Street Sense, a BC Juvenile Winner Who Finally Does It!

The Kentucky Derby is usually such a crap shoot. This year it seemed a little more obvious. And yet it was still such an exciting race. So, here is Joe Drape’s rendition and color:

May 6, 2007

Street Sense Wins Derby After Giving Field a Head Start

By JOE DRAPE

LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 5 — Calvin Borel had Street Sense in 19th place as the field hit the backstretch and about half a block behind the leaders in the 133rd running of the Kentucky Derby. Was he worried? Hardly. He had his agile colt next to his beloved rail — they don’t call the jockey “Bo-Rail” here at Churchill Downs for nothing.

“I had a bomb,” Borel said.

He and Street Sense skimmed the rail, picking off one horse after another like a vacuum cleaner. They hugged the rail on the far turn as if it were magnetized and then, finally, the explosion. Street Sense vaulted from the rail at the quarter pole, took aim at the leader, Hard Spun, and then he was gone.

In the charts, it will say Street Sense circled the mile and a quarter in 2:02.17 for a two-and-a-half-length victory. In the racing history books, it will say that Street Sense became the first winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to win the Kentucky Derby, and the last 2-year-old champion to wear the roses since Spectacular Bid in 1979.

Street Sense’s performance, however, was far more than that. Not only was he dominating but he did it so effortlessly that Borel believes that he has yet to see the best of the colt.

“I really don’t know how good he is,” said Borel, a 40-year-old journeyman who captured his first Derby in his fifth try. “He is a push-button horse."

Street Sense, a son of Street Cry out of the mare Bedazzle, was plenty good yesterday. While Hard Spun, Cowtown Cat and Teuflesberg took the field through a brisk half mile of 46.26 seconds, Borel actually asked Street Sense to slow down.

“I knew they were going quick and so I backed him up,” Borel said.

In a box at the finish line, the colt’s trainer and owner, Carl Nafzger and Jim Tafel, liked what they saw.

“Calvin has a clock in his head that is unreal,” said Nafzger, who won his second Kentucky Derby 17 years after he captured his first with Unbridled in 1990.

Tafel, 83, began believing that the prophecy Nafzger recited to him last October was about to be fulfilled. “We’re going to win the Kentucky Derby,” Nafzger had told his owner of 23 years after Street Sense had finished third in a race at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky.

Even though Street Sense did not win that race, the Breeders’ Cup Futurity, he had demonstrated an ability to relax behind horses and rocket past them when Borel asked.

“He had learned his lessons,” Nafzger said.

The crowd of 156,635 — the third largest in Derby history — were about to see how well street Sense had comprehended the racing business. As they hit the far turn, Cowtown Cat and Teuflesberg started backing up.

Hard Spun, however, was still running. First, Sedgefield and then Nobiz Like Shobiz took a run at him. Borel again was not worried — the rail was wide open and Street Sense was polishing it. Street Sense was sent off the 9-2 favorite, after all.

“The ones in front of me were getting tired and drifting apart,” he said. “It was wide open.”

It was time. Street Sense slung shot off the turn and zoomed outside of Sedgefield. Hard Spun was next. From the middle of the track, Borel took aim at the leader. He knew the race was over.

“It was just a matter of how far he wins by,” Borel said.

In an instant, Street Sense streaked by Hard Spun and the jockey Mario Pino.

The trainer of Hard Spun, Larry Jones, held faint hope that his colt was about to win the Derby.

“I felt pretty good around the turn,” he said. “I could only see one horse moving. But he came with authority.”

Borel crossed the reigns one, two, three, four, five times. He looked back again.

He showed Street Sense the whip once, twice and then he couldn’t help himself. He lifted his the whip high in celebration.

He was yards from the wire. It didn’t matter.

Street Sense was on his way to his fourth victory in eight starts and, with the $1.45 first-place check, his earnings were about to reach nearly $3 million.

Nafzger had been in the winner’s circle of America’s greatest race. Tafel had not.

“This is the epitome of anybody in the horse business,” he said. “It’s the most difficult race in the world to win.”

For Borel, the victory was even more monumental. He had grown up in Louisiana and learned to ride in the region’s fabled Cajun bush tracks.

Borel knew horses. He just did not know if he would ever get the opportunity to ride a great one.

“I always knew I had the ability,” he said. “I just had to find the horse to get me there.”

I am not surprised by the outcome and I am still excited. What a wonderful race and outcome.

Now on to the Preakness!