The last stretch of this year’s Kentucky Derby was goddamned cinematic. Like Seabiscuit and War Horse and Air Bud and Cry Macho all had a four-way. The child of this union, Derby winner Rich Strike, now has to do a full Mamma Mia! to determine parentage. 80-1 long-shot Rich Strike hasn’t won a race since last August, per WDBR News, and was super-duper not favored to win. In fact, it seemed unlikely the horse would even race. “We were told at 8:45 we weren’t going to be in,” Rich Strike’s trainer Eric Reed said. “So, I broke the news to the owners and my parents and some friends. We had our five minutes of silence, started picking ourselves up, and I got another call just before nine saying, ‘Hey, hold on, something is going on,’ and then they told us we got in. The people that were standing around here, sounded like we scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl, you know, I mean it was crazy, so it’s been fun.” Fun to be a part of, and fun to watch.
“What I love is that Rich Strike is not even remotely in the consciousness of the announcers, not a part of the story, not in the conversation at all, until the absolute very last second,” Tweeted MST3K alum Frank Conniff. “I don’t think I’d believe this if I saw it in a movie.” Even better, Rich Strike immediately began biting those other loser horses he’d been racing against. We love a bad boy, don’t we folks?
