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May 6, 2024 - Doug Collins Podcast
50:17
The 150th Annual Kentucky Derby
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
This house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Alright, welcome folks.
It is Friday, May 3rd.
It's the first Friday in May.
And what that means is tomorrow is the first Saturday in May.
And as many of you know, the first Saturday in May is always the run for the roses at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, the Kentucky Derby.
And so we have our Kip Kiefer with us today.
I'm going to introduce Kip when we come back from a break.
Kip is our special horse handicapper amongst many things.
He wears many hats.
But today we were just going to use Friday Funday to talk about the Kentucky Derby and preview the run for the roses tomorrow in Louisville.
But we couldn't do that without starting to talk about the absolute chaos on America's universities and college campuses this week with the sit-ins and the protests and the camps and all that stuff.
So we're going to cover both of those issues.
Stick with us right after the break.
We'll get into the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party and we'll preview the Kentucky Derby.
So stick with us.
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Okay, folks, thanks for joining us today.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this is the first Friday in the month of May, and that means the Kentucky Derby is tomorrow, and we've got Kip Kiefer back on the show with us again today.
Live, Kip, are you in Birmingham, Alabama today?
I am in my palatial studio in Birmingham, Chip.
It's great to be here on the Doug Collins podcast.
Well, I'm glad you could join us.
And I know when I reached out to you earlier in the week, we were just going to exclusively today discuss the race tomorrow at Churchill Downs.
But we really can't get there until we talk about...
What I call the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party, and that is 18- to 22-year-old kids who have probably $250,000 of college debt and don't know any better and decide they want to spend their last week or so of the semester in college setting up tents around campuses and At America's colleges and universities,
all because TikTok told them to hate Jews.
Kip, what's going on?
Oh, Chip, we're going to talk about a horse race.
Let's talk about some horse manure first.
This whole episode, I told you chatting this week that If you'd have told me there was unrest in college and chaos and upheaval, I would have thought you were talking about the NIL and transfer portal in college football just a week ago.
How naive was that when all of this was going on?
This issue is so...
Just mind-boggling because you mentioned that a lot of these are students and there's always been at that age and in that kind of environment, even going back to the 60s, of course, with the great anti-war and civil rights demonstrations on college campuses and, of course, the tragic events at Kent State in 1968 where the National Guard actually opened fire to try to control the crowd and resulted in four people being killed.
But there's always been this kind of desire, it's fashionable, it's cool to be part of some big movement, and to be energized for this cause is absolutely preposterous.
But here's what I'm really disturbed by, Chip.
These are not just college students.
There are, and we've seen it before in the 2020 riots, there is an element of professional agitators that are immediately We're dispatched to these kind of events that really kind of take it to another level of not just simple chanting and protesting, but of destruction of property, of threatening various individuals, of defying law enforcement officers.
You used the word chaos earlier.
That's what this is all about.
This is creating chaos.
It's all part of this whole movement To try and tear down this country and all the things that we stand for and all the institutions we have, including our educational institutions.
And we're seeing that play out now with a professional bunch of people.
At Columbia, almost half the arrests were people that were not students at Columbia.
They were these people that come from the Soros-funded various organizations and dispatched them to take things to the next level and create complete upheaval.
Yeah, it's a cottage industry, right?
The Soros model has always been...
Soros loves throwing money on broadcast TV and paid voter contact and things like that, but this really is community organizing.
They send in what I call professional domestic terrorists to do this and to prey on these college students.
I don't know why I get such a kick out of this.
I've really enjoyed this week watching all of these protests.
I really shouldn't enjoy it as much as I do, but I do.
It gives me humor, largely because it's so easy to have some fun with these kids, right?
The Babylon Bee.
I don't know how many people that listen to the podcast follow the Babylon Bee, but the Babylon Bee is a website of satire, right?
I mean, everything on...
Everything on the Babylon Bee is satire.
And so, you know, Twitter tried to shut them down before Elon Musk purchased the platform after last year's election cycle.
And they had the top nine reasons.
I feel like I'm David Letterman.
I'm going to read them now.
Awesome.
The top nine reasons.
Actually, let me read for this because I'm butchering it.
Much has been made about the student protesters occupying spaces on college campuses recently.
But what do these masked wannabe revolutionaries actually want?
The Babylon Bee has obtained a following list of completely reasonable demands made by students occupying buildings.
I'm going to read them over to you real quick.
Number nine.
These are the demands of the protesters.
The total dismantling of all Western society and some frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts.
That'd be easy.
Number nine.
An extra 30 minutes of screen time on the weekends because Schindler's List is a long movie.
Number...
I'm sorry.
Nine and eight.
Number seven.
The campus be designated a gun-free, banana-free, and Jew-free zone.
Mm-hmm.
Number six, no accountability or consequences for anything they do or say at any point in time in their lives.
Number five, some red vines.
Get out of here with your Twizzler offers.
Number four, for Jews just to stand still, surrender, and agree to be eradicated.
And no defending themselves.
That's completely not fair.
The next one, Dunkaroos with extra cream.
They never give you extra cream with Dunkaroos, Kevin.
The hardships.
Number two, later bedtimes and no more naps.
No more naps.
Number one reason, the number one demand of students occupying campus buildings are several pints of Ben and Jerry's from the river to the sea.
Palestine will be free.
Pistachio ice cream.
Oh boy.
I mean, are you kidding me?
I mean, this whole thing is just, it breeds of satire.
It's just so silly and crazy.
I would be willing to bet there probably is a flavor already at Ben& Jerry's of that variety to top off the number one demand.
Chip, it's so mind-boggling that you mentioned the debt that these kids pile up to just go to these institutions.
These are supposedly the Ivy League elite institutions.
But it's absolutely staggering how little knowledge that these kids have of...
The reality of things and absolutely no perspective of history.
If you know anything about this region, the whole suggestion that the Israelis are oppressors and the poor Palestinians are the oppressed, that they have driven them off of their land, that the nation of Palestine has been usurped and occupied by the Israelis is absolute nonsense.
This territory that is modern-day Israel It has been in the hands of every major civilization, power, since the beginnings of time.
Going back to the Assyrians and the Romans and the Egyptians and the Greeks, everybody has controlled this territory at one time or another, leading up even into the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire.
I mean, it's never been...
They seem to believe that it was Palestine and it was just a hunky-dory, happy kumbaya place for many years until the evil Israelis came and ran them off.
And to hear the word genocide constantly screamed by these people, Chip, is absolutely ridiculous because the ultimate victims of genocide throughout history have been the Hebrew and Jewish people.
For them to now be cast in the role of the oppressor, not the oppressed, is absolutely just beyond comprehension to me.
It is.
And I tell you, Kip, there's been a massive difference in how, just take California, for example, a massive difference in how a lot of these schools and universities have chosen to deal with these protesters.
Oh, gosh.
Other than California, USC and UCLA are, what, 12 miles apart as the crow flies?
You know, they're very close to campuses.
Look, you don't read about the protests on USC's campus because they set out, the administration in Southern California said, okay, here's what you can do, here's when you can do it, and then here's when we're going to stop you from doing it.
You can set up these encampments.
You have to be gone by five on this certain day.
And then they did it.
And so what happened was everybody that was at the USC's campus decided to go over to UCLA because UCLA was going to negotiate with these protesters.
They were going to give them their ability to speak free.
I have a friend of mine That I've worked with in politics, Kip, who has a lot of roots in Ohio and in California.
And all his life, he's had a vitriolic feeling of the Southeastern Conference.
He hates the SEC. And he lives in San Diego now, and I saw his Facebook post the other day, and he said, and he's got one son that's 16, 17, junior in high school, and he's starting to look at where he's going to go to colleges, and he said, the list of schools that my son is now going to be allowed to go to has gotten smaller.
I bet.
No.
at places like tuscaloosa and auburn and uh you saw a little bit of it in athens but boy the georgia state patrol shut they shut it down in gainesville the university of florida governor to say this i was having none of that yeah absolutely and
And so, in any event, on the theme of the Babylon Bee, before we get on to the Kentucky Derby, they have been very gracious to post the nine highly effective days to remove board members.
That's correct.
From your campus.
So I'm going to read those to you now and get your thoughts on it.
The number nine way to remove protesters from your campus is to pepper spray them in the eyeballs.
It's very classic way.
Number eight, run around screaming, I'm unvaccinated!
Carrying a Robert and Kennedy Jr. poster.
Yes.
Yeah, number seven, hold a Biden campaign rally and it will instantly become a ghost town.
Number six, put up a sign that says free drugs and gay stuff this way with an arrow pointing off campus.
Number five, tell them they have to locate Gaza on a map before they can protest.
That's a deal killer.
There's no way any of them can do that.
Number four, throw granola bars containing gluten at all of them.
That's awesome.
Number three, halt all deliveries of pizza rolls and jelly fruit snacks.
Yep, that would shut it down.
Tell them you saw Jew across the street and he's getting away.
They won't be able to resist the urge to hunt them down.
Unbelievable.
Number one way.
The number one highly effective way to remove protesters from your campus, send in Kyle Rittenhouse.
Oh, absolutely.
We'll clear a quad in less than 12 seconds.
Well, you know, Kyle Rittenhouse is interesting, Chip, because to accentuate the point we made before about most of this not just being students, it's all these interlopers that get involved, all these adjutants that from the outside...
Everybody that Rittenhouse encountered in his night were not just regular protesters.
They were all of these same kind of people, all with long records.
And if anybody's thinking that this is just theory...
Remember at the Antifa and BLM things in the 2020, all of the organized protests and riots that got completely out of control?
Remember how just conveniently on the street corner, somebody that day just happened to deliver a pallet of bricks and different things you could throw around?
What a coincidence that was.
This is all choreographed.
It's all organized.
It's all designed to just tear at the fabric of this country from the inside.
They can't assault us from the outside because of our natural geographic defensive barriers, so they are tearing us apart from the inside.
And we better get wise to it and shut it down because it's...
You know, chaos and upheaval have a tendency to be very effective if you don't just completely stomp on it in the initial stages, just like these campus protests.
The places that have reacted right away and taken care of it have prevented it from getting out of hand.
The other placators and appeasers that, well, let's let them have their say.
It's gotten completely out of control.
It's out of control, and what is fun for me to watch is the leaders of the Democratic Party tie themselves up in a pretzel trying to figure out how to deal with this situation.
Just yesterday, President Biden finally came out and said something after his press secretary, Corrine Jean-Pierre, couldn't get three words out from the dais in the White House briefing room.
I mean, You know, even reporters other than Peter Doocy were just, you know, they couldn't believe what she, you know, the response that she had, the official response from the White House that she had from the dais.
And so Joe Biden finally came out.
You've got Gavin Newsom finally coming out.
I mean, it took them this long, Kip.
For them to finally realize that as much as they hate Donald Trump, they're really making this election easy for us.
I mean, are you kidding me?
And who knows how much longer this is going to last.
Look, Kip, my youngest son came home yesterday, finished his exams for his freshman year, and he came home last night.
My oldest son has his last exam on Monday.
So a lot of these schools are about to have commencement ceremonies all across the country.
Can you imagine the Soros Group is funding for these commencement ceremonies?
It's going to be just a complete mess.
A lot of universities are even considering just, we're just going to mail your degree.
We're going to skip all the formalities because they know what's coming.
They know what's coming.
And the sad thing is a lot of these kids were the same one that didn't get to walk.
Can you imagine?
Oh, yeah.
Isn't that the truth?
I didn't think about that.
You're absolutely right.
And now you're not going to get to walk in your college graduation because of the Hamas terrorists on the Democratic Party.
Well, let me tell you from a personal standpoint, two of the proudest moments of my life, not so much for them to get a degree and all the pomp and circumstance.
My two sons both walked that stage and were handed a degree, and I was so proud of their perseverance and their achievement personally to do that, that that deprives the whole family of a moment that you'll relish and never, ever forget.
And that's just inexcusable.
It is.
And I have a feeling next Friday, I think on next Friday's finest, we'll probably be continuing this conversation because there will be commencement ceremonies next week and then the following week.
So we'll monitor that on the Doug Collins podcast.
Kip, let's pivot a little bit and talk about big horse race tomorrow at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, the Kentucky Derby, the Run for the Roses, the most exciting 90 seconds in sports.
I love it.
It's kind of the unofficial start.
I mean, horse racing is really a 12-month schedule, right?
They have rated stakes races all year round, but this is kind of the unofficial start.
And this is the race, you know, Chip.
It's the 150th Derby.
That alone, this started in 1875. Yeah, and the last five years, Kip, I mean, there's always storylines that accompany the Derby, but the last five years have really been just filled with them.
I mean, it wasn't but five years ago when I think it was Country House won the Derby.
22 minutes later, as everybody was waiting for the race to go final, was disqualified.
Yeah, it was actually maximum security won the race.
That's right, it was maximum security.
He got away from him on the rail turning for home and caused a little bit of a bumping incident that cost a couple horses their chances that weren't going to win the race anyway.
And Country House, who was 70-something to 1, was placed first because he had run second.
And so that was the first disqualification in the history of the Kentucky Derby.
And as you know, Chip, I'm the executive director of the Alabama Racing Commission.
If those judges had been in my employ, I mean, they are completely in control of that race and can make any decision they want.
But I can make any decision I want.
They would have had a pink slip on Monday morning if I had been in charge.
Absolutely.
There's an old rule, and yes, you have to adhere to the rules and be rigid, but we've got a whole generation of people in this business where in that particular instance, the old-timers will tell you that if it doesn't really alter or completely take away another horse's ability to win the race, then you just kind of let it go.
And it was, in my opinion, incidental contact with horses that were back behind the pack.
Anyway, he set off a chain reaction.
I thought it was a terrible decision, but that was a remarkable situation.
The first in 140-something years, the first disqualification ever.
Yeah, and then the following year was COVID, and the race got pushed until September, and a lot of folks know.
And no crowd at the Derby was just eerie.
So far.
And, you know, a lot of folks don't.
Horses can only race in the Kentucky Derby once.
That's it.
You have to be three-year-old thoroughbred.
That's right.
You can only run as a three-year-old thoroughbred.
And then the following year, Medina Spirit, Bob Baffert's horse was disqualified after.
Four or five days later.
Yeah, yeah, after the race.
Let me tell you a horror story real quick about that.
Case Kiefer, who you know, my son, the sports editor of the Las Vegas Sun, he does all of his sports investing by the numbers.
And he's not a big handicapping guy or even horse racing guy, but his numbers pointed him to a horse trained by Brad Cox named Mandeloon.
And when Medina Spirit was disqualified, five days later, Mandeloon was declared the winner.
That didn't do any good for Case's $35 to $100 bet on Mandaloon because the casino's position was, well, it went official.
We paid on Medina Spirit.
That's it.
So that's a bad beat for Case Kiefer for sure.
I did not know that that's how they did it.
I guess so, right?
If all the money pays out after the race goes official and it changes five days later, I guess it's tough to undo that.
I guess they can go, folks, do the right thing and bring your payoff from a Dino Spirit back in because you didn't really win.
But they don't go that route.
No, and in the next year, 22 was Red Strike, the 85-1 horse that won.
And then last year, if you recall, Kip, you know, this horse, this race, really the race week, everything leading up to the Derby, was marred in the death that they had, the horse death.
We haven't seen that this year.
They've been now running all week in Churchill.
They started running last Saturday, so they've been running for seven days.
And you haven't seen that.
But last year, I think there were three on-track deaths, and they had five scratches last year.
Yeah.
Todd Pletcher had the big favorite the morning of the race.
They examined him and said, we're concerned about this heel bruise.
Todd Pletcher has said, you know, I understand that they had to take the action.
The State Racing Commission was going to...
You cannot have a horse breakdown in the Kentucky Derby on a week where you've had a lot of other mishaps.
So they scratched the favorite the morning of the race, and it set the stage for...
Last year, Chip, for a long shot named Mage, who I actually liked.
The jockey, Javier Castellano, one of the great veterans, already a Hall of Famer.
26 times he tried to win the Derby and never got it done until last year.
So you talk about storylines.
Every year there seems to be one of those, and I've got some thoughts on that.
My picks this year are kind of based on storylines.
Well, Kip, give me your picks this year.
How do you handicap this Derby?
Well, there's two letters in the alphabet that dominate my thoughts here, and they are B and C, in that order and reverse order.
And they are initials of two of the trainers that are in the race, and I'm pretty certain, Chip, that one of these gentlemen will be in the winner's circle tomorrow, just after 7 o'clock Eastern Time.
Oh, I know one of them.
I know one of them, Brad Cox.
Brad Cox, absolutely.
The other, turn it around, Chad Brown.
Brad Cox has the horse that I'm picking in the race, the Four Chasing Freedom, who is being ridden by Flavian Pratt.
And I know you're familiar with Flavian Pratt, with your gentleman horse racing activities.
And Flavian Pratt, I know you've got to see him up close and personal ride in recent times.
He may have even ridden one of the horses you had a piece of for Red Feather or one of those.
I know Phil DeMa.
Otto, your guy has a horse in the race stronghold too.
He does.
But Flavian Pratt is just a wizard.
He's probably the most skilled rider, I think, in the entire world.
He's on board for Brad Cox.
Cox has gotten credit for a Derby win.
But has not won.
Mandaloon was just awarded first place when the drug test for Medina Spirit and Bob Baffert came back positive.
So Brad Cox has never had the experience of walking into the winner's circle and taking the picture with his rose draped winner and getting the trophy and all the accolades.
So in my mind, yes, he's on paper with a win, just like Bill Mott.
We talked about Country House before, but they have not actually won and experienced the race.
So that to me, Brad Cox has just been so dominant in just these last four or five years.
And the same for Chad Brown.
Chad Brown has won a lot of stakes races seven and eight times, but he's never really specialized in three-year-old dirt horses.
He's been kind of obsessed lately with trying to win the Derby.
Everybody will think I'm talking about his co-favorite, the two Sierra Leone, who's got a great chance to win.
This horse has more kick from behind than anything you've ever seen.
But I kind of like his other horse, number 15, 30 to one morning line domestic spending.
I was at the Tampa Bay Derby when he won that race.
He is a very impressive individual, and I think he's getting undersold.
And his rider, and a lot of people I know, I'd be scolded by some of the old school guys going, this is horse racing, not jockey racing.
Well, it sure helps to To have a good pilot on board, and it makes a huge difference.
He's being ridden domestic spending by Irad Ortiz, who has won the Eclipse Award for Jockey of the Year four out of the last five years.
But guess what's missing from Irad Ortiz's resume?
A Kentucky Derby.
So that's my two top picks.
The 4 and the 15, Chasing Freedom and Domestic Spending for Brad Cox and Chad Brown, respectively.
And their other horses, Brad Cox also sends out the 8 just to touch, who I think has a big chance as well.
So I'm pretty certain that at the end of the day, a guy named Brown or Cox will be in the winner's circle.
Interesting, Kip.
Fierceness, the 17 horse.
A horse has never won.
Fierceness is likely going to be the morning line favorite.
It looks like in the future betting, you know, everybody's putting money on this horse.
But, you know, Fierceness drew the 17 horse.
Which...
That's the only gate in the history of the Derby that has never produced a winning horse.
And so I've certainly got fierceness in all of my boxes, but there's two horses that I've got my eyes on this week, Kip, and that is the 14 horse endlessly.
Oh, yeah.
That's the party horse with Umberto Rispoli.
And look, I don't think this horse is going to win, but I think this horse is a good bet to hit the board, especially because the odds are...
I thought the morning line odds on this horse were going to be 15 to 18 to 1. It's 30 to 1 on this horse.
This is a horse with pedigree that certainly points more towards the turf than it does the dirt.
And that's very important.
But this horse won the Jeff Ruby Stakes, a race that I paid very close attention to because the third place horse in that race was Seize the Gray, a horse that I've got a small, small piece of.
And ended up finishing 25th on the Kentucky Derby points.
And so, seize the grade and make it into the big race.
Oh, so close.
We'll be going out in one of the undercard races in the Pat Day Mile tomorrow.
And you've done well on those undercard races the last couple of years.
Really well on them.
On the undercard races.
And look, Endlessly has won at Churchill Downs before, and I think that's important.
Look, I had a horse called Balmakoff, who is a turf horse and trains at Santa Anita.
Balmakoff has won all over the country.
Has won at Del Mar.
Has won at Golden Gate Fields.
Has won at Saratoga.
Has won at Churchill.
Has won at Gulfstream.
Has run seven races at Santa Anita and never run a race at Santa Anita.
That's incredible.
So, Balnikoff loves to train at Santa Anita, but Balnikoff doesn't race for a while at Santa Anita.
And so, I always think it's important to, you know, pick horses, to look at horses at least, that have, you know, that have kind of history at a track.
Of course, I say that the second horse I'm about to name has no history at the track, but there's only one horse in this race, Kip, that's undefeated.
Only one horse that's undefeated, and that's the 11 horse, Forever Young.
And look, these horses from Japan, Dermasodagake was in the race last year and I think came in Fourth, fifth, or sixth in a 20-person race and went on to do really good things his three-year-old year and then early in his four-year-old race.
But this horse forever young from Japan has everything you need.
And so, look...
It's easy to say that it's easy just to ride off this horse because the horse did ship in, and that's always tough on these horses.
But if there was ever...
This horse, I think, has all the intangibles, has all the ingredients.
I think it's a better horse than Derma Sotagake.
And so, look, if there was ever going to be a horse from Japan that had a chance to win the Derby, I think this is the best chance with the 11 horse forever.
Yeah, and back to your very...
It's a poignant observation that this is a storyline race.
You know, Chip, this race, I laugh, I watch these podcasts of these experts poring over buyer speed figures and talking about all of the statistical things that are entailed in their selection, but this race, In my opinion, Chip, you've got to throw all that out the window.
This is something these horses have never even come close to seeing.
20 horse fields, 150,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs.
The ultimate environment.
It's a race, to me...
That you just throw out all of the usual machinations of how you come up with winners in a typical race, looking at statistics and different things.
To me, this has become a storyline race.
I look just like last year.
I liked Mage largely because Javier Castellano had to win a derby one of those days.
A Japanese horse is going to break through one of these years.
Brad Cox, and I like Chasing Freedom from that standpoint that I think he's maybe one of the most talented trainers in the sport.
But Chasing Freedom, I have some basis for that conclusion.
He won the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn, which is a huge prep race before the Arkansas Derby.
But he didn't stick around for the Arkansas Derby.
He shipped down to fairgrounds and won the Louisiana Derby.
That's two big wins on two very prestigious circuits on two different completely surfaces.
I just like what this horse is made of.
And I think it's a great storyline with Flavian Pratt, who also, you mentioned Country House.
Guess who was the pilot on Country House who's credited with a Derby but never won one?
Yes, Flavian Pratt.
So you've got a lot of people in that situation that have officially won a derby but didn't really win it.
And I think that one of those storylines, again, with Brad Cox or Chad Brown, is going to result in a winner on Saturday.
Yeah, I always look at this race and realize, Kip, that in the year 2021, and it was similar to most years, you're going to have anywhere between 18,000 and 20,000 thoroughbreds being born that year that are bred for racing.
And I think the statistics that I saw this week were, it was around 19,000.
9,000 of those horses have run a race already, because there's a lot of three-year-olds who haven't started their career yet.
A lot of three-year-olds.
Yeah.
Probably got three or 4,000 three-year-olds who are going to start their career after the Derby.
And that's not all that unusual, especially for horses that aren't bred, you know, to run early.
And so, you know, I think there are 19 horses in this race that can win if everything goes right.
The one that I don't think can win is Society Man.
Society Man didn't break his maiden until March.
And then as a 105-1 were the odds on Society Man in the Wood Memorial.
Society Man ended up coming in second in the Wood Memorial.
Maybe I'm just bitter because that was enough derby points to bump Cease the Gray, my only horse that I've got a piece on.
And Seize the Gray wasn't also eligible in this race until the Derby post-party, which I think normally happens on Monday this year.
They moved it up to the Saturday before the Derby.
And the trainer, D. Wayne Lucas, I think rightfully so, pulled the horse back and said, we're going to run the Pat Day Mile, which probably is a better fit.
But it was a lot of fun, the three months leading up to the Derby, to kind of chase around to have a piece of stuff.
And to have a piece of the horse that might make the Derby, but Society Man ended up being the one to bump us because with Encino's scratch earlier in the week, and I say that, Seize the Gray would be number one on the list.
So, still possible the horse wouldn't get out.
One of the things I want to talk about, Kip, and I just love this because with those numbers, you know, I mean, this is...
Horse racing is a money sport, right?
Absolutely.
And I say money sport.
At the top of the money level, you have millionaires and billionaires having a lot of fun at the high end of the market to take a risk on a horse that is likely a year old or less than a year old as a yearling.
And trying to determine, based upon a horse's pedigree, what they look like at one years old, who wins.
And so, you know, there's a yearling sale every September in Keeneland, up in Lexington.
And it's the largest horse auction in the world.
And I think it's a 12 to 13 day auction and they have 4,000 horses kept that come through the gates of Keeneland in that time.
And look, Pocket Aces Racing LLC is a syndicate that I'm a part of too.
And we're low end of the market.
We're a low end of the market syndicate.
We try to find horses somewhere in the price point of $10,000 to $45,000.
And those are horses that generally get sold later in the auction on days 11, 12, 13, and 14. And so there are seven horses in this 20-horse field that were purchased in the Keeneland Yearling Sale Auction.
And the sales price from those horses go all the way from, I think, the highest horse that was sold at that auction that's running is $750,000 just steel.
And then, do you know, Kip, who the lowest is?
Who the lowest sold horse who is running in the field.
And I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of money on here as a sentimental favorite.
But there's one horse that was sold in the Kentucky Yearling Sale for $11,000.
Oh, that's incredible.
Talk about a storyline.
There you go.
That's another one.
You know, the horse that's not the blue blood that shocks the world.
It happens on a fairly regular basis at the Derby.
It does.
That's West Saratoga.
West Saratoga was purchased for $11,000.
And he is certainly not a throwout.
West Saratoga can have a lot to say about this race.
That's exactly right.
And the irony is, too, West Saratoga, I talked about Society Man kind of being on my down list because of Seize the Gray.
But West Saratoga beats Seize the Gray for second in the Jeff Ruby State.
Okay, I remember that.
And, but look, it's a great story.
And from being from somebody that looks at the low end of the market, you try to find the diamond in the rough.
And a horse, 19,000 horses were born in the year 2021 that were eligible.
And bred us thoroughbred racing horses.
Kip, only 20 of them can make the derby.
Yeah, and also, a lot of those are disqualified, Chip, because the way it works in horse racing, if you're born in January of 2021 or whatever year these horses were born, now they're three years old, or I guess these are 2022s, actually.
When the calendar turns, you're three years old whether you're born in January or December.
So you've got horses, you know, theoretically that are a year difference in age almost, 11 months different, that are considered the same age.
And horses late in the year born are very unlikely to be physically developed enough to even have a crack at this.
So it's pretty much horses born in the first quadrant of a new year that make it to the track at the Derby on the first Saturday in May.
That's right.
A lot of people don't realize that.
Whether you're born in November or whether you're born in February, when December 31st comes...
It's all the same.
We're all three years old.
That's why breeding season and horse racing generally takes place over 60 to 70 days.
Sure.
Your 70-day time.
And I think it's just past this.
Like breeding season was just kind of in the rearview mirror.
The most expensive horse in the Derby that was sold at auction as a yearling.
Keep in mind, this horse, actually this horse was sold as a weenling in the Saratoga sale in 2021. So this horse has not even turned one yet.
Baby horse.
Went for $2.3 million.
Wow.
However, it looks like it's paid off because that's the number two horse Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone.
If you watch the bluegrass stakes at Keeneland, his last start a couple of weeks ago, Chip, I've seen horses in Central Park pulling a carriage running faster than he was up the backstretch.
You talk about loping along and just having a care in the world.
He was so far last, it was like, I wonder if he's broke down?
What's wrong with him?
I mean, he always comes from behind, but he was really indifferent that day.
And then in just a blink of an eye, he reached the pack and just sucked them up and ran right by them like they were standing still.
It was a move that reminded me of some of the great come-from-behind horses in the past.
This guy is formidable, and that's not usually a good strategy in the Derby.
It's usually a horse that's somewhat just off the pace because trying to overcome the traffic of 19 other horses if you're loping along behind is tough, but Sierra Leone showed that kind of kick, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he's able to pull that off again.
Again, that fits my narrative that Chad Brown or Brad Cox will be the guy getting the trophy.
That's exactly right.
So when we looked at last year's race, you know, Mike Rapoli's never won a Kentucky Derby.
It was his horse that scratched the morning of the Derby.
And it was his horse that scratched the morning of the Derby.
And I remember just watching on Saturday morning Rapoli's interview.
And I like Mike Rapoli.
He's a...
People in the horse racing industry have strong opinions about Mike.
Some of them love him, some of them made him.
I like him.
I think he's good for the sport.
I think he knows the sport's in a precarious situation right now, and he's doing everything he can to try to do better.
And I remember, you know, the despair on his face when the veterinarian scratched his horse was, you know, he said, look, it's just so hard.
It's so hard.
I'm trying to get this for myself.
I'm trying to get it for my mom, who's in the 90s.
Who would have thought that Mike Rapoli, just one year later, would be back with the Kentucky Derby favorite in fierceness?
This horse, I can't figure this horse out, Kip.
Let's talk about fierceness for a minute.
Todd Pletcher trained, Mike Rapoli owned.
Fierceness has run five races, and has won three of them going away.
Oh, There were two races there, the Holy Bowl and then the Champagne back late in the fall in 2023 where the horse just didn't kick.
This is just one of these horses where if this horse decides he wants to run today, he probably wins the Derby tomorrow.
But there's been two races out of five where this horse has said, yeah, I'm not bringing it.
The Holy Bull, I mean, giving the benefit of the doubt from this standpoint, it was his first race off a several-month layoff, but he just didn't clock in that day, Chip.
And I think this horse has, to use a human term a little...
A few screws loose.
I think this horse is as fast as he wants to be.
But I also, my conclusion is, because I think tactically they were just trying to kind of ease him into the race in the Holy Bull, and he wasn't having it.
I mean, he either turned me loose, let me run, or I'm just not going to do anything.
I mean, he was looking around the whole time.
He was like baffled that he wasn't in front.
Johnny Velasquez, another Hall of Famer that's aboard fierceness again on Saturday in the Florida Derby, they obviously learned their lesson and they were able to gun him to the front in a race that didn't have much speed.
And there's certain horses, Chip, that get emboldened when they're in front.
Horse racing is a packed sport.
If you watch horses running wild in the field, there's always one alpha male that kind of dominates the pack and is out front.
And I think fierceness has those kind of attributes that he wants to be the leader and he wants to control.
He doesn't want the guy on his back telling him when he can run and when he can't.
He wants to be turned loose.
And in the derby, that's a long run to the turn.
If he gets off to any kind of a bobbling start or has problems negotiating the traffic from the outside, I just don't think this horse wants to run from behind.
I think he wants to run on the front, and I'm not convinced he's going to get the lead, which is why I'm trying to beat him.
Yeah, I'm really curious to see how this comes out with fierceness, how he fires and how he gets out of the gate.
And like you said, Kip, generally in horse racing, when a horse makes his first turn and he's got a lead, he's a sitting duck, right?
Yeah.
I mean, it's like the NASCAR driver that's in first at a super speedway race with a restrictor plate.
You know, when you're coming around turn two, there's no way you can hold the lead because you've got to block three lanes of track.
It's tough to do.
It's a long race with a lot, you know, a lot of horses in it.
And two, Kip, I don't know if you saw this morning, but there's been a lot of rain.
Yeah, pouring all night.
Yeah.
And the forecast is kind of iffy for tomorrow, right?
I mean, they're running the Oaks today, so there's a lot on the card today, but tomorrow they're forecasting, you know, 50-60% chance of rain at post time, so certainly if there's a sloppy track, that's going to affect what happens in the race as well.
No question about it.
And I'm hoping that the rain gets through there and we can have a good weekend with the Oaks and the Derby.
In the Oaks this afternoon, on Friday here, just FYI, the 13 horse for Bill Mott is my pick, another Hall of Fame trainer.
Bill Mott doesn't usually do real well with young horses, but if you really look deeper, he does very well with young fillies, not as well Colts are slower to develop, and I like her in the Kentucky Oaks.
Hopefully, we'll have some nice track conditions, but the Derby is just such a fantastic event.
You don't want it marred by the elements or anything else.
You want the conditions to be as good as they can be, so let's keep our fingers crossed, and hopefully when that gate opens tomorrow night, just short of 7 o'clock Eastern, we're going to have good conditions, and the best horse will win.
That's right.
Well, Kip, look, our time has flown by, and I know you and I are going to get another chance to talk about Derby tomorrow morning on WJOX in Birmingham.
You're going to host, as you normally do, a Kentucky Derby preview.
And so I look forward to coming on there and talking about that.
But we do thank you once again for stepping in and helping us handicap the Kentucky Derby.
And I will hope you'll come back and join us in the future.
I love working with you and James on Doug Collins' podcast.
I had my partner Terry Quillian on a couple of weeks ago.
We were graciously invited to fill in.
We are delighted at any opportunity to be here on Salem broadcasting with you guys, and this has been a blast.
Thanks for having me.
Well, we appreciate it, and thanks everybody for listening.
Doug will be back, and hopefully I will be back next week on the 10th, where we'll talk a little bit about some of these commencement ceremonies.
Thanks everybody for listening, and I hope you enjoy the Kentucky Derby.
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