Mage, with Javier Castellano aboard, won by a length, bringing joy and relief to fans after a dispiriting run-up to the race in which seven horses died.
The best thing you can say about the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby is that the 18 horses who made it to the starting gate on Saturday survived. That came as a relief after at least seven horses died at Churchill Downs in the past week, two of them on Saturday in races leading up to America’s most famous race.
By the time the horses edged into the starting gate for what is an annual thoroughbred celebration on the first Saturday in May, all anyone who loves the sport was thinking — no, praying — was that these ethereal creatures and their riders get around the mile and a quarter race safely.
Could you blame them?
In the past week, seven horses died, one trainer and his horse were kicked off the grounds by regulators under a cloud of suspicion and four other Derby horses were declared out of the race. The most stunning was the favorite 3-1 morning line Forte — last year’s 2-year-old champion — whom Kentucky state veterinarians decided early Saturday morning was not healthy enough to compete even after nursing a bruised hoof for the last couple of days.
Forte was trained by a Hall of Famer, Todd Pletcher. He was co-owned by a passionate champion of horse racing, Mike Repole, who by his own estimate has sunk $300 million into buying horses, even as he confessed that he was confounded by the dysfunction that is tolerated in horse racing.
