’t think we’re getting the respect we deserve,” Penny said. “Hey, we’ll take it. We’re just happy to be there. It’s going to be an experience that is probably once in a lifetime.”
The couple, who raised three kids, will drink up the invigorating Kentucky Derby experience, like a cool mint julep poured over crushed race-weekend ice.
“We’re going to enjoy ourselves,” Manfred said. “I never would have thought in my wildest dreams, when we went into that business, that we would ever go to a Kentucky Derby.”
What would be the odds on that? Never mind. They beat them.