Long shot Rich Strike wins in stunning upset
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Rich Strike was not in the Kentucky Derby when Friday morning dawned at Churchill Downs. He made the field as an alternate when Ethereal Road scratched.
Of all the scenarios fans and analysts batted about Saturday before the 148th running of the Derby, he was not part of any. He went off as an 80-1 long shot, the ultimate afterthought.
That changed in a hurry as he roared down the stretch in pursuit of two of the most gifted blue bloods in the race, Epicenter and Zandon. When he hit the wire ahead of both, this previously anonymous colt became the second-longest shot ever to win the Derby.
“I fell down in the paddock when he hit the wire,” said trainer Eric Reed, who had never saddled a horse for the Derby. “I about passed out.”
“He was tough. He was tough,” said Rich Strike’s jockey, Sonny Leon, after riding to victory in his first Derby.
Rich Strike, a fitting name if there ever was one, paid a whopping $163.60 on a $2 bet to win, $74.20 on a $2 bet to place and $29.40 on a $2 bet to show. Only Donerail in 1913 won the race at longer odds.
Epicenter, the 4-1 favorite, finished second, paying $7.40 on a $2 bet to place and $5.20 on a $2 bet to show. Zandon, the morning-line favorite, finished third, paying $5.60 on a $2 bet to show. Epicenter’s trainer Steve Asmussen and Zandon’s trainer Chad Brown, two of the most accomplished figures in the sport, again fell short in their respective quests to win a first Derby.
Instead, the glory went to Reed, a second-generation trainer who said he nearly left the game when he lost 23 horses to a barn fire in 2016.
When Reed found out his horse was in the field on Friday, he was already planning a Saturday workout and a trip to New York for the May 14 Peter Pan Stakes.
He claimed Rich Strike for $30,000 last fall after the horse won a maiden race at Churchill Downs. He did not win again over his next five races.
Reed loved the way he was training at Churchill Downs, so when the Derby opportunity presented itself, he figured: why not?
Saturday dawned overcast and cool, but patrons in pink jackets and flowered hats soldiered their way to Churchill Downs, determined to soak in the largest party of the spring. The coronavirus pandemic sucked the spirit out of the Derby along with every other public gathering, pushing it to
Labor Day weekend in 2020 and limiting the crowd to 51,838, about one-third of the usual throng, in 2021. So this was a stab at normalcy for a city where racing remains a signature industry.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and Olympic swimming great Michael Phelps were among those in town for the festivities, with both appearing on the red carpet at the Barnstable Brown Gala fundraiser on Derby eve.
Beyond the pandemic, the Derby itself has been a stage for chaos in recent years.
In 2019, patrons, bettors, trainers and jockeys waited 22 minutes to see if stewards would disqualify Maximum Security, who crossed the finish line first after veering into the path of several rivals on the far turn. They did, handing victory to 65-1 long shot Country House, who never raced again.
Last year, Medina Spirit seemed to give trainer Bob Baffert his record-setting seventh Derby win. But his victory was called into question, and ultimately overturned, by a positive test for the ant-inflammatory medication betamethasone.
The ensuing hubbub over Medina Spirit’s entry in the Preakness (he was allowed to run after extra prerace testing and finished third) cast a shadow over the Triple Crown series. The colt died suddenly in December, about two months before the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission stripped his Derby win and suspended Baffert.
That penalty kept the sport’s most famous figure away from Churchill Downs this year. His traditional Barn 33 sat empty, devoid of the signs celebrating his past Derby triumphs and of the crowd that usually congregates around the white-haired trainer. Baffert was not entirely absent from the race, however, with two of his former trainees, Messier and Taiba, entered under the care of his former assistant, Tim Yakteen. In an interview with ESPN on the eve of the Derby, Baffert vowed to continue fighting to clear his name and to restore Medina Spirit’s victory.
So the 2022 race went off against a complicated backdrop. But Rich Strike blew the messy stories out of the water with his monumental upset.