Favorite crosses first, but doesn’t win
Maximum Security disqualified, giving way to Country House at 65-1
LOUISVILLE, KY >> This has not been horse racing’s finest hour: Dead horses at Santa Anita Park and consternation among horse people that they can treat their athletes better but have failed to do so. It’s little wonder then that the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday ended in astonishment and controversy.
See, Maximum Security won America’s most famous race on the track. Until he didn’t. Yes, he crossed the finish line first, by all appearances remaining unbeaten and giving a hard-knocking trainer from the Mid-Atlantic, Jason Servis, and his up-and-coming jockey, Luis Saez, their first Derby victories.
But there was a problem — a big one. Maximum Security jumped a puddle on the rain-soaked track and slid to the outside, not only impeding the progress of a rival, War of Will, but also forcing that colt’s rider, Tyler Gaffalione, to squeeze his knees and wrangle the reins just to stay aboard.
“Leave it to the racing gods,” an increasingly anguished Servis said as he awaited the stewards’ decision after an objection.
After the racing stewards spent nearly 20 minutes looking at
video, they decided the misstep was enough to disqualify Maximum Security and declare the runner-up — a long shot named Country House — the improbable victor.
It was not a popular decision. In fact, it was the brave one.
As officials studied video, the trainer of Country House, Bill Mott, was trackside and said on national television what horseplayers know, dread and curse on a regular basis.
“There was definitely a foul in the race,” Mott, a Hall of Famer, said. “If this was a maiden claimer on a weekday the winner would come down.”
He did, and Mott, a horseman revered among his peers for being “halfhorse,” had his first Derby victory. The rider of Country House, Flavien Prat, also notched his first Derby score, an experience he was bemused by.
“It’s my first Derby victory,” Prat said with a shrug and a smile.
Maximum Security finished in 2:03.93, 1 ¾ lengths in front of Country House, who finished ¾ of a length in front of Code of Honor, followed by Tacitus (also trained by Mott). Country
House paid $132.40 to win, the second-highest total in the Derby.
The stakes were high Saturday for a declining sport that has quickly become an endangered one. Twentythree horse deaths over a three-month span at Santa Anita Park in Southern California shut down racing there and produced calls to ban the sport.
Here at Churchill Downs, 43 thoroughbreds were lost to racing injuries since 2016, an average of 2.42
per 1,000 starts, which was 50 percent higher than the national average during the same time.
So it was with racing hearts and fraught nerves that the crowd of 150,729 sent off the field of 19 horses on a rainy day that left the racetrack as sticky as peanut butter and the horses and riders determined to find safe and strategic footing.
It looked like Saez had guided Maximum Security to a winning path. They bounded out of the gate and led the way into the first turn. The plan was apparent every step of the way.
It appeared to have worked. Servis was about to make history of his own. His younger brother John won this race with Smarty Jones in 2004 and now he was about to join him in the record books as the only brothers to train a Derby champion. Instead, it was someone else’s day. “It’s bittersweet,” Mott said. “You always want to win with a clean trip and have the horse recognized as the great athlete that he is. So yeah, it diminishes it. I know they had a very tough decision. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.”
Then he paused, and a smile crept into the corners of his mouth.
“I’m damn glad they put our number up.”