LOUISVILLE, Ky.— The 2023 Kentucky Derby horses all crossed the wire in apparently good condition. After a first week of May like Churchill Downs had, that’s the most important part.
Seven horses died this week under the twin spires, including two on Derby Day. Four others scratched out of the race ahead of time, one because his trainer, Saffie Joseph Jr., was suspended by the state racing commission after two of his other trainees dropped dead of mysterious causes.
Even the morning line favorite, Forte, was scratched by a veterinarian, much to the chagrin of his owner and trainer. After all that, it was worth a sigh of relief when all 18 got back to their barns.
The race itself was an upset, with Mage running past Two Phil’s down the stretch to win at 15-1 odds. The Good Magic colt missed the break, but managed to recover under jockey Javier Castellanos to earn the first Kentucky Derby win for both rider and trainer Gustavo Delgado.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” Delgado’s son and assistant trainer Gustavo Jr. said after the race. “I have my entire family here. It’s such an amazing feeling. Sometimes you have to follow your intuitions and that’s what I did with this horse. Sometimes it pays out and sometimes it doesn’t. It really did today.”
Mage came into the Derby after finishing second in his last race, behind the aforementioned Forte. He wasn’t the longest shot in the field, but the eighth choice still made his supporters $32.42 on a $2 bet.
It took a mighty effort down the stretch to get past Two Phil’s, who was running in both trainer Larry Rivelli and jockey Jareth Loveberry’s first Derby.
“We were confident,” Rivelli said after the race. “But the reality is we almost did it. Almost.”
Mage and Two Phil’s both had to hold off a late charge from Angel of Empire. Far from another first-timer, that colt’s trainer is Brad Cox, one of the biggest barns in the game.
“Angel of Empire ran well,” Cox said. “It was a hot pace. Down the backside he had a few beat. I don’t know where the winner was laying. We had a little bit of excitement down the lane. I thought he had a shot.”
Disarm rounded out the superfecta in fourth place, running for trainer Steve Asmussen, who moved to 0-25 all-time in the Kentucky Derby.
Mage’s late-running style was aided by a blazing fast pace set by Verifying and Kingsbarns, who ran the first three fractions in 22.35, 45.73 and 1:10.11. After getting off to nearly as bad a start was possible, Castellanos gave a master class in not panicking, saving enough ground to come back late for the win.
It was his 16th try at the Derby.
“Sometimes you get down a little bit, but I didn’t give up,” he said. “I always tried to be positive and tried to find the right horse to participate in the biggest races in the world. It’s amazing when somebody, they believe in you and they trust you.”
Delgado took an unconventional training route with the colt. He didn’t run Mage as a two-year-old, instead opting to debut him in January.
At that point, it took a huge training job to get him ready for the Derby. The colt ran fourth in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream before entering the Florida Derby and running second, earning enough qualifying points for a spot in the Run for the Roses.
“Gustavo is a PHD expert in getting horses ready to run a mile and a quarter, a mile and three-sixteenths, a mile and a half,” Romero Restrepo, a part-owner of Mage said. “That’s what we call his bread and butter.”
The celebratory mood in the press conference was cut when the seven horses that died were mentioned. It was a reminder of what horse racing could be, a sport where longshots, the little teams and little trainers can have their day in the sun.
But also one where the participants can die, a risk that can never be fully eliminated.
“I’m sure there’s gonna be some investigations done as to the reasons behind that and hopefully that provides a few more answers,” Restrepo said. “But all we can do is focus on ourselves and our barn and the top care we give our horses.”
That care worked out Saturday. Churchill Downs and the state tried their best to make sure it would work out for every other horse in the race, doing things like suspending Joseph and forcing Forte to scratch.
Still, a day full of perfect training jobs, marvelous rides and a huge upset, all under the twin spires of one of sporting world’s iconic venues, might well be remembered as such. But even though those things happened, they’re not the full picture of a sport.